What about Those Rechabites? (35:1-19) 573I Sam 15:6; 27:10; 30:29). Some found their way north to the territory of Naph-
tali, for example, near Kedesh, where Heber, the Kenite, pitched his tent (Judg
4:11), and his more famous wife, Jael, put one of the pegs through the head of
Sisera (Judg 4:17-22; 5:24-27). It is generally assumed that since the Kenites
and Rechabites lived in tents and did not till the soil, they were shepherds, pas-
turing flocks in the marginal areas of Northern Israel and southern Judah
(Calvin; Pope in IDB R-Z, 15; Abramsky 1967). They also rejected settled life
to the point that they did not drink wine. Pope says the rule imposed by
Jonadab was the essence of nomadism, and that the conflict between nomadic
and settled ways of life is well-nigh universal. In abstaining from wine, the
Rechabites were like the Nazirites (Num 6:1-4), with whom the prophet Amos
had sympathy (Amos 2: 11-12). Rechabite seminomadism was assumed by
Calvin and Blayney and developed fully in an essay by Karl Budde entitled
"The Nomadic Ideal in the Old Testament" (1895). This anticultural, antiset-
tlement way of life for the Rechabites has become an accepted view of scholars
for more than a century (Cheyne; Duhm; Peake; Cornill; Streane; Weiser;
Rudolph; Hyatt; Bright; Thompson; Boadt; Jones).
A few dissenting voices have arisen, however, reflecting the trend in recent
biblical scholarship to downplay Israel's seminomadic origins and overlook a
romantic impulse in late preexilic Israel that idealized the Mosaic Age (see
Note for 2:2). Abramsky ( 1967) argued on slender evidence that the Rech-
abites resided in permanent settlements in the Judean Hills south of Jerusa-
lem. Frick (1971; "Rechab," ABD 5: 630-32) followed with a theory that the
Rechabites were a g11ild of itinerant craftsmen who made chariotry and weap-
onry. This theory hung on minority readings of GBL in I Chr 4: 12, where
certain craftsmen are named "the men of Rechab" rather than "the men of
Repha" (MT: "men of Recah"). The MT and LXX consistently read two sepa-
rate names: I) in 2 Kgs 10:15 and Jer 35:6[LXX 42:6] MT reads rekab and LXX
rechab; and 2) in I Chr 4:12 MT reads reka and LXX repha. The Rechabites
are not "the men of Recah" and thus not the guild of craftsmen mentioned
in I Chr 4: 11-14. Knights (199 5-96; 1996-97) also dismisses the idea of a no-
madic origin for the Rechabites, arguing that the Rechabites were prophets
linking up with the itinerant lifestyle of Elijah. Cummings (1979: 124), too,
has Jonadab a rival to Elisha in succeeding Elijah. Knights argues that the
expression "to stand before Yahweh;' which appears in the promise to the
Rechabites in v 19, must indicate that the Rechabites were prophets ( 1996-97:
42), which, needless to say, is a reduction of evidence that he himself has pro-
duced.Anyone-priest, prophet, or ordinary person (7:10)-could "stand be-
fore Yahweh" in worship and service (see Note on 15:19).
The Rechabites were a conservative Judahite subculture that rejected basic
tenets of the settled life. Jeremiah lifts them up, not because he espouses their
lifestyle or because he thinks they are more true to Yahweh, though they may
well have been more true. He may extend them sympathy because of roman-
tic leanings, but the whole point of the symbolism here acted out is that the
Rechabites are shown to be faithful to Jonadab, their father, in a way that