5. Some later notices are not without interest. Benjamin of Tudcla. in the l'.'th century (ed. Asher, 1840, i. 112-114), mentions that near El Jubar (=Pum- beditha) he found Jews who were named Reehabites. They tilled the ground, kept, (locks and herds, abstained from wine and flesh, and gave tithes to teachers who devoted themselves to studying the law and weeping for Jerusalem. They were 100,000 in number, and were governed by a prince, Salomon han-Nasi, who traced his genealogy up to the house of David, and ruled over the city of Thema and Telmas. A later traveller, Dr. Wolff, gives a yet stranger and more detailed report. The Jews of Jerusalem and Yemen told him that he would find the Kechabites of Jer. xxxv living near Mecca {Journal, 1820, ii, 334). When he came near Senaa be came in contact with a tribe, the Beni-Khaibr, who identified themselves with the sons of Jonadab. With one of them, Musa, Wolff conversed, and he reports the dialogue as follows: "I asked him,' Whose descend- ants are you?' Musa answered, 'Come, and I will show you.' and read from an Arabic Bible the words of Jer. xxxv, 5-11. He then went on. ■ I ome, and you will find us (1(1,000 in number. You see the words of the prophet have been fulfilled: Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me forever' " (ibid, p. 335). In a later journal (ibid, 1839, p.389) he men- tions a second interview with Musa, describes them as keeping strictly to the old rule, calls them now by the name of the Beni-Arhad, and says that Beni-Israel of the tribe of Dan live with them. A paper On lu- cent Notices of th Reehabites, by Signor Pierotti, was read ai (he Cambridge meeting of the British Associa- tion (October, 1S(>2). lie met with a tribe calling them- selves by that name near the Dead Sea. about two miles south-east from it. They had a Hebrew Bible, and said their prayers at the tomb of a Jewish rabbi. They told him precisely the same stories as had been told to Wolff thirty years before.— Smith. The details, how- ever, whether correct or not. apply to Talmudical Jews more than to Reehabites. They are described as living in caverns and low houses, not in tents — and this in Arabia, where Bedouin habits would cease to be singu- lar; nor are any of the Rechabite rules observable in them except t hat. of refraining from wine — an absti- nence which ceases to be remarkable in Arabia, where no one drinks wine, and where, among the strongholds of Islam, it could probably not be obtained without dan- ger anil difficulty. There were large numbers of I'al- mudical Jews in Arabia in the time of Mohammed, and these supposed Kcchai iii es are probably descend) d from abod] oi them. See Witsius, Dissert. dt Rechabitis, in Miscell, Sacra, ii. L76 sq.; Carpzov, Apparat, p, L48j Calmet, Dissert, sur les Richabites, in Commentairi Lit- tend, vi, 1« 21.- Kitto. for the modern temperance organization by this name, see Temperance.
Rechac, Jean Giffkk de (whose religious name was Jean d< Sainte-Mari I, a French Dominican, was horn at Quilleboeuf Aug. 25, 1604. He look the habit ofa monk, and taught Greek and Hebrew at Paris, then at Bordeaux. He travelled in the Orient as an apos- tolic missionary, and visited the isle of Scio and Con- stantinople. Returning to Paris about the end ol 1631, he became in 1037 prior of the convent of the Duinin-
RECHAH
957
RECOLLET
icans at Rouen, and devoted himself with success to preaching. Being sent to Bordeaux in 1640, he col- lected numerous materials for writing the history of his order; and when, in 1056, the monks of St. Domi- nic founded several houses in France, he was charged with the erection of divers novitiates. He died April 9, 1660. We have of his works, Les Vrais Exercices Solides et 1'ratii/ncsde la Vie Spirituelleet Iteligieiise (Rouen, 1638- 40, 4 vols. 12mo) :— Vie de Saint- Uyacinthe (Paris, 1643, 12mo) : — Les Vies de Trois Bienheureux de Bretagne, Yves Makreuc, Eveque de Rennes, Alain de la Roche, Pierre Quint in (ibid. 1645, 12mo) : — Vie de Renaud de Saiut- Gilles, Doyen de Saint-Agnau a" Orleans (who died in 1220) (ibid. 1646, 12mo) :— Vie de Saint-Dominique, avec la Fondation de tous les Convents des Freres Precheurs de Vun et de I'autre Sexe en France et dans les Pays-Bus (ibid. 1647, 4to) : — Les Vies et Actions Memorables des Saintes et Bienheureuses de VOrdre des Freres Precheurs (1635, 2 vols. 4to) : — and a great number of other works printed or in MS., among them Prqpketies de Nostradamus ex- pliquees (Paris, 1656, 12mo), published without the name of the author. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generate, s. v.
Re'cliah (Heb. Rekah', FTS"!, hindermost; Sept. 'P>;X«i^ vr- *P»Z0a)- I" 1 Chron. iv, 12, Beth-rapha, Paseah, and Tehinnah the father, or founder, of Ir-na- hash, are said to have been " the men of Eechah." In the Targum of R. Joseph they are called " the men of the Great Sanhedrin," the Targumist apparently reading ■12^.. Schwarz regards it as the name of a place in- habited by the posterity of Judah, and identities it with "a village Rashiah, three English miles to the south of Hebron" {Palest, p. 116).