Rechabites

The descendants of Rechab through Jonadab or Jehonadab. They belonged to the Kenites, who accompanied the children of Israel into Palestine, and dwelt among them. Moses married a Kenite wife (Judg. 1:16), and Jael was the wife of "Heber the Kenite" (4:17). Saul also showed kindness to the Kenites (1 Sam. 15:6). The main body of the Kenites dwelt in cities, and adopted settled habits of life (30:29); but Jehonadab forbade his descendants to drink wine or to live in cities. They were commanded to lead always a nomad life. They adhered to the law laid down by Jonadab, and were noted for their fidelity to the old-established custom of their family in the days of Jeremiah (35); and this feature of their character is referred to by the prophet for the purpose of giving point to his own exhortation. They are referred to in Neh. 3:14 and 1 Chr. 2:55. Dr. Wolff (1839) found in Arabia, near Mecca, a tribe claiming to be descendants of Jehonadab; and recently a Bedouin tribe has been found near the Dead Sea who also profess to be descendants of the same Kenite chief.

The Rechabites, though they dwelt among the Israelites, did not belong to any of their tribes; for they were Kenites, as appears from 1 Chron. ii, 55, where the Kenites are said to have come of “Hemath, the father of the house of Rechab.” These Kenites, afterward styled Rechabites, were of the family of Jethro, otherwise called Hobab, whose daughter Moses married; for “the children of the Kenite, Moses’s father-in-law,” it is said, “went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah, and dwelt among the people,” Judges i, 16; and we read of “Heber the Kenite, who was of the children of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, who had severed himself from the Kenites,” or from the bulk of them who settled in the tribe of Judah, “and pitched his tent in the plain of Zaanaim,” Judges iv, 11. They appear to have sprung from Midian, the son of Abraham by Keturah, Gen. xxv, 2; for Jethro, from whom they are descended, is called a Midianite, Num. x, 23. Of this family was Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, a man of eminent zeal for the pure worship of God against idolatry, who assisted King Jehu in destroying the house of Ahab, and the worshippers of Baal, 2 Kings x, 15, 16, 23, &c. It was he who gave that rule of life to his children and posterity which we read of in Jer. xxxv, 6, 7. It consisted of these three articles: that they should drink no wine; that they should neither possess nor occupy any houses, fields, or vineyards; that they should dwell in tents. This was the institution of the children of Rechab; and this they continued to observe for upward of three hundred years, from the time of Jehu to that of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, when Nebuchadnezzar coming to besiege Jerusalem, the Rechabites were obliged to leave the country and take refuge in the city. In Jer. xxxv, there is a promise made to this people, that Jonadab, the son of Rechab, should not want a man to stand before the Lord; that is, that his posterity should not fail: and to this day this tribe is found among the Arabians of the desert, distinct, free, and practising exactly the institutions of Jonadab, whose name they bear, and of whose institutions they boast. This is a remarkable instance of the exact fulfilment of a minute and isolated prophecy. See BENI KHAIBIR.