<P> Rahab, (/ ˈreɪhæb /; Hebrew: רָחָב ‬, Modern Raẖav, Tiberian Rāḥāḇ, "broad," "large ." Arabic: رحاب, a vast space of a land) was, according to the Book of Joshua, a woman who lived in Jericho in the Promised Land and assisted the Israelites in capturing the city by betraying her people . In the New Testament book of Hebrews, she is lauded as an example of a saint who lived by faith yet was accounted righteous for her works . </P> <P> Although the King James Version renders the name as Rachab in Matthew 1: 5, most modern versions render it as Rahab instead . Reference texts, such as Strong's Concordance and Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible, accordingly treat Rachab and Rahab as being variants of the same name . However, some interpreters argue that the Rachab reckoned among the ancestors of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew is not in fact the same person as the Rahab of the Joshua account . </P> <P> The Hebrew אשה זונה, used to describe Rahab in Joshua 2: 1, literally means "a prostitute woman" Rahab's name is presumably the shortened form of a sentence name rāḥāb - N, "the god N has opened / widened (the womb?)". The Hebrew zōnâ may refer to secular or cultic prostitution, and the latter is widely believed to have been an invariable element of Canaanite religious practice, although recent scholarship has disputed this . However, there was a separate word, qědēšâ, that could be used to designate prostitutes of the cultic variety . </P> <P> Josephus mentions that Rahab kept an inn but is silent as to whether merely renting out rooms was her only source of income . It was not uncommon for both an inn and a brothel to operate within the same building; thus entering Rahab's quarters was not necessarily a deviation from Joshua's orders . Indeed, as Robert Boling notes, such an establishment might have represented an ideal location for spies to gather intelligence . A number of scholars have noted that the narrator in Joshua 2 may have intended to remind the readers of the "immemorial symbiosis between military service and bawdy house". </P>

Where all is rahab mentioned in the bible