Kenites
Smiths, the name of a tribe inhabiting the desert lying between southern Palestine and the mountains of Sinai. Jethro was of this tribe (Judg 1:16). He is called a “Midianite” (Num 10:29), and hence it is concluded that the Midianites and the Kenites were the same tribe. They were wandering smiths, “the gipsies and travelling tinkers of the old Oriental world. They formed an important guild in an age when the art of metallurgy was confined to a few” (Sayce’s Races, etc.). They showed kindness to Israel in their journey through the wilderness. They accompanied them in their march as far as Jericho (Judg 1:16), and then returned to their old haunts among the Amalekites, in the desert to the south of Judah. They sustained afterwards friendly relations with the Israelites when settled in Canaan (Judg 4:11, Judg 4:17-21; 1 Sam 27:10; 1 Sam 30:29). The Rechabites belonged to this tribe (1 Chr 2:55) and in the days of Jeremiah (Jer 35:7–10) are referred to as following their nomad habits. Saul bade them depart from the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:6) when, in obedience to the divine commission, he was about to “smite Amalek.” And his reason is, “for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” Thus “God is not unrighteous to forget the kindnesses shown to his people; but they shall be remembered another day, at the farthest in the great day, and recompensed in the resurrection of the just” (M. Henry’s Commentary). They are mentioned for the last time in Scripture in 1 Sam 27:10; comp. 1 Sam 30:20.
Named in the Bible
7 verses
- Genesis 15:19 The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,
- Numbers 24:21 And he looked on the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said, Strong is thy dwellingplace, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock.
- Judges 4:11 Now Heber the Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab the father in law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.
- 1 Samuel 15:6 And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.
- 1 Samuel 27:10 And Achish said, Whither have ye made a road to day? And David said, Against the south of Judah, and against the south of the Jerahmeelites, and against the south of the Kenites.
- 1 Samuel 30:29 And to them which were in Rachal, and to them which were in the cities of the Jerahmeelites, and to them which were in the cities of the Kenites,
- 1 Chronicles 2:55 And the families of the scribes which dwelt at Jabez; the Tirathites, the Shimeathites, and Suchathites. These are the Kenites that came of Hemath, the father of the house of Rechab.
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), by Matthew George Easton.
