Joshua 2:16

‘ And she said to them, “You get to the mountain, lest the pursuers fall in with you, and hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers have returned, and afterwards you may go your way.” '

The pluperfect might be intended to be used, ‘she had said to them', in order to demonstrate that this is going back to what they had discussed before being let down by the rope, with the facts being stated so that the hearers gathered the gist of the story, then the details being filled in later. This view gains support from the repetition in verse 20 of ‘telling about this our business' in Joshua 2:14, which may be intended to indicate where the more detailed account ties in with the earlier summary account. There is no pluperfect in Hebrew because they were not so consumed with the idea of being chronological. They were more interested in what happened than when it happened. Time did not control them (they had no word for the philosophical idea of time).

Alternatively she may have spoken to them through the window once they were safely on the ground. The walls would not be very high and the window, small for security reasons, even lower, especially in a small house. It would not necessarily be more than three metres (ten feet) from the ground. Neighbours were probably used to hearing whispers from her window and would ignore it.

Her advice was sound. The mountain crag was to the west, the fords to the east. Thus they would not accidentally meet up with the search party. No one would expect them to go west. And there were plenty of caves to hide in.

“Hide yourselves three days.” That is, do not return until at least the day after tomorrow, giving a day's breathing space for the search party to get back. Then they could safely go on their way. ‘Three days' generally meant ‘a few days' and when exactly calculated regularly meant a part of a day, a full day and then a part of a day. That was the way in which they thought.