The Recli.ibites appear in the UT on three occasions. Pirst, in the person of Jehonadab ben-Rechab (i.e. 'the Rechabite'), in 2K 10""-. Jehonadab showed his zeal for the exclusive wor- ship of Jehovah by associating himself with Jehu in liis fierce persecution of the devotees of Baal. Josephus reproduces the biblical narrative in Ant, IX. vi. 6, and mentions Jehonadab, but does not sa3' that he was a Rechabite. The second incident is narrated in Jer 35. Some time after the reign of Jehu, probably about the period of the Fall of Samaria, the Rechabites had migr.-itcd to Judah. NVhen Nebuchadrezz.ar invaded Judali in the reign of Jehoiakim, the Rechabites took refuge in Jeru- salem, probably encainjjing in some open space within the walls. Jeremiah utilized their presence to provide an object-lesson for his fellow-country- men. Amongst other prohibitions, their clan-laws forbade them to drink wine. The prophet invited the clan under their chief, Jaazaniah ben-Jeremiah ben-Habazziniah,toMieelhim in a chamber attached to the temple, and ollcred them wine. They refused on the ground that their 'fatlier' Jonadab ben- Rechab had forbidden them to drink wine, build houses, sow seed, or plant vineyards, and had com- manded them to live in tents. They stated that they had always obeyed the.se conimands, and had entered Jerusalem only through siieer necessity. Josephus does not reproduce this incident, nor does he anj'where mention the Rechabites.
The Rechabites therefore regarded Jonadab much as the Israelites regarded Mose.s. They traced to him their clan-law. It is not likely, however, that ho originated the customs which he made permanently binding. In his time the Rechabites, of whom he w;ib doubtless chief, were a nomad clan pasturing their Hocks in the less occupied districts of the Northern Kingdom ; they anil their chief werezealous worshippers of Jehovah. In the natural course of events iluy would have followed the example of the Israelites, once theil
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fellow-nomads, and settled down as farmers and townsmen. I'rohably the process was beginning in tlie time of Jonadab; but that chief nipped it in the bud, and induced his followers to make their ancient nomadic habits matters of religious obli- gation. He had no leanings to asceticism, and his ordinances were not intended to make his followers ascetics. He forbade wine, but the term ' wine ' is to be understood strictly ; there is no prohibition of any other intoxicant. His motives would be two- fold. First, the nomad regards agriculture and city life as meaner, less manly, less spiritual than his own. Jonadab wished to keep his clan to the higher life. Moreover, when the Israelites surren- dered nomad life to settle on the land and in towns, they corrupted their worship of Jehovah by com- bining it with the superstitious and immoral rites of the Canaanite baals, to whom, as they thought, they owed their corn and wine and oil, Hos 2". Recently, nnder Ahab and Jezebel, the worship of Baal had greatly developed. The cultivation of corn and of the \'ine seemed to lead directly to baal-worship ; and it would seem to Jonadab that by cutting ort' his people from any connexion with agriculture he would preserve the purity and sim- plicity of their ancient worship of Jehovah.
Probably the Rechabites were still in Jerusalem when tlie city was taken by Nebuchadrezzar, and some of them shared the Captivity and the Return of the Israelites. Under stress of circumstances, they would be obliged to linally surrender their ancestral customs, so that in Neh 3'^ we tind Malchijah the Rechabite engaged under Nehemiah in rebuildin'' the walls of Jerusalem. Malchijah is styled 'ruler of the district of Beth-liaccherem,' i.e. of the ' House of the Vinej-ard.' The very obscure verse 1 Ch 2" describes ' The families of scribes that dwelt at Jabez' — a town in Judah — ' the Tirathites, the Shimeathites, the Succathites,' as ' Kenites that came of Hammath, the father of the house of Recliab.' This points to the settle- ment of some Recliabites in late post-exilic times at Jabez as 'scribes.' The Vulgate regards the words rendered ' Tirathites,' etc., as titles of three classes of scribes, ' canentes atqueresonantes, et in tabemaculiscominoianles ' = ' singers, makers of an echo or of a ringing sound [? chorus], and dwellers in tents,' but the words are proper names (so LXX), and denote three clans of the men of Jabez.
The promise of Jer 3d""- that because the Rechabites had kept the laws of Jonadab, ' Jonadab ben-Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever,' might lead some later Recliabites to revert to their ancient clan customs. It would also lead those wlio lived like other Jews to keep up the memory of their descent from the ancient Rechabites. .Jeremiah does not expressly state that the fulfilment of his promise is dependent on the continued observance of the laws of Jonadab. Rut, on the other hand, tliis promise and its im- plied conditions wovild naturally lead communities or individuals which observed some or other of these laws to adopt the name ' Rechabite,' and to imagine a genealogy connecting them with Rechab. Thu.5, in modern time, a Total Abstinence Society, whose members live in houses and do not abjure corn or oil, styles itself the 'Rechabites.' Probably this is the explanation of the statement of Heges- ippus {ap. Eus. BE ii. 23), that ' one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, who are mentioned by Jeremiah the prophet,' protested against the murder of James the Just, especially as Epijilianius (//<cr. Ixxviii. 14) substitutes symeon the brother of James for the Rechabite (so E. H. Perowne in Smith's DB). The name had become a term for an ascetic A similar view explains the fact that travellers — Benjamin of Juda'a, 12th cent. ; WolH', 1829 ; Pierotti, c. 1860— have found