Rechab, Rechabites
Rechab, Rechabites
RECHAB, RECHABITES
1. Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, appears in 2Ki 10:15-28 as a fervent supporter of Jehus attack on the house of Ahab and his endeavour to root out the idolatrous worship which that dynasty had allowed. That his influence was a matter of some importance is clear from the prominent place which the new ruler gave him (2Ki 10:16; 2Ki 10:23). The principles which actuated him are to be gathered from Jer 35:1-19, where his descendants refuse to drink wine because he had bidden them abstain from it, build no houses, sow no seed, plant no vineyard, but dwell in tents all their days. He evidently held that civilization and settled life inevitably led to apostasy from Jahweh, the ancestral Deity of his tribe. And the peril was a very real one, because of the inveterate popular belief that the local baals were the dispensers of all blessings pertaining to field and vineyard (Hos 2:5; Hos 2:10-12). Hence it seemed to more than one of the prophets that the early, simple period of the nations life, ere it became immersed in the Canaanite civilization, was preferable to all later developments (Jdg 2:2, Hos 10:1). Again, the self-restraint of the Rechabites reminds us of the Nazirite vow (see Nazirite). But the latter did not include so many taboos. It permitted the cultivation of land and the building of houses. It was not binding on an entire clan. A genuine tradition is probably embodied in the Chroniclers statement (1Ch 2:55), that the clan of the Rechabites was connected with the Kenites, and this would square admirably with the view that the Jahweh-religion was communicated to Israel by Kenite influence. Subsequently to Jeremiah we do not find more than two Biblical allusions to the clan in question, and one of these is doubtful. Neh 3:14 reports that Malchijah, the son of Rechab, the ruler of part of Bethhaccerem, assisted in re-fortifying Jerusalem. But if he was a Rechabite by descent, he must have abandoned their principles. The men whom Jeremiah approached were but temporary sojourners, driven into the city through dread of the invader. This Malchijah was doubly a townsman, living in a country town, and interested in the metropolis. The title of Psa 71:1-24 in the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] is: Belonging to David. Of the sons of Jehonadab and of the earliest captives, as though the exiles and the Rechabites agreed in appropriating this poem of sorrow and hope. Finally, it may be noted that later Rabbis found the fulfilment of Jer 35:19 in those marriages of Rechabite maidens into priestly families, from which later priests sprang. Hegesippus relates that one of the Rechabite priests interceded in vain for the life of James the Just (Euseb. HE ii. 23).
2. Rechab and his brother Baanah, two guerilla captains, treacherously murdered Ishbosheth, their king, and met with the due reward of their deed at Davids hands (2Sa 4:1-12).
J. Taylor.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Rechab, Rechabites
rekab, reka-bts (, rekhabh, , rekhabhm): Rechab is the name of two men of some prominence in the Old Testament records:
(1) A Benjamite of the town of Beeroth, son of Rimmon (2Sa 4:2); he and his brother Baanah were captains of the military host of Ish-bosheth. On the death of Abner (2Sa 3:30) the two brothers treacherously entered Ish-bosheth’s house, when at noon he was resting and helpless, beheaded him, and escaped with the head to David at Hebron (2Sa 4:6-8). They expected to receive reward and honor from David for the foul deed, which left him without a rival for the throne of all Israel. But the just and noble-minded king ordered their immediate execution (2Sa 4:9-12), as in the case of the Amalekite, who asserted that he had killed Saul (2 Sam 1). For some reason the Beerothites left their own town and fled to Gittaim, another town in Benjamin, where they were still living when the Books of Samuel were written (2Sa 4:3).
(2) The more prominent of the men bearing this name was a KENITE (which see), a descendant of Hammath (1Ch 2:55). A part of the Kenite tribe joined the Israelites during the wilderness wanderings (Num 10:29-32; Jdg 1:16; Jdg 4:17), becoming identified with the tribe of Judah, although Heber and Jael his wife were settled in Northern Palestine (Jdg 4:17). Rechab was the ancestor or founder of a family, or order, in Israel known as the Rechabites, who at various times were conspicuous in the religious life of the nation. The most notable member of this family was Jehonadab (2Ki 10:15 ff, 23), or Jonadab, as he is called in Jer 35. Jehonadab was a zealous Yahweh-worshipper and took part with Jehu in the extirpation of Baal-worship and the house of Ahab. He set for his descendants a vow of asceticism: that they should drink no wine, nor plant fields or vineyards, nor build nor live in houses throughout their generations (Jer 35:6, Jer 35:7). That must have been a singular feature in Palestinian life: the simple, nomadic life of this family from generation to generation in the midst of settled agricultural and industrial conditions! They followed this simple life in order to guard against the enervating tendencies of sensualism, and as a covenant of fidelity to Yahweh, to whom they wholly devoted themselves when they joined themselves to Israel. Jeremiah used the Rechabites, who had been driven into Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar’s investment of the land, as an object-lesson to covenant-breaking Judah. The Rechabites, hungry and thirsty, refused wine when it was set before them, because of the command of their ancestor Jonadab (Jer 35:8-10); but Judah refused to heed Yahweh’s commands or to keep His covenant (Jer 35:14, Jer 35:15).
If the Rechab of Neh 3:14 is the same as this Kenite, then his descendant Malchijah, who assisted Nehemiah in rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem, may have abandoned the vow of his ancestors, for he was ruler of the district of Beth-haccherem (i.e. house of the vineyard).