Her house was situated on the wall, probably near the city gate, so as to be convenient for persons coming in and going out of Jericho. She seems not only to have kept an inn for wayfaring men, but also to have been engaged in the manufacture of linen and the art of dyeing, for which the Phœnicians were early famous, since we find the flat roof of her house covered with stalks of flax, put there to dry, and a stock of scarlet or crimson line in her house, a circumstance which, coupled with the mention of Babylonish garments as among the spoils of Jericho, indicates the existence of a trade in such articles between Phœnicia and Mesopotamia. It also appears she had a father and mother, brothers and sisters, who, if they were not living in the same house with her, were dwelling in Jericho. Traders coming from Mesopotamia, or Egypt to Phœnicia, would frequently pass through Jericho, situated as it was near the fords of the Jordan, and, according to the customs of the times, these travelers would seek a public inn. These men, coming and going, would naturally enough carry the news of current events with them. Rahab therefore had opportunity to be well informed with regard to the events of the Exodus. As we learn from her own story, she had heard of the passage through the Red Sea, of the utter destruction of Sihon and Og, and of the irresistible progress of the Israelitish host. The effect upon her mind had been what one would not have expected in a person of her way of life. It led her to a firm faith in Jehovah as the true God, and to the conviction that He purposed to give Canaan to the Israelites. She may have thought long and deeply on these strange events, and, possibly, her better nature may have loathed the vices of her people, in which she herself had become involved, and longed for the pure worship of the wonder-working God of whom she had heard. When, therefore, the two spies sent out by Joshua, who must have been men of moral character and worthy of so important a commission, came to Jericho, no doubt they were divinely directed to her house, who alone, of the whole population, was friendly to their cause. Her heart, at all events, was prepared to receive the message with which they intrusted her, and she gave them the information they sought. And such faith had she in the purposes of God to give the land to the hosts of Joshua that she made a covenant with these representatives of his army, to save her and her family when the city fell into their hands.