Of Rechab himself nothing is known. He may have been the father.be may have been the remote ancestor, of Jehonadab. Tic meaning of I he word makes it prob- able enough that it was an epithet passing into a proper
RECHABITE
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RECHABITE
name. It may have pointed, as in the robber-chief of 2 Sam. Lv, 2, to a conspicuous form of the wild Bedouin life; and Jehonadab, the son of the Rider, may have been, in part at least, for that reason, the companion and friend of the fierce captain of Israel who drives as with the fury of madness (2 Kings ix, 20). Another conjecture as to the meaning of the name is ingenious enough to merit a disinterment from the forgotten learn- ing of the lGth century. Boulduc (De Eccles. ante Leg. iii, 10) infers from 2 Kings ii. 12; xiii, 14, that the two great prophets Elijah and Elisha were known, each of them in his time, as the chariot (33"% Re'keb) of Israel, i. e. its strength and protection. He infers from this that the special disciples of the prophets, who followed them in all their austerity, were known as the " sons of the chariot," Bcne-Rekeb ; and that afterwards, when the original meaning had been lost sight of, this was taken as a patronymic, and referred to an unknown Rcchab. At present, of course, the different vowel-points of the two words are sufficiently distinctive; but the strange reading of the Sept. in Judg. i, 19 (on 'Prjxafi Siwtii- \aro avrole, where the A. V. has "because they had chariots of iron") shows that one word might easily enough be taken for the other. Apart from the evi- dence of the name and the obvious probability of the fact, we have the statement (quantum valeat) of John of Jerusalem that Jehonadab was a disciple of Elisha (De Instit. Monach. c. 25).
II. The personal history of Jehonadab has been dealt with under that name. Here we have to notice the new character which he impressed on the tribe of which he was the head. As his name, his descent, and the part which he played indicate, he and his people had all along been worshippers of Jehovah, circumcised, and so within the covenant of Abraham, though not reckoned as belonging to Israel, and probably therefore not considering themselves bound by the Mosaic law and ritual. The worship of Baal introduced by Jezebel and Ahab was accordingly not less offensive to them than to the Israelites. The luxury and license of Phoenician cities threatened the destruction of the sim- plicity of their nomadic life (Amos ii, 7, 8; vi, 3-6). A protest was needed against both evils, and, as in the case of Elijah, and of the Nazarites of Amos ii, 11, it took the form of asceticism. There was to be a more rigid ad- herence than ever to the old Arab life. What had been a traditional habit was enforced by a solemn command from the sheikh and prophet of the tribe, the destroyer of idolatry, which no one dared to transgress. They were to drink no wine, nor build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any. All their days they were to dwell in tents, as remembering that they were strangers in the land (Jer. xxxv, 6, 7). This was to be the condition of their retaining a distinct tribal exist- ence. For two centuries and a half they adhered faith- fully to this rule ; but we have no record of any part taken by them in the history of the period. We may think of (hem as presenting the same picture which other tribes, uniting the nomad life with religious au- sterity, have presented in later periods.
The Nabatha?ans, of whom Diodorus Siculus speaks (xix, 94) as neither sowing seed, nor planting fruit-tree, nor using nor building house, and enforcing these trans- mitted customs under pain of death, give us one strik- ing instance. The fact that the Nabathnsans habitually drank " wild honey" (/is'Ai dypioi') mixed with water (Diod. Sic. xix, 94), and that the Bedouin as habitually still make locusts an article of food (Burckhardt, Bed- ouins, p. 270), shows very strongly that the Baptist's life was fashioned after the Kechabitish as well as the Nazaritish type. Another is found in the prohibition of wine by Mohammed (Sale, Koran, Prelim. Diss. § 5). A yet more interesting parallel is found in the rapid growth of the sect of the Wahabis during the last and present century. Abd-ul-Wahab, from whom the sect takes its name, reproduces the old type of character in
all its completeness. Anxious to protect his country- men from the revolting vices of the Turks, as Jehona- dab had been to protect the Kenites from the like vices of the Phoenicians, the Bedouin reformer felt the neces- sity of returning to the old austerity of Arab life. What wine had been to the earlier preacher of righteousness, the outward sign and incentive of a fatal corruption, opium and tobacco were to the later prophet, and, as such, were rigidly proscribed. The rapidity with which the Wahabis became a formidable party, the Puritans of Islam, presents a striking analogy to the strong po- litical influence of Jehonadab in 2 Kings x, 15, 23 (comp. Burckhardt, Bedouins and WaludAs, p. 2*3. etc.).
III. The invasion of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar in B.C. 607 drove the Rechabites from their tents. Pos- sibly some of the previous periods of danger may have led to their settling within the limits of the territory of Judah. Some inferences may be safely drawn from the facts of Jer. xxxv. The names of the Rechabites show that they continued to be worshippers of Jeho- vah. They are already known to the prophet. One of them (ver. 3) bears the same name. Their rigid Nazaritish life gained for them admission into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers assigned to priests and Levites, within its precincts. They were received by the sons or followers of a " man of God," a prophet or devotee, of special sanctity (ver. 4). Here they are tempted, and are proof against the temptation, and their steadfastness is turned into a reproof for the unfaithful- ness of Judah and Jerusalem. See Jeremiah. The history of this trial ends with a special blessing, the full import of which has, for the most part, not been ade- quately apprehended: "Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall not want a man to stand before me forever" (ver. 19). Whether we look on this as the utterance of a true prophet, or as a vaticinium ex erentu, we should hardly expect at this precise point to lose sight alto- gether of those of whom it was spoken, even if the words pointed only to the perpetuation of the name and tribe. They have, however, a higher meaning. The words "to stand before me" (^SS? "!"2") are essential- ly liturgical. The tribe of Levi is chosen to "stand before" the Lord (Dent, x, 8 ; xviii, 5, 7). In Gen. xviii, 22; Judg. xx, 28; Psa. exxxiv, 1 ; Jer. xv, 19, the litur- gical meaning is equally prominent and unmistakable (comp. Gesenius, Thesaur. s. v. ; Grotius, ad loc). The fact that this meaning is given ("ministering before me") in the Targum of Jonathan is evidence (1) as to the received meaning of the phrase; (2) that this ren- dering did not shock the feelings of studious and de- vout rabbins in our Lord's time ; (3) that it was at least probable that there existed representatives of the Recha- bites connected with the Temple services in the time of Jonathan. This, then, may possibly have been the extent of the new blessing. The Kechabites were sol- emnly adopted into the families of Israel, and were rec- ognised as incorporated into the tribe of Levi. Their purity, their faithfulness, their consecrated life, gained for them, as it gained for other Nazarites. that honor. See Priest, Hebrew. In Lam. iv, 7 we may perhaps trace a reference to the Rechabites, who had been the most conspicuous examples of the Nazaritish life in the prophet's time, and most the object of his admiration.