The Curious Case of the Rechabites

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

Jeremiah 35 contains a story of an intriguing group of people, who held to some peculiar oaths:

1) They did not drink wine.
2) They did not farm.
3) They did not build permanent houses.

These men were dedicated to the nomadic lifestyle.

Jeremiah 35:

The word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying,
'Go unto the house of the Rechabites, and speak unto them, and bring them into the house of the LORD, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.'

Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habaziniah, and his brethren, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites; And I brought them into the house of the LORD, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, a man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door: And I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites pots full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them, 'Drink ye wine.'

But they said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons for ever.  Neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any: but all your days ye shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days in the land where ye be strangers.  Thus have we obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our father in all that he hath charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, nor our daughters; Nor to build houses for us to dwell in: neither have we vineyard, nor field, nor seed: But we have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed, and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us.

This does not mean that they weren't educated.  1st Chronicles tells us that they were actually Scribes:

And the families of the scribes which dwelt at Jabez; the Tirathites, the Shimeathites, and Suchathites. These are the Kenites that came of Hemath, the father of the house of Rechab.  1Chronicles 2:55

This also tells us that they were Kenites.  Who are the Kenites?  Well... Cain is the eponymous ancestor of the Kenites.  Yes, that Cain... the world's first murderer, the eldest son of Adam.

These Hebrew words are basically the same: Cain is Qayn and Kenite is Qayni.  Just like an Israeli descends from Israel, a Qayni descends from Qayn.  But just in case grammar isn't compelling enough, this is explicit in Numbers 24, where Balaam prophecies against them:

Then [Balaam] looked on the Kenites, and he took up his oracle and said:
"Firm is your dwelling place,
And your nest is set in the rock;
Nevertheless Kain shall be burned.
How long until Asshur carries you away captive?"

This is where it (hopefully) gets interesting.  Do you remember how the LORD punished Cain for murdering Abel?

God banished Cain from farming and cursed Him to be a wanderer.

Genesis 4:

And the LORD said unto Cain, 'Where is Abel thy brother? '

And he replied, 'I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?'

And [God] said, 'What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground!  And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

And Cain said unto the LORD, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear.  Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.'

And the LORD said unto him, 'Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.'  And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

The Rechabites oaths are precisely those curses of Genesis 4.

And here's the kicker... the LORD rewarded them for remaining true, and living out the punishment handed down on their ancestors:

Jeremiah 35:

And Jeremiah said to the house of the Rechabites, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: 'Because you have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts and done according to all that he commanded you,  'therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not lack a man to stand before Me forever." ' "

Jarrod

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

A little more on Kenites and the curse of Cain.

1Samuel 15:5-6 records a battle in which the Israelites under Saul, attacked the Amalekites.  But before the battle, Saul sends word to the Kenites who are living among them to evacuate:

And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley.  And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.

Saul gives his reason - the Kenites were friendly to Israel during the Exodus.  But Saul was not known for his kindness, or for keeping treaties.  It is recorded in the Bibble that he broke Israel's treaty with the Gibeonites and slaughtered them without mercy.  I think Saul may have had another reason - the curse on Cain:

And the LORD said unto [Cain], 'Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.'  And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

Saul might not have been a good guy, or a righteous king, but he did know enough to be afraid of generational curses.

Jarrod

[Alan]

Loved this bit Jarrod, thanks for sharing.

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

Thanks, Alan.  It's encouraging to see that someone is looking at this.

A little more?

When Moses fled Egypt, the Bible tells us that he went to Midian, where he married a daughter of Jethro, the Priest of Midian.  Later, it tells us that Moses in-laws were the children of Hobab, the Kenite.

So, which is it?  Jethro or Hobab?  Midianites or Kenites?

It turns out, it's probably Jethro AND Hobab.  Jethro appears to be a title - "his excellency" - a fitting title for the priest of Midian.  Is Hobab the same person?  Maybe, maybe not.  Hebrew doesn't have a separate word for grandparents, or great-grandparents.  All your male ancestors are father.  Jethro might be Moses grandfather-in-law, or father-in-law.  There's no way to be sure.

But it can't be Midianites and Kenites.  These are separate tribes.  Is it possible that the Priest of Midian, was a Kenite? 

It turns out, it's not only possible, but this fits very well with what we know of the Kenites.

Earlier, we saw that the Kenites were living AMONG the Amalekites.  And elsewhere in the Bible, we see that the Kenites traveled WITH the Israelites for an extended period time, sharing their entire period of wandering in the wilderness, and eventually helping them invade the Promised Land.  We have seen that the Kenites did not farm or build houses, and were "wanderers in the earth" who did not possess lands.  We also saw elsewhere in the Bible that their clans in Israel were reckoned among the scribes.  Would it be surprising to find a Kenite living among a foreign people, acting in the capacity of priest?  No, this is very much what we should expect.

But let me take this a step further - this all should sound familiar to student of the Bible.  We have a tribe, without lands, that lives among other tribes, acting as priests and scribes?  This is precisely the story of the Levites.

I have a hypothesis here... The Kenites are to the Edomites what the Levites are to the Israelites.  They are both itinerant tribes of priests, scribes, musicians and metalworkers who live among the other tribes, serving as a separate and emerging class of society that earns its bread and meat through trade with the others, rather than through agriculture.

Moreover, it takes but a very small leap of logic to surmise that the Levites may have taken their traditions and rules from the Kenites.  The original Israelite priest - Moses - is said to have married into a Kenite family and lived as one of them for forty years in the backside of the desert.  Scripture explicitly tells us that Israel's system of judges was the suggestion of Jethro, Moses' father-in-law.

And as for the history of Moses and the Exodus of the Israelites... who recorded all of that?  The scribes, of course - and the scribes appear to have been the Kenites, and the Levites who intermarried with them.

Jarrod

[3 Resurrections]

I also can appreciate the historical comparisons going on in this post - lots of good info - but I have a question, Jarrod.  How can you call the curse on Cain a "generational" curse that applied to all Cain's descendants when God was only specifically addressing the sin which Cain himself had committed?  God said absolutely nothing to Cain about not drinking wine - only that Cain's favorite pastime of tilling the ground would no longer yield any substance for him, and that he would be a fugitive and a wandering vagabond. 

I have to confess to a certain reluctance in reading about the family of Jonadab and the Rechabites.  That is because the cult "pastor" I used to sit under for a spiritually-abusive 16 years used to emphasize this passage as proof that his own children should be slavishly devoted to him and his own desires and doctrines throughout all their adult life as well as that of their children and grandchildren, etc.   This was something on the order of a David Koresh loyalty demanded of his family, their children, their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, ad nauseum.   It really was disgusting, and some suspected rather incestuous as well.   

While I can recognize the benefits of faithfulness in a family's loving devotion to one another, I also know that God designed for each adult child to launch out on their own apart from their parents, who do not have the right to dictate to their adult children a particular choice of housing and jobs that they themselves prefer. 

I think the main take-away lesson intended from the Rechabites' story is their faithfulness to keeping their promises, once they gave it.  Just as Israel was supposed to keep the covenant they had made with God, but had not done so.  We are told that "it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful".  The Rechabites were at liberty OR NOT to accept the lifestyle their father Jonadab wanted them to keep.  But once that promise to live that way was made, the virtue was in keeping their word faithfully.  It would have been just as laudable if they had respectfully declined their father's wishes, and promised that they would faithfully apply themselves to consistently make a living in another manner.   

And by the way, my favorite "Kenite" was Jael, the woman in the tent who hammered a tent stake through the temples of Sisera and nailed him to the ground.  Gutsy lady. 

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

How can you call the curse on Cain a "generational" curse that applied to all Cain's descendants when God was only specifically addressing the sin which Cain himself had committed?

When Adam sinned, the consequences fell on all his descendants.  "By one man sin came into the world..." and that was Genesis 3.

Is Cain greater than his father?  Should Genesis 4 work differently than Genesis 3?  Both Adam and Cain are eponymous ancestors of Biblical peoples.  It stands to reason these things should work the same.

God said absolutely nothing to Cain about not drinking wine - only that Cain's favorite pastime of tilling the ground would no longer yield any substance for him, and that he would be a fugitive and a wandering vagabond.

Your argument here boils down to "it is not written, therefore it did not happen."  It isn't obvious that follows logically.  Many things happened that were not recorded (John 21:25).  The fact that we have other descendants of Cain following such an oath suggests that this probably did happen, or something similar.

I have to confess to a certain reluctance in reading about the family of Jonadab and the Rechabites.  That is because the cult "pastor" I used to sit under for a spiritually-abusive 16 years used to emphasize this passage as proof that his own children should be slavishly devoted to him and his own desires and doctrines throughout all their adult life as well as that of their children and grandchildren, etc.   This was something on the order of a David Koresh loyalty demanded of his family, their children, their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, ad nauseum.   It really was disgusting, and some suspected rather incestuous as well.

That is unfortunate.  But that hasn't been a theological point that I've made here.  This has been mostly a historical study of the Kenites and Rechabites (and perhaps the Levites).

If there is any theological hypothesis that I'm making here, it is only that the Kenites were the antecedents of the Levites.  Their clans, who we know to be Scribes, joined Israel in the Wilderness, and were most likely the record-keepers of the Exodus.  Much of what we think of as Israelite history is actually Kenite history... not least of all the story of Cain & Abel.

My favorite "Kenite" was Jael, the woman in the tent who hammered a tent stake through the temples of Sisera and nailed him to the ground.  Gutsy lady.

Several different Kenites are featured in the first several chapters of Judges, including Jael.  The Kenites figure prominently in the period of the Judges.  David was even anointed king of Judah at the Kenite city of Hebron (2Samuel 2).

I will address the rest of your post in a separate topic; it doesn't really pertain to this topic.

Jarrod