Rahab's Merit Rescues Every Branch of Her Family

"And the young men, the spies, went in and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brothers, and all that she had; and they brought out all her families" (Joshua 6:23). What does Scripture teach by saying "and all her families"? Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai taught: that even if there were two hundred people in her family, and they had gone and attached themselves to two hundred other families, all of them were saved by her merit. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: I said, "But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, then those whom you allow to remain shall be as thorns in your eyes and as pricks in your sides" (Numbers 33:55), "for you shall utterly destroy them" (Deuteronomy 7:2). Yet they did not do so; rather, "and Rahab the harlot, and her father's household, and all that she had, Joshua kept alive" (Joshua 6:25). Behold, Jeremiah was of the descendants of Rahab, and he did to Israel things that were as thorns in their eyes, as it is said, "The words of Jeremiah" (Jeremiah 1:1).