572 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTScorrelate this early date with the present event is whether Nebuchadrezzar, al-
ready in 604, was threatening Judah. Doubtless he was, since about this time
2 Kgs 24: 1 reports that the king of Babylon "came up" ('ala), presumably
against Jerusalem, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years. But most
commentators (Giesebrecht; Peake; Streane; Weiser; Hyatt; Bright; Thomp-
son; Holladay) date the present event with the Rechabites to ca. 599-598 B.C.
or earlier, correlating the Syrian reference in v 11 with 2 Kgs 24:2, which
says that bands of Syrians joined bands of Chaldeans in overunning Judah.
But v 11 also mentions Nebuchadrezzar, who was not present in the raids of
599-598 but came later with the full Babylonian army (Bright 1981: 327).
The problem is noted by Rudolph. We must conclude, then, that the event
here occurred either prior to 605 B.C., when Jeremiah had ready access to the
Temple, or else early in 597 B.C., after Jehoiakim was dead, making a Temple
visit by Jeremiah again possible.- Go to the house of the Rechabites, and you shall speak to them ... and you
shall offer them wine to drink. Here is another divine directive that Jeremiah
carry out a symbolic act, similar to the directives given him to bury a loincloth in
Parah (13:1) and break a jug in the Ben-Hinnom Valley (19:1). For other sym-
bolic acts in the book of Jeremiah, see Note on 13: 1. Jeremiah knows in this case
that the Rechabites will not drink the wine, which proves to be the case (v 6).
Go ... and you shall speak to them. The LXX omits "and you shall speak to
them," which can be attributed to haplography (homoeoarcton: w ... w or
homoeoteleuton: m ... m). Aquila, Theod, S, T, and Vg all have the words.
The infinitive absolute hal6k paired with a perfect verb mandating action is a
common construction in the Jcrcmianic prose (sec Note for 28:13), arguing
for the retention of "and you shall speak" (pace Holladay). De Vaux (1965b:
330) thinks that Jeremiah must first speak to the Rechabites in order to per-
suade them to enter the Temple, as their disavowal of permanent structures
might cause them to resist entering a Temple building. But such a scruple is
by no means assured.
the house of the Rechabites. Hebrew bet harekabfm. "House" here means
family or clan.
Rechabites. These people formed a subculture (perhaps even resident aliens;
see v 7) within Israel and Judah, tracing their clan back to Jonadab son of
Rechab (v 6). Jonadab lived in Northern Israel in the ninth century B.C.,
emerging there from the shadows when the zealous Jehu invited him to wit-
ness the final extermination of Ahab's royal house and a decisive purge of Baal
worship (2 Kgs 10:15-27). According to 1 Chr 2:55, the Rechabites decended
from the Kenites, which puts their origins back in the Mosaic Age. The Kenites
are thought by some to have been the original worshipers of Yahweh (the so-
called "Kenite Hypothesis"), with Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, having intro-
duced Moses to his God. Calvin, Rashi, and Mezudath David all link up the
Rechabites to Jethro. The Kenites (and Midianites) attached themselves to
Israel in the wilderness and entered Canaan with them, continuing their semi-
nomadic existence in the Negeb and on Judah's southern border (Judg 1:16;