Judges 1:16

And the children of the Kenite, Moses' father in law,.... The posterity of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses; for though Jethro returned to his own country, after he had paid a visit to Moses in the

And the children of the Kenite, Moses' father in law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people.

Children of the Kenite, i.e. of Jethro, so called from the people from whom he descended, ,22. And whatsoever he did, it is evident that his posterity came into Canaan with the Israelites, and were there seated with them. See ,17 5:24 . Out of the city of palm trees, i.e. from Jericho, so called ; not the city, which was utterly destroyed; but the territory belonging to it, where it seems they were seated as in a most pleasant, and fruitful, and safe place, according to the promise made by Moses to their father, ,32, and whence they might remove, either to avoid the society or molestation of the neighbouring Canaanites; or out of love to the children of Judah, whom they went to; or to avoid temptations to luxury, and exercise themselves in self-denial and contempt of the present evil world, and the lusts thereof; as may be thought from , &c.; or for some other cause unknown to us at this distance. In the south of Arad; in the southern part of the land of Canaan, where Arad was, . They went, i.e. some of them, for others of them dwelt in the contrary quarter, in the most northern part of the land. Among the people, Heb. that people, to wit, those children of Judah that lived there.

16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’ s persons in admiration because of advantage. Ver. 16. These are murmurers] Ut porci saginati, saith Aretius, as boars in a frank, they grunt against God’ s ways and worshippers, like so many Caii Grunnii Corocottae. Complainers] Invalidum omne natura querulum, saith Seneca. Weak ones are never without their ailments. After their own lusts] So many lusts, so many lords. Great swelling words] Bubbles of words. See the note on 2 Peter 2:18. The Syriac renders it, stupendous stuff. They amaze their hearers with sesquipedalian words, and sublime businesses, big swollen fancies, &c.; they tell them they shall hear that which they never heard before, and therefore call upon them to mark; whereas the thing is either false, or if true, no more than ordinarily is taught by others: with as much confidence as ignorance they counsel the simple by portentous words and phrases abhorrent from Christian religion, truth, and sobriety; and which wise men lament while fools applaud and admire. Having men’ s persons] Licking up their spittle, as it were, and loading the mouse with the elephant’ s praises. Ungunt pariter et emungunt. Of words and expressions (after Horace’ s sesquipedalia verba ‘ words a foot and a half long’ , A.P. 97): Of many syllables. Ten dollar words! ŒD

(16) The children of the Kenite, Moses’ father in law.—It is difficult to disentangle the names Jethro, Reuel, or Raguel, and Hobab (Judges 4:11); but in my article on Jethro in Kitto’s Bible Cyclopœdia I have shown that Jethro and Reuel are identical, the latter name (“friend of God”) being his local title as a priest of Midian; and that he was the father of Zipporah and Hobab. When Jethro refused to stay with the Israelites (Exodus 18:27), Hobab consented to accompany them as their hybeer or caravan-guide. He is well known in the Mohammedan legends as Schocib, but is confounded with Jethro. The Kenites were the elder branch of the tribe of Midianites. They lived in the rocky district on the shores of the gulf of Akabah (Numbers 21:1; Numbers 24:21; 1 Samuel 15:6). They seem to have been named from a chieftain Kain (Genesis 15:19; Numbers 24:22; Heb., where there is a play on Kenite and Kinneka, “thy rest”). They were originally a race of troglodytes or cave-dwellers. The Targum constantly reads Salmaa for Kenite, because the Kenites were identified with the Kinim of 1 Chronicles 2:55. Jethro, they say. was a Kenite, who gave to Moses a house (Beth) and bread (lehem) (Exodus 2:20-21). They identify Jethro with Salmaa, because in 1 Chronicles 2:5 Salma is the father of Bethlehem. They also identify Rechab, the ancestor of the Rechabites—who were a branch of the Kenites—with Rechabiah, the son of Moses. Went up.—Probably, in the first instance, in a warlike expedition. The city of palm trees.—Probably Jericho (see Judges 3:13; Deuteronomy 34:3; 2 Chronicles 28:15). When Jericho was destroyed and laid under a curse, it would be quite in accordance with the Jewish feeling, which attached such “fatal force and fascination” to words, to avoid even the mention of the name. The Kenites would naturally attach less importance to the curse, or at any rate would not consider that they were braving it when they pitched their nomad tents among those beautiful groves of palms and balsams, which once made the soil “a divine country” (Jos. B. J. i. 6. §6; iv. 8, § 3; Antt. v. 1, § 22), though they have now entirely disappeared. Rabbinic tradition says that Jericho was assigned to Hobab. From the omission of the name Jericho, some have needlessly supposed that the reference is to Phaenico (a name which means “palm-grove”), an Arabian town mentioned by Diod Sic. iii. 41 (Le Clerc, Bertheau, Ewald); but there is no difficulty about the Kenites leaving Jericho when Judah left it. The wilderness of Judah.—The Midbar—not a waste desert, but a plain with pasture—was a name applied to the lower Jordan valley and the southern hills of Judea (Genesis 21:14; Matthew 3:1; Matthew 4:1; Luke 15:4). The Kenites, like all Bedouins, hated the life of cities, and never lived in them except under absolute necessity (Jeremiah 35:6-7). In the south of Arad.—Our E.V.

Verse 16. The children of the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law] For an account of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, see Exodus 18:1-27; Numbers 10:29, c. The city of palm trees] This seems to have been some place near Jericho, which city is expressly called the city of palm trees, Deuteronomy 34:3 and though destroyed by Joshua, it might have some suburbs remaining where these harmless people had taken up their residence. The Kenites, the descendants of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, were always attached to the Israelites: they remained with them, says Calmet, during their wanderings in the wilderness, and accompanied them to the promised land. They received there a lot with the tribe of Judah, and remained in the city of palm trees during the life of Joshua; but after his death, not contented with their portion, or molested by the original inhabitants, they united with the tribe of Judah, and went with them to attack Arad. After the conquest of that country, the Kenites established themselves there, and remained in it till the days of Saul, mingled with the Amalekites. When this king received a commandment from God to destroy the Amalekites, he sent a message to the Kenites to depart from among them, as God would not destroy them with the Amalekites. From them came Hemath, who was the father of the house of Rechab, 1 Chronicles 2:55, and the Rechabites, of whom we have a remarkable account Jeremiah 35:1, &c.

16. The text of this verse has been badly preserved, and some details of the restoration must remain doubtful. the children of the Kenite, Moses’ brother in law] Marg. father in law, as O.T. usage requires. A proper name and the article (inserted by RV.) have fallen out before Kenite; LXX. cod. B restores Jethro, cod. A Hobab. The traditions differ as to the name of Moses’ father in law; in J it is Hobab, Numbers 10:29, cf. ch. Judges 4:11; in E it is Jethro, Exodus 3:1; Exodus 4:18; Exodus 18:1. As this chapter is related to J, the former is preferable: the children of Hobab the Kenite. The traditions differ again as to the tribe to which Moses’ father in law belonged; here and in Judges 4:11 he is called a Kenite (see the note below), but in Exodus 2:15 ff; Exodus 3:1; Exodus 18:1, Numbers 10:29 he is a Midianite. Common to both traditions is Moses’ connexion by marriage with an Arab tribe. The verb went up in clause a is plur.; in clause b went and dwelt are sing., and may be corrected to the plur. (with RV., LXX. B they dwelt). But the sing, verbs in clause b perhaps imply that the text originally ran And Hobab the Kenite … went up (sing.) … and went and dwelt, omitting the children of. the city of palm trees] i.e. Jericho, cf. Judges 3:13 n. and Deuteronomy 34:3, 2 Chronicles 28:15. The order in which the stages of the invasion are mentioned, Jerusalem, Hebron, Debir, Arad, Zephath, seems to indicate a movement starting from the E. and advancing towards the S.; hence Jericho, in the neighbourhood of Gilgal (Judges 2:1), may well have been the point of departure. On the theory that Judah came up from Kadesh in the southern desert, a ‘city of palm trees’ has been looked for in the S., and Tamar, i.e. ‘palm tree’ (Ezekiel 47:19; Ezekiel 48:28), in S.E. Palestine, is suggested as the place (Steuernagel, l.c. 75 ff.). The possibility that the Calebites and other clans which in time coalesced under the name of Judah, entered the land from the South has been noticed above, in Judges 1:10. the wilderness of Judah, which is in the south of Arad] in the Negeb of Arad. The wilderness, of Judah (Psalms 63 title, St Matthew 3:1, cf. Joshua 15:61) was the barren, rugged tract which descends from the Central Highlands eastwards to the Dead Sea. It is possible that the term may have included Arad = Tell ‘Arâd, 17 m. S.E. of Hebron (cf. on Judges 1:9); yet the description of the ‘wilderness of Judah’ (properly in the E.) as within the Negeb (in the S.) is surprising. The text is certainly incorrect. The LXX. cod. A reads ‘into the desert of Judah, which is in the south, at the descent of Arad’; cod. B ‘into the desert which is in the south of Judah, which is at the descent of Arad.’ Both recensions of the LXX give the descent of Arad (cf.

The children of the Kenite - See Numbers 24:21 note. The city of palm trees - Jericho (see the marginal reference). The rabbinical story is that Jericho, with 500 cubits square of land, was given to Hobab.

THE KENITES, Judges 1:16. 16. Children of the Kenite — These were a nomadic tribe camping in Midian in the days of Moses’ flight from Egypt.