obeyed by his servants : and God, acknowledging the equity of those expectations, says, " A son ho- noureth his father, and a servant his master : if I then be a father, where is my honour ? and if I be a master, where is my feara?" It is true, that, in respect of the degree in which these dispositions are required, there must be an infinite distance between what is due to God and to man : but if the smallest measure is due to man, much more is the greatest measure due to God : and if we are to obey man in any thing, much more ought we to obey God in every thing.
This is put in a very striking point of view in the chapter before us, where God brings forth the Rechabites, and their obedience to the commands of Jonadab their progenitor, to shame the Jews who were disobedient to his commands.
The Rechabites were originally Kenites, descended from Hobab the father-in-law of Moses b : and, be- cause they had no inheritance in Israel, it is gene- rally thought that they still continued aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. But we apprehend, that, at some period subsequent to the division of Canaan, they had embraced the Jewish faith ; be- cause Jehonadab, the very person spoken of in our text, was the person whom Jehu took up into his carriage, saying, " Come, see my zeal for the Lord :" and, had he not been reckoned amongst the true Israelites at that time, we conceive that Jehu, at the very moment that he was usurping the throne of Israel, would not have courted so publicly his alliance and support0 : nor do we think that Jeremiah would have taken the Rechabites " into the house of the Lord," and " into the chamber of a man of God," if they had not been possessed of the full privileges of Israelites. The circumstance of their having no inheritance in Israel will sufficiently account for their being called " strangers " there, and for their wishing to avoid the jealousies and contentions which the acquisition of wealth might occasion. But however
a Mai. i. 6. b 1 Chron. ii. 55. <= 2 Kings x. 15, 16.