A verse by verse commentary on Jeremiah 35 dealing with the Recabites who did not drink wine in obedience to their forefathers and God honored them for faithfulness, but judged the Jews for failure to obey Him.

1. JEREMIAH 35 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
The Rekabites
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the
Lord during the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah
king of Judah:
CLARKE, “The word which came - in the days of Jehoiakim - What strange
confusion in the placing of these chapters! Who could have expected to hear of
Jehoiakim again, whom we have long ago buried; and we have now arrived in the
history at the very last year of the last Jewish king.
This discourse was probably delivered in the fourth or fifth year of Jehoiakim’s
reign.
GILL, “The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord,.... Not as following the
former prophecies; for they must be delivered seventeen years after this. The
prophecies of Jeremiah are not put together in their proper time in which they were
delivered. The preceding prophecies were delivered in the "tenth" and "eleventh"
years of Zedekiah's reign: but this
in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah; in what part of his reign is
not certain; but it must be after Nebuchadnezzar had invaded the land, Jer_35:11;
very probably in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, after he had been the king of
Babylon's servant three years, and rebelled against him, 2Ki_24:1;
HENRY, “This chapter is of an earlier date than many of those before; for what is
contained in it was said and done in the days of Jehoiakim (Jer_35:1); but then it
must be in the latter part of his reign, for it was after the king of Babylon with his
army came up into the land (Jer_35:11), which seems to refer to the invasion
mentioned 2Ki_24:2, which was upon occasion of Jehoiakim's rebelling against
Nebuchadnezzar. After the judgments of God had broken in upon this rebellious
people he continued to deal with them by his prophets to turn them from sin, that
1

2. his wrath might turn away from the.
JAMISON, “Jer_35:1-19. Prophecy in the reign of Jehoiakim, when the Chaldeans, in
conjunction with the Syrians and Moabites, invaded Judea.
By the obedience of the Rechabites to their father, Jeremiah condemns the
disobedience of the Jews to God their Father. The Holy Spirit has arranged
Jeremiah’s prophecies by the moral rather than the chronological connection. From
the history of an event fifteen years before, the Jews, who had brought back their
manumitted servants into bondage, are taught how much God loves and rewards
obedience, and hates and punishes disobedience.
COKE. "Jeremiah 35:1. The word, &c.— What is related in this chapter happened
long before that which is mentioned in the preceding chapters. Nebuchadnezzar
besieged Jerusalem twice in the reign of Jehoiakim: the first time in the fourth year
of this prince's reign, and the second three or four years after. It is most probable,
that Jeremiah speaks here of the second siege; when the Rechabites, to avoid falling
into the hands of the enemy, retired to Jerusalem. See Jeremiah 35:11 and Calmet.
CALVIN. "It must be first observed, that the order of time in which the prophecies
were written has not been retained. In history the regular succession of days and
years ought to be preserved, but in prophetic writings this is not so necessary, as I
have already reminded you. The Prophets, after having been preaching, reduced to
a summary what they had spoken; a copy of this was usually affixed to the doors of
the Temple, that every one desirous of knowing celestial doctrine might read the
copy; and it was afterwards laid up in the archives. From these were formed the
books now extant. And what I say may be gathered from certain and known facts.
But that we may not now multiply words, this passage shews that the prophecy of
Jeremiah inserted here did not follow the last discourse, for he relates what he had
been commanded to say and to do in the time of Jehoiakim, that is, fifteen years
before the destruction of the city. Hence what I have said is evident, that Jeremiah
did not write the book as it exists now, but that his discourses were collected and
formed into a volume, without regard to the order of time. The same may be also
gathered from the prophecies which we shall hereafter see, from the forty-fifth to
the end of the fiftieth chapter.
The power of the kingdom of Judah was not so weakened under King Jehoiakim,
but that they were still inflated with pride. As, then, their security kept them from
being attentive to the words of the Prophet, it was necessary to set before them a
visible sign, in order to make them ashamed. It was, then, God’s purpose to shew
how inexcusable was their perverseness. This was the design of this prophecy. And
the Prophet was expressly commanded to call together the Rechabites, and to offer
wine to them, in order that the obstinacy of the people might appear more
disgraceful, as they could not be induced to render obedience to God, while the
2

3. Rechabites were so obedient to their father, a mortal man, and who had been dead
for nearly three centuries. The Rechabites derived their origin from Obad and from
Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses. There are those indeed who think that Obad and
Jethro were the same; but this conjecture seems not to me probable. However this
may be, interpreters think that, the Rechabites were the descendants of Obad, who
followed Moses and the Israelites. And their opinion seems to be confirmed, because
it is said here that they were commanded by Jonadab to live as sojourners in the
land. An inheritance was indeed promised them, but as it appears from many parts
of Scripture, they were unfaith-fifily dealt with, for they were scattered here and
there throughout the tribes. They then did not enjoy an inheritance as it was right
and as they deserved. And we see also that they lived among other nations.
With regard to Jonadab, of whom mention is made, we read in 2 Kings 10:15, that
he was a man of great name and influence, for when Jehu began to reign, he had
him as his friend, though he was an alien. He must, then, have been in high esteem,
and a man of power and wealth among the Israelites. And it is certain that it was the
same Jonadab of whom sacred history speaks of there, because he is called the son
of Rechab; and yet three hundred years, or nearly so, had elapsed from that time to
the reign of Jehoiakim. As to the origin of this family or people, the first was Obad;
from him came Rechab, whose son was Jonadab, who lived in the time of King Jehu,
and was raised up into his chariot to be, as it were, next to him, when Jehu had not
as yet his power firmly established. But they went afterwards to Jerusalem on
account of the continual calamities of the land of Israel, for it was exposed to
constant plunders, and this we shall hereafter see in the narrative. Then the sons of
Rechab did once dwell in the kingdom of Israel; but when various incursions laid
waste the land, and final ruin was at hand, having left their tents they went to
Jerusalem; for they were not allowed to cultivate either fields or vineyards, as we
shall hereafter see. The Rechabites, therefore, dwelt in the city Jerusalem, which
protectedthem from the incursions and violence of enemies; but they still retained
their ancient mode of living in abstaining from wine, and in not cultivating either
fields or vineyards. They thought it indeed right for them to dwell in buildings,
because they could not find a vacant place in the city where they might pitch their
tents: but this was done from necessity. In the meantime they obeyed the command
of their father Jonadab; and though he had been dead three hundred years, they yet
so venerated the memory of their father, that they willingly abstained from wine,
and led not only a frugal but an austere life.
The Prophet is now bidden to bring these to the Temple, and to offer them wine to
drink I have briefly explained the design of God in this matter, even that he
purposed to lay before the Jews the example of the Rechabites, in order to shame
them; for that family obeyed their father after he was dead, but the Jews could not
be induced to submit to the command of the living God, who was also the only
Father of all. The Prophet then was bidden to bring them to the Temple, and to lay
before them cups full of wine, that they might drink. He says that they refused to
drink, and brought as a reason, that Jenadab their father forbade them to do so. We
shall hereafter see how this example was applied; for the whole cannot be explained
3

4. at the same time.
Let us consider the Prophet’s words, he says that the word came to him in the days
of Jehoiakim, that is, after he had found out by the trial of many years how
untameable the Jews were, and how great was their ferocity. Much labor then had
the Prophet undertaken, and yet they were not so subdued as to submit to the yoke
of God. When, therefore, they had now for many years given many proofs of their
obduracy, God summoned the Rechabites as witnesses, who, by their example,
proved that the Jews were inexcusable for being so rebellious and disobedient to the
commands of the Prophet.
EBC, “THIS incident is dated "in the days of Jehoiakim." We learn from Jer_35:11 that
it happened at a time when the open country of Judah was threatened by the advance of
Nebuchadnezzar with a Chaldean and Syrian army. If Nebuchadnezzar marched into the
south of Palestine immediately after the battle of Carchemish, the incident may have
happened, as some suggest, in the eventful fourth year of Jehoiakim; or if he did not
appear in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem till after he had taken over the royal authority
at Babylon, Jeremiah’s interview with the Rechabites may have followed pretty closely
upon the destruction of Baruch’s roll. But we need not press the words "Nebuchadnezzar
came up into the land"; they may only mean that Judah was invaded by an army acting
under his orders. The mention of Chaldeans and Assyrians suggests that this invasion is
the same as that mentioned in 2Ki_24:1-2, where we are told that Jehoiakim served
Nebuchadnezzar three years and then rebelled against him, whereupon Jehovah sent
against him bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, and sent them
against Judah to destroy it. If this is the invasion referred to in our chapter it falls
towards the end of Jehoiakim’s reign, and sufficient time had elapsed to allow the king’s
anger against Jeremiah to cool, so that the prophet could venture out of his hiding place.
The marauding bands of Chaldeans and their allies had driven the country people in
crowds into Jerusalem, and among them the nomad clan of the Rechabites. According to
1Ch_2:55, the Rechabites traced their descent to a certain Hemath, and were a branch of
the Kenites, an Edomite tribe dwelling for the most part in the south of Palestine. These
Kenites had maintained an ancient and intimate alliance with Judah, and in time the
allies virtually became a single people, so that after the Return from the Captivity all
distinction of race between Kenites and Jews was forgotten, and the Kenites were
reckoned among the families of Israel. In this fusion of their tribe with Judah, the
Rechabite clan would be included. It is clear from all the references both to Kenites and
to Rechabites that they had adopted the religion of Israel and worshipped Jehovah. We
know nothing else of the early history of the Rechabites. The statement in Chronicles
that the father of the house of Rechab was Hemath perhaps points to their having been
at one time settled at some place called Hemath near Jabez in Judah. Possibly too
Rechab, which means "rider," is not a personal name, but a designation of the clan as
horsemen of the desert.
MOODY'S TODAY IN THE WORD, "Every culture has had
countercultural groups. Hasidic Jews retain a lifestyle distinct from
other Jews; the Amish maintain an agricultural, nonmodern, way of
4

5. living; and monks take vows of poverty and chastity for life. In a
flashback to the beginning of the Babylonian invasion, Jeremiah 35
presents a similar group in Judah: the Rekabites.
We don’t know much about the Rekabites. Their clan would not drink
wine, build houses, or settle in the land. They led a nomadic lifestyle
because their forefather had commanded them to do so. Many
commentators understand these self-imposed vows as their own
religious expression about God, connecting a settled, agricultural
lifestyle with Canaanite Baal worship. At least from 2 Kings 10:15–17
we know that their ancestor Jonadab was staunchly opposed to Baal
worship.
The importance of the Rekabite illustration had to do with their
generational faithfulness to the vows. Even when Jeremiah invited them
to the temple and offered them large bowls of wine, they refused to
drink, citing their longstanding tradition and the command from
Jonadab. Their spokesman explained that since that time, none of them
had violated their way of life, and the only reason they were in
Jerusalem was to escape the invading armies of Babylon.
God used this group as an indictment of Judah’s lack of obedience. The
argument moved from the lesser to the greater. If the Rekabites had
obeyed a smaller, human command faithfully for generations, why had
Judah not obeyed far more important commands from God Himself,
even after the repeated reminders from the prophets? As a result, God
promised punishment for Judah’s generational faithlessness and
blessing for the steadfast Rekabites."
COFFMAN, "Verse 1
JEREMIAH 35
THE EXAMPLE OF THE RECHABITES
The findings of a number of scholars regarding the date of this chapter are as
follows: Robinson dated it in 598 B.C. ;[1] John Bright dated it in 603 B.C.;[2]
Thompson placed it in 601 B.C.;[3] and Cheyne dated it in the summer of 606
B.C.[4] The conviction of this writer is that men do not really know exactly when it
was written and that the exact date is not necessary anyway. Payne Smith did not
offer a precise date but stated that, "The date lies between that of the Battle of
5

6. Carchemish and the appearance of Nebuchadnezzar at Jerusalem."[5] Wiseman
noted that chronologically, the chapter follows Jeremiah 25.[6] This example of the
Rechabites, therefore, occurred some 12-17 years earlier than the events of the last
chapter.
REGARDING THE RECHABITES
These were a branch of the Kenites, who were related to Jethro (Hobab), the father-
in-law of Moses.[7] They followed the children of Israel into Canaan and continued
to live among them as devoted worshippers of Jehovah. The Rechabites mentioned
here were descendants of that Jonadab (the son of Rechab) who had enthusiastically
aided Jehu in the overthrow of Ahab and the Baalim religion (2 Kings 10:13-23).
Jonadab was the founder of this puritanical group called the Rechabites. He
commanded his posterity after him against the drinking of wine, the building of
houses, or the ownership or cultivation of vineyards, thus committing the group to a
nomadic life. His motives in the establishment of such an order seem to have been:
(1) that of maintaining the mobility of the group in case of difficulties or attack by
enemies, and (2) that of cultivating an austere lifestyle opposed to the comforts,
luxuries, and vices of civilization. Their attitude toward the culture that began to
flourish in Canaan following its habitation by Israel seems to have been well
expressed by Plumptre.
"Not for you the life
Of sloth and ease within the city's gates,
Where idol-feasts are held, and incense smokes
To Baalim and Ashtaroth; where men
Lose their manhood, and the scoffers sit
Perverting judgment, selfish, soft, impure."[8]
The event in this chapter took place some 250 years after Jonadab had founded his
group; and, amazingly, the whole group had remained faithful to his orders. They
lived in black tents; and when the approach of the Babylonian armies frightened
them into moving into Jerusalem in the hope pf greater protection, the appearance
of all those black tents within the city must have been a rather sensational sight. It
provided a wonderful opportunity to show the rebellious children of Israel an
excellent example of obedience and loyalty.
Jeremiah 35:1-5
"The word which came unto Jeremiah from Jehovah in the days of Jehoiachim the
6

7. son of Josiah, saying, Go unto the house of the Rechabites, and speak unto them,
and bring them into the house of Jehovah, into one of the chambers, and give them
wine to drink. Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Habazziniah, and his brethren, and
all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites; and I brought them into the
house of Jehovah, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the
man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes, which was above the
chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the threshold. And I set
before the sons of the house of the Rechabites bowls full of wine, and cups; and I
said unto them, Drink ye wine."
"The house of the Rechabites ... the house of Jehovah ..." (Jeremiah 35:2,4). Here is
an example of the way in which the same word has multiple meanings. In the case of
the Rechabites, the reference is to their group; but in the case of the temple it refers
to a literal building.
Of the persons whose names are given in Jeremiah 35:3, Ash declared that "nothing
is known."[9]
"Into the chamber of the sons of Hanan ..." (Jeremiah 35:4). By reason of Haman's
having a chamber in the Temple itself, and his being called, "the man of God," it is
supposed that he was a prophet, "his sons" being a reference to his disciples. The
fact that the whole house of the Rechabites, or at least, representatives of all their
families could be seated in a single chamber indicates that the whole number of that
community was probably not very large. "The fact that he lent this room to
Jeremiah for the purpose of this meeting indicates a measure of sympathy with the
prophet."[10]
"I said unto them, Drink ye wine ..." (Jeremiah 35:5). By the inspiration of God,
Jeremiah already knew what the outcome of this test would be. He did not
command them to drink wine but politely offered it to them, making it available in
sufficient quantifies to allow all to have plenty.
The force of this temptation was reinforced by the fact of the group's having been
signally honored by this reception in the Temple itself, and by the famed prophet
Jeremiah himself having been the one who offered it.
Note also that their dwelling in Jerusalem at this time did not mean that they had
violated the ancestral order not to live in houses, a violation which some of the
group might have been forced into by reason of the shortage of space to pitch tents
within Jerusalem. The very fact that one of the ancestral tenets might have been
being violated at this time would have also added to the temptation to drink wine.
Once a rule of conduct is broken in a single particular, it is easier to break it in
another.
Beyond this, there was the fact of their being in strange circumstances in a city not
their own. Matthew Henry noted that the very situation suggested: "Go ahead and
7

8. drink wine. It's free. You have broken one rule of your order by moving into
Jerusalem, why may you not break this rule also?"[11] Who has not heard
exclamations such as, "Well, everyone is doing it!" or "When in Rome, do as Rome
does!"
"The keeper of the threshold ..." (Jeremiah 35:4). "There were three of these
keepers in the Temple, answering to the outer and inner courts of the Temple, and
to the entrance of the Temple itself. These were officers of high rank, having
precedence next to the High Priest and his deputy."[12]
TRAPP, "Verse 1
Jeremiah 35:1 The word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD in the days of
Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying,
Ver. 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.] The eighteenth sermon,
ordine tamen arbitario non naturali, delivered various years before the former, and
here placed, not in its proper order, but as it pleased him that collected them into
this book.
EXPOSITOR,S BIBLE COMMENTARY, "THE RECHABITES
Jeremiah 35:1-19
"Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before Me forever."-
Jeremiah 35:19
THIS incident is dated "in the days of Jehoiakim." We learn from Jeremiah 35:11
that it happened at a time when the open country of Judah was threatened by the
advance of Nebuchadnezzar with a Chaldean and Syrian army. If Nebuchadnezzar
marched into the south of Palestine immediately after the battle of Carchemish, the
incident may have happened, as some suggest, in the eventful fourth year of
Jehoiakim; or if he did not appear in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem till after he
had taken over the royal authority at Babylon, Jeremiah’s interview with the
Rechabites may have followed pretty closely upon the destruction of Baruch’s roll.
But we need not press the words "Nebuchadnezzar came up into the land"; they
may only mean that Judah was invaded by an army acting under his orders. The
mention of Chaldeans and Assyrians suggests that this invasion is the same as that
mentioned in 2 Kings 24:1-2, where we are told that Jehoiakim served
Nebuchadnezzar three years and then rebelled against him, whereupon Jehovah
sent against him bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, and sent
them against Judah to destroy it. If this is the invasion referred to in our chapter it
falls towards the end of Jehoiakim’s reign, and sufficient time had elapsed to allow
the king’s anger against Jeremiah to cool, so that the prophet could venture out of
his hiding place.
8

9. The marauding bands of Chaldeans and their allies had driven the country people
in crowds into Jerusalem, and among them the nomad clan of the Rechabites.
According to 1 Chronicles 2:55, the Rechabites traced their descent to a certain
Hemath, and were a branch of the Kenites, an Edomite tribe dwelling for the most
part in the south of Palestine. These Kenites had maintained an ancient and intimate
alliance with Judah, and in time the allies virtually became a single people, so that
after the Return from the Captivity all distinction of race between Kenites and Jews
was forgotten, and the Kenites were reckoned among the families of Israel. In this
fusion of their tribe with Judah, the Rechabite clan would be included. It is clear
from all the references both to Kenites and to Rechabites that they had adopted the
religion of Israel and worshipped Jehovah. We know nothing else of the early
history of the Rechabites. The statement in Chronicles that the father of the house of
Rechab was Hemath perhaps points to their having been at one time settled at some
place called Hemath near Jabez in Judah. Possibly too Rechab, which means
"rider," is not a personal name, but a designation of the clan as horsemen of the
desert.
These Rechabites were conspicuous among the Jewish farmers and townsfolk by
their rigid adherence to the habits of nomad life; and it was this peculiarity that
attracted the notice of Jeremiah, and made them a suitable object lesson to the
recreant Jews. The traditional customs of the clan had been formulated into positive
commands by Jonadab, the son of Rechab, i.e., the Rechabite. This must be the same
Jonadab who cooperated with Jehu in overthrowing the house of Omri and
suppressing the worship of Baal. Jehu’s reforms concluded the long struggle of
Elijah and Elisha against the house of Omri and its half-heathen religion. Hence we
may infer that Jonadab and his Rechabites had come under the influence of these
great prophets, and that their social and religious condition was one result of
Elijah’s work. Jeremiah stood in the true line of succession from the northern
prophets in his attitude towards religion and politics; so that there would be bonds
of sympathy between him and these nomad refugees.
The laws or customs of Jonadab, like the Ten Commandments, were chiefly
negative: "Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons forever: neither shall ye
build houses, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyards, nor have any: but all your days ye
shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days in the land wherein ye are
strangers."
Various parallels have been found to the customs of the Rechabites. The Hebrew
Nazarites abstained from wine and strong drink, from grapes and grape juice and
everything made of the vine, "from the kernels even to the husk." [Numbers 6:2]
Mohammed forbade his followers to drink any sort of wine or strong drink. But the
closest parallel is one often quoted from Diodorus Siculus, (19:94) who, writing
about B.C. 8, tells us that the Nabatean Arabs were prohibited under the penalty of
death from sowing corn or planting fruit trees, using wine, or building houses. Such
abstinence is not primarily ascetic; it expresses the universal contempt of the
wandering hunter and herdsman for tillers of the ground, who are tied to one small
9

10. spot of earth, and for burghers, who further imprison themselves in narrow houses
and behind city walls. The nomad has a not altogether unfounded instinct that such
acceptance of material restraints emasculates both soul and body. A remarkable
parallel to the laws of Jonadab ben Rechab is found in the injunctions of the dying
highlander, Ranald of the Mist, to his heir: "Son of the Mist, be free as thy
forefathers. Own no lord-receive no law-take no hire-give no stipend-build no hut-
enclose no pasture-sow no grain." The Rechabite faith in the higher moral value of
their primitive habits had survived their alliance with Israel, and Jonadab did his
best to protect his clan from the taint of city life and settled civilisation. Abstinence
from wine was not enjoined chiefly, if at all, to guard against intoxication, but
because the fascinations of the grape might tempt the clan to plant vineyards, or, at
any rate, would make them dangerously dependent upon vine dressers and wine
merchants.
Till this recent invasion, the Rechabites had faithfully observed their ancestral laws,
but the stress of circumstances had now driven them into a fortified city, possibly
even into houses, though it is more probable that they were encamped in some open
space within the walls. Jeremiah was commanded to go and bring them into the
Temple, that is, into one of the rooms in the Temple buildings, and offer them wine.
The narrative proceeds in the first person, "I took Jaazaniah," so that the chapter
will have been composed by the prophet himself. In somewhat legal fashion he tells
us how he took "Jaazaniah ben Jeremiah, ben Habaziniah, and his brethren, and all
his sons, and all the clan of the Rechabites." All three names are compounded of the
Divine name Iah, Jehovah, and serve to emphasise the devotion of the clan to the
God of Israel. It is a curious coincidence that the somewhat rare name Jeremiah
should occur twice in this connection. The room to which the prophet took his
friends is described as the chamber of the disciples of the man of God Hanan ben
Igdaliah, which was by the chamber of the princes, which was above the chamber of
the keeper of the threshold, Maaseiah ben Shallum. Such minute details probably
indicate that this chapter was committed to writing while these buildings were still
standing and still had the same occupants as at the time of this incident, but to us
the topography is unintelligible. The "man of God" or prophet Hanan was evidently
in sympathy with Jeremiah, and had a following of disciples who formed a sort of
school of the prophets, and were a sufficiently permanent body to have a chamber
assigned to them in the Temple buildings. The keepers of the threshold were Temple
officials of high standing. The "princes" may have been the princes of Judah, who
might very well have a chamber in the Temple courts; but the term is general, and
may simply refer to other Temple officials. Hanan’s disciples seem to have been in
good company.
These exact specifications of person and place are probably designed to give a
certain legal solemnity and importance to the incident, and seem to warrant us in
rejecting Reuss’ suggestion that our narrative is simply an elaborate prophetic
figure.
After these details Jeremiah next tells us how he set before his guests bowls of wine
10

11. and cups, and invited them to drink. Probably Jaazaniah and his clansmen were
aware that the scene was intended to have symbolic religious significance. They
would not suppose that the prophet had invited them all, in this solemn fashion,
merely to take a cup of wine; and they would welcome an opportunity of showing
their loyalty to their own peculiar customs. They said: "We will drink no wine: for
our father Jonadab the son of Rechab commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no
wine, neither ye nor your sons forever." They further recounted Jonadab’s other
commands and their own scrupulous obedience in every point, except that now they
had been compelled to seek refuge in a walled city. Then the word of Jehovah came
unto Jeremiah; he was commanded to make yet another appeal to the Jews, by
contrasting their disobedience with the fidelity of the Rechabites. The Divine King
and Father of Israel had been untiring in His instruction and admonitions: "I have
spoken unto you, rising up early and speaking." He had addressed them in familiar
fashion through their fellow countrymen: "I have sent also unto you all My servants
the prophets, rising up early and sending them." Yet they had not hearkened unto
the God of Israel or His prophets. The Rechabites had received no special
revelation; they had not been appealed to by numerous prophets. Their Torah had
been simply given them by their father Jonadab; nevertheless the commands of
Jonadab had been regarded and those of Jehovah had been treated with contempt.
Obedience and disobedience would bring forth their natural fruit. "I will bring
upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, all the evil that I have
pronounced against them: because I have spoken unto them, but they have not
heard; and I have called unto them, but they have not answered." But because the
Rechabites obeyed the commandment of their father Jonadab, "Therefore thus saith
Jehovah Sabaoth, Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before
Me forever."
Jehovah’s approval of the obedience of the Rechabites is quite independent of the
specific commands which they obeyed. It does not bind us to abstain from wine any
more than from building houses and sowing seed. Jeremiah himself, for instance,
would have had no more hesitation in drinking wine than in sowing his field at
Anathoth. The tribal customs of the Rechabites had no authority whatever over
him. Nor is it exactly his object to set forth their merit of obedience and its certain
and great reward. These truths are rather touched upon incidentally. What
Jeremiah seeks to emphasise is the gross, extreme, unique wickedness of Israel’s
disobedience. Jehovah had not looked for any special virtue in His people. His
Torah was not made up of counsels of perfection. He had only expected the loyalty
that Moab paid to Chemosh, and Tyre and Sidon to Baal. He would have been
satisfied if Israel had observed His laws as faithfully as the nomads of the desert
kept up their ancestral habits. Jehovah had spoken through Jeremiah long ago and
said: "Pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider
diligently, and see if there be any such thing. Hath a nation changed their gods,
which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth
not profit." [Jeremiah 2:11] Centuries later Christ found Himself constrained to
upbraid the cities of Israel, "wherein most of His mighty works were done" "Woe
11

12. unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were
done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in
sackcloth and ashes. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of
judgment than for you." [Matthew 11:21-22] And again and again in the history of
the Church the Holy Spirit has been grieved because those who profess and call
themselves Christians, and claim to prophesy and do many mighty works in the
name of Christ, are less loyal to the gospel than the heathen to their own
superstitions.
Buddhists and Mohammedans have been held up as modern examples to rebuke the
Church, though as a rule with scant justification. Perhaps material for a more
relevant contrast may be found nearer home. Christian societies have been charged
with conducting their affairs by methods to which a respectable business firm would
not stoop; they are said to be less scrupulous in their dealings and less chivalrous in
their honour than the devotees of pleasure; at their gatherings they are sometimes
supposed to lack the mutual courtesy of members of a Legislature or a Chamber of
Commerce. The history of councils and synods and Church meetings gives colour to
such charges, which could never have been made if Christians had been as jealous
for the Name of Christ as a merchant is for his credit or a soldier for his honour.
And yet these contrasts do not argue any real moral and religious superiority of the
Rechabites over the Jews or of unbelievers over professing Christians. It was
comparatively easy to abstain from wine and to wander over wide pasture lands
instead of living cooped up in cities-far easier than to attain to the great ideals of
Deuteronomy and the prophets. It is always easier to conform to the code of
business and society than to live according to the Spirit of Christ. The fatal sin of
Judah was not that it fell so far short of the ideals, but that it repudiated them. So
long as we lament our own failures and still cling to the Name and Faith of Christ,
we are not shut out from mercy; our supreme sin is to crucify Christ afresh, by
denying the power of His gospel, while we retain its empty form.
The reward promised to the Rechabites for their obedience was that "Jonadab the
son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before Me forever"; to stand before
Jehovah is often used to describe the exercise of priestly or prophetic ministry. It
has been suggested that the Rechabites were hereby promoted to the status of the
true Israel, "a kingdom of priests"; but this phrase may merely mean that their clan
should continue in existence. Loyal observance of national law, the subordination of
individual caprice and selfishness to the interests of the community, make up a large
part of that righteousness that establisheth a nation.
Here, as elsewhere, students of prophecy have been anxious to discover some literal
fulfilment; and have searched curiously for any trace of the continued existence of
the Rechabites. The notice in Chronicles implies that they formed part of the Jewish
community of the Restoration. Apparently Alexandrian Jews were acquainted with
Rechabites at a still later date. Psalms 71:1-24 is ascribed by the Septuagint to "the
sons of Jonadab." Eusebius mentions "priests of the sons of Rechab," and Benjamin
12

13. of Tudela, a Jewish traveller of the twelfth century, states that he met with them in
Arabia. More recent travellers have thought that they discovered the descendants of
Rechab amongst the nomads in Arabia or the Peninsula of Sinai that still practised
the old ancestral customs.
But the fidelity of Jehovah to his promises does not depend upon our unearthing
obscure tribes in distant deserts. The gifts of God are without repentance, but they
have their inexorable conditions; no nation can flourish for centuries on the virtues
of its ancestors. The Rechabites may have vanished in the ordinary stream of
history, and yet we can hold that Jeremiah’s prediction has been fulfilled and is still
being fulfilled. No scriptural prophecy is limited in its application to an individual
or a race, and every nation possessed by the spirit of true patriotism shall "stand
before Jehovah forever."
PARKER, " The Rechabites
Jeremiah 35
This part of the prophecy takes us back to the earlier years of Jeremiah"s life and
work. Jerusalem had not been besieged, and Jehoiakim the king had not filled up
the cup of his iniquity. The Lord wished to read the king and the people of Judah a
solemn lesson; and he preferred to do so by way of example rather than by way of
precept. He took what to us appears to be an extraordinary course; but the issue
proved that the course which the Almighty adopted was fraught with the very lesson
which infinite wisdom intended to apply in all its breadth and pungency to the
disobedient kingdom. The Rechabites drank no wine. This was one of the
characteristics of the house or family of Rechab. It was a well-known characteristic.
By the necessity of the case it was patent to God. Yet what did God do? He sent a
strange message by the mouth of the prophet; he said,—
"Go unto the house of the Rechabites, and speak unto them, and bring them into the
house of the Lord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink"
( Jeremiah 35:2).
We may well pause here a moment and quicken our vision, that we may read the
strange words once more to make ourselves quite sure they are what they first
sounded like. Did the Lord make a proposal to total abstainers to drink wine? Did
he send for them to a kind of wine festival? Is this the meaning of the Lord"s
Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation"? Will he try the nostrils of the Rechabites
with the perfume of wine? This is strange. We gain nothing by slurring over the
difficulty; let us face it, consider it, and act wisely concerning it.
Is not the Lord always thus leading men into temptation?—not in the patent and
vulgar sense in which that term is generally understood, but in a sense which
signifies drill, the application of discipline, the testing of principles and purposes
and character? Is not all life a temptation? Does not every day dawn in order that
13

14. we may be tempted once more? and when the darkness comes, is it not that we may
have a larger sphere in which to feel the pressure of the devil? The words are
exactly as we have quoted them;—"Bring them into the house of the Lord, into one
of the chambers, and give them wine to drink." Was not this hard? But, then, all life
is hard. You can never look at another human being without having a chance to
wrong him. There is nothing easy in life. One boy cannot sit next to another without
being tempted to do something that is unlawful. Society is a school, a drill-house, a
fiery furnace. It is a fearful thing to live! If we have by some jugglery come into
easiness of relations, it may be because we have quelled the voice of great
convictions, because we have undertaken to live a life that shall be undistinguished
by the action of great principles. We may only have escaped temptation because we
have run into folly. The Lord tries every man.
There need be no hesitation in offering the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation."
People have tried to soften the words. They have said instead of "lead" "leave us not
in temptation"; but these are the annotations of inexperience and folly, or
superficiality. Every man goes through hell to heaven, if he goes at all; some linger
there; some never escape from the pit of perdition. We are not men until we have
been thus moulded, tried, qualified. We can do little for one another in that pit of
temptation. There is no comfort so discomforting as that of superficial consolation.
We cannot be healed by maxims, because the maxims themselves are burned up in
the furnace in which our life is being scorched. Exhortation goes but a little way in
the agony of life. We must be left with God. There is one Refiner; he sits over the
furnace, and when the fire has done enough he quenches the cruel flame. Think it
no strange thing that temptation hath befallen you; yea, think it not strange that
God himself has given you opportunities by which you may be burned. He never
gives such an opportunity without giving something else. Alas, how often we see the
opportunity and not the sustaining grace! It is useless, and worse than useless, it is
quite a sceptic-making business, to evade the difficulties of Scripture and of life; we
must look at them, and where we have not time in one brief day to adjust and
determine them we must ask for larger time. The question cannot be settled either
way by superficial thought. We must remember this, because it is supposed
evidently by some that a denial establishes everything, and assertion or affirmation
establishes nothing. If the affirmation cannot be instantly proven to the utmost point
of satisfaction, the denial must also take its time for being searched and tested and
weighed in the scales of adequate experience.
The drinking of wine in this case was to be done in "the house of the Lord." Now
light begins to dawn. How thankful we are for one little pale ray of light when the
darkness has been a sevenfold midnight! Not only is there wine to be drunk, but if
drunk it is to be drunk in the house of the Lord. Mark the limitations of our
temptation. The Lord is never absent from his house. If we will choose the sphere of
temptation, then let us not blame God if we fall into a snare; if we will persist in
trying ourselves, be not amazed if such self-temptation should end in suicide; if we
say we will choose the open field without historical association or tradition, without
religious sanctions, consolations, or sustaining thoughts, then we shall be brought
14

15. home dead men: if God will choose the temptation, and choose the place of its
application, and himself preside over the tremendous conflict, we may be more than
conquerors. Here is no encouragement to men who place themselves in
circumstances of temptation, who put themselves in the way of the devil, and beckon
him with uplifted finger that he would come and work his will. Always carefully
distinguish between the temptations of a truly beneficent providence and the
temptations which men bring upon themselves, and the temptations with which men
needlessly put their own fortitude to test. Let God tempt me, and he will also save
me; let him invite me into his own house, that there under a roof beautiful as heaven
he may work his will upon me, and afterwards I shall stand up, higher in stature,
broader in manhood, truer in the metal of the Spirit.
Observe the details of this mysterious operation. The men who were taken were
proved men:—
"Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah , the son of Habaziniah, and his
brethren, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites" ( Jeremiah 35:3).
When the Lord calls for giants to fight his battle and show the strength of his grace,
they are chosen men. The Lord knows the result before the process begins. The
Lord never fails in any miracle. No work of his has been left half finished because
Almightiness gave up—because Omnipotence shrank through want of strength from
the completion of the design. All these men were conspicuous witnesses for the
truth: they were identified with the faith of Israel; they were the trustees of the
morality of society. It is so in all ages. There are certain men whom we may
denominate our stewards, trustees, representatives; as for ourselves, we say, it is not
safe to trust us; we are weaker than a bruised reed; we cannot stand great public
ordeals; we were not meant to be illustrations of moral fortitude: spare us from the
agony of such trial! There are other men in society whom God himself can trust. He
might even allow the devil to work almost all his infernal will upon them. There are
Jobs that can be brought almost to hell, but cannot be thrown in. If certain men
could fail, society itself might collapse, saying, Human life has been defeated, and
divine purposes have been dragged down into humiliation and disgrace. But certain
men are fireproof; the inflexibility of their will is the strength of social life. Some
could never lift up their heads again if men who could be named in Church and
State were to fall from their moral supremacy. What could the fir tree do after the
cedar had fallen? What could the little stars do when the morning star had slipped
its foot and fallen out of the palace of the heavens? It would seem as if God looked
for much from some of us; as if, speaking reverently, he were dependent upon us for
his own reputation in human history. Are there none that will abide in the day of
trial? Is the Lord to be utterly deserted by the creatures whom he made in his own
image and likeness? Is not one man to be found who will magnify the grace of God,
saying, But for the grace of God I should have fallen: grace triumphs over
weakness; grace makes the frailest strong; by the grace of God I am what I am?
When such trial can be so borne, the fact becomes argument, and the argument is of
that concrete, direct, and conclusive kind which the most skilful disputant can
15

16. neither answer nor evade. In this way we have it in our power to magnify God, and
to show how great is his grace.
What did the sons of Rechab say? "And I set before the sons of the house of the
Rechabites pots full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them, Drink ye wine. But
they said"—here is the critical point—"But they said, So be it: there can be nothing
wrong in following the finger of Providence: we have thirsted for this poison, now
give us enough of it; we are well curtained in, the walls are thick, no eye can
penetrate them; the windows are high up, there can be no overlookers: fill up the
vessel, and see how strong men can drink." The story does not read Song of
Solomon , but thus: "But they said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of
Rechab our father commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor
your sons for ever" ( Jeremiah 35:6). Herein is a strange thing, that children should
obey the voice of a dead father. Yet this is a most pleasing contention; this is an
argument softened by pathos. The men stood up, and did not speak in their own
name; they said, We be the sons of a certain Prayer of Manasseh , who gave a
certain law, and by that law we will live, and ever will live. "Honour thy father and
thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee." The trial took place in the chamber of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah,
a man of God, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah. The father of Maaseiah
was Shallum, who was the husband of Huldah the prophetess, who had taken an
active part in the reformation wrought in the reign of Josiah. So all these were so
many guarantees of probity, and strength, and success. There will be no evil
wrought in that chamber! Not only are the Rechabites there, but their fathers are
with them in spirit. A man should never be left alone; all his best antecedents should
be round about him; voices cheering him in right ways, Benjamins comforting him
in sudden distresses. Though our fathers, physical and spiritual, be dead, yet they
may live with us in the spirit, and may go with us and sustain us in all the trials and
difficulties of life. Our fathers cannot die. The sense in which men die is the
narrowest of all interpretations of human history. When the father is dead he is
nearer to us than ever he could be whilst he lived: we know not what power of vision
he has now; we cannot tell how he operates upon the soul that looks for heavenly
help; we know not what tracks he may make in the pathless darkness: here we stand
in mystery, but we know that there is something which sustains and animates and
strengthens us when the battle is at its sorest point.
"We will drink no wine." Note the definiteness of the answer. No inquiry is made
about the kind of wine that was supplied. Always particularly beware of those wines
which are warranted not to intoxicate. They are not wines at all if they do not
intoxicate. And they lead up to wines that will make you drunk. There is probably
hardly any man who is doing more harm to the world than the man who thinks he
can cheat the devil by changing a label. God has poured out all the wine we want: let
us drink it from its fountains, and we shall be wise and strong. "We will drink no
wine." Men are saved by their definiteness. A strong, proud, decisive answer is the
true reply to all temptation. An oath that strikes as with a fist of iron, a denial that
is like a long sharp two-edged sword,—these must be our policies and watchwords
16

17. in the time of danger.
The reason is given:—
"For Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink
no wine, neither ye, nor your sons for ever" ( Jeremiah 35:6).
It is a filial argument. Good advice is not always thrown away; and men should
remember that though exhortation may be rejected for a long time, yet there are
periods when it may recur to the memory and come upon the whole life like a
blessing sent from God. Noble exhortation must not be spared from human speech.
The preacher may be well aware that every exhortation he utters will be thrown
back upon him, and yet by the grace of God he has learned the mystery of patience;
so he can say to his soul, The people will remember this exhortation some other day;
they will cut themselves with severest reproaches because of their neglect, and in the
day of their necessity they will apply to themselves many a rejected discourse. The
argument is a fortiori. The Lord has shown how the sons of Jonadab can refuse
wine: now he will take this example and apply it to the whole host of Judah, and he
will say, See what one section of your country can do; if they can do this, why
cannot you be equally loyal and true? why cannot you be equally obedient to the
spirit of righteousness? for three hundred years this bond has been kept in this
family; never once has it been violated: if one family can do this, why not a thousand
families? if one section of the country, why not the whole nation? This was God"s
method of applying truth to those who needed it. Thus we teach one another. One
boy can be obedient: why not all boys? One soul can be faithful: why not all souls?
If it had been proved impossible to keep any of the laws of God by any human
creature, then the criticism would have been not only practical but final. Where one
man can keep the law all men can keep it. This is the very argument of the history.
The incident that has taken place in the little chamber connected with the house of
God will be enlarged into a great national appeal. This is the use which God makes
of every individual experience. This is the true use of history. Without such
applications as these history would be lost upon us. God in his providence says: See
what others can do, and as they toil and climb and succeed in reaching the highest
point, so do ye follow them: the grace that made them succeed will not fail you in the
hour of your trial and difficulty. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Modern Rechabites should remember that they are only obeying one part of the
pledge. It must not be forgotten that the pledge was a comprehensive one:—
"Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons for ever: neither shall ye build
house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any: but all your days ye shall
dwell in tents; that ye may live many days in the land where ye be strangers"
( Jeremiah 35:6-7).
Is it not desirable that we should keep a whole pledge, or that we should at least say
that we limit our pledge to such and such sections? Let us be careful of a partial
17

18. obedience. The lesson here goes further than it would seem at first sight to do. A
man must not claim to be a Bible moralist because he keeps two of the Ten
Commandments. A man ought to be careful to liberate Rechab from all
responsibility in relation to his action beyond the one point which is claimed as a
point of analogy. When modern Rechabs drink no wine, but build houses and
abandon tents, they should say clearly that they are obeying the Rechab vow in one
respect only. It is of no consequence in the local incident, for Rechab is dead, but it
is of infinite consequence in all the broader paths and bearings of morality. We do
not follow Christ because we wear a crucifix; we are not Christian martyrs because
we put ourselves or are put to occasional inconvenience of a very superficial kind;
we do not keep the Ten Commandments because we obey the first Jesus Christ does
not call us to a partial pledge. Upon this he is very severe; both himself and his
Apostles teach that if we offend in one point we offend in all. If we have
dishonoured our father and our mother, we have broken ten commandments in one;
if we have taken that which does not belong to us, we have shattered the decalogue
at a blow. Beware of partial morality, sectional respectability, rags and patches of
orthodoxy. There are hardly any civilised men who are not apparently good in
points. Some have pet commandments which they would not break for the world.
Almost every man has chosen one commandment, and thinks in keeping that he is
keeping the ten. There are persons who would not, could not steal; yet they would
break all the other nine commandments as quickly as they could be handed to them.
This is not obedience; this is the worst kind of disobedience. The man who will have
nothing to do with the commandments at all may take to himself some kind of
reputation for grim consistency; but he who palters with pledges, and histories, and
vows, and moralities, pleases himself, and is not exemplifying a spirit of
unquestioning obedience. How, then, does it stand with us today? We cannot rid
men of this sophism, that to do one good thing is to have at least so much reputation
for goodness. The Lord reasons in precisely the contrary way: it is because we can
do one thing, and do not do the rest, that he blames us. He never blames the man
who wants to keep all his law, who is conscious of failure, and who says nightly,
Lord, I have done it again; yea, I have played the fool before high heaven; I have
grieved thy Spirit; and yet this night I am filled with bitterness and tears, and
broken down with contrition, and thou knowest this night, though I am not worthy
to look at anything thy hands have made, I love thee: it is a strange love, a love
which no mortal imagination could conceive or understand, yet here it is; Lord,
thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I would keep the commandments if I
could, thou knowest that I love thee. Heaven never shut its door in the face of such a
suppliant.
The Lord has promised in these words:—
"Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Jonadab the son of
Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever" ( Jeremiah 35:19).
What is the meaning of that expression? Does it mean that there would be a mere
continuance of the family life of the house? Certainly not. Standing before God has
18

19. a priestly significance. Whenever you find this expression in the Bible, you find that
the Lord has chosen this line of men out of which to bring those who shall serve
before him in a priestly function. The Lord has made it clear that he will proceed
along a moral basis. "Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord." He will have it
understood that obedience is the root of priesthood; it must be known that character
is the basis of every true ministry; it must be written in stars, in lightnings, that they
have no right to be in God"s house who are not in God"s spirit. We cannot be
brought up to this office; assigned to it by some gracious father or mother, thrust
into it by some official power; dignified with it as by a kind of family heraldry: we
are in God"s house because we love God"s law; we are in spiritual offices because
we are in spiritual relations; if we have not obeyed the Lord, though we have the
tongue of men and of angels, we are become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.
He is priest who is obedient. Only he is mighty to the pulling down of the
strongholds of Satan who is already himself destroyed by the power of God, and
reconstructed by the grace of Christ.
PETT, "Verses 1-11
Jeremiah Call The Rechabites To A Gathering And Offers Them Wine (Jeremiah
35:1-11).
Jeremiah 35:1
‘The word which came to Jeremiah from YHWH in the days of Jehoiakim the son of
Josiah, king of Judah, saying,’
Here YHWH had sent His word through Jeremiah ‘in the days of Jehoiakim’. The
time note is deliberately general and not specific. It is emphasising that the
disobedience being described was common throughout the reign of Jehoiakim.
PETT, "Verses 1-19
The Rechabites Are Held Up As An Example Of Obedience To Their Father
(Jeremiah 35:1-19).
Commencing with the words, ‘The word which came to Jeremiah from YHWH in
the days of Jehoiakim,’ the passage demonstrates that YHWH was using the
example of the Rechabites as an illustration of the obedience which was the very
opposite of Judah’s disobedience, a disobedience which would result in judgment
coming on Judah and Jerusalem. The fact that the Rechabites had continually from
generation to generation, for over two hundred and fifty years, faithfully followed
the requirements of their father concerning their way of life, is contrasted with the
way in which God’s supposed people had treated their Father and His requirements
for their way of life (see Jeremiah 31:9; Jeremiah 31:20). As in the last passage the
idea is once again to bring out their overall disobedience.
19

20. The Rechabites were related to the Kenites (1 Chronicles 2:55), a wilderness tribe
who had joined up with Israel while they were making their journey from Egypt to
Canaan (Judges 1:16; Judges 4:11; Numbers 10:29-32), and in obedience to their
tribal father’s requirements they had refused to settle in cities, but had lived in tents
and had abstained from all forms of wine and strong liqueur. Nor had they engaged
in settled agriculture. Their aim had been to maintain their wilderness traditions
and not to become contaminated by ‘civilisation’ and idolatry. Indeed the only
reason that they were in Jerusalem at all was because they were seeking refuge there
from the invading Babylonians and Aramaeans (Syrians).
As the invasion described here was in the days of Jehoiakim, it could not have been
the one occurring during the final days of Judah. It was thus referring to a previous
invasion by Nebuchadnezzar when he had specifically called on Aramaean forces. It
could have been the invasion of 606/605 BC after Nebuchadnezzar had defeated the
Egyptians at Carchemish and Hamath, but more likely it is the one later in the days
of Jehoiakim when Jehoiakim had withheld tribute (2 Kings 24:1-2).
The ancestor of the Rechabites, Jonadab, had in the past demonstrated their fierce
loyalty to YHWH when he had supported Jehu in destroying all the worshippers of
Baal (2 Kings 10:15-27).
As previously in chapters 21-24 events which took place in the reign of Jehoiakim
and other kings are here sandwiched between two passages referring to the reign of
Zedekiah, the aim being to bring out that the final invasion was the result of, a long
period of disobedience which preceded it. Here it brings out that their disobedience,
previously reflected, was of a long standing nature.
BI 1-19. "Go unto the house of the Rechabites, and speak unto them, and bring them
into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.
The Rechabites
Did the Lord make a proposal to total abstainers to drink wine? Did he send for them to
a kind of wine festival? Is this the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer, “Load us not into
temptation”? Is not the Lord always thus leading men into temptation?—not in the
patent and vulgar sense in which that term is generally understood, but in a sense which
signifies drill, the application of discipline, the testing of principles and purposes and
character? Is not all life a temptation? The Lord tries every man. There need be no
hesitation in offering the prayer, “Lead us not into temptation.” People have tried to
soften the words. They have said instead of “lead” “leave us not in temptation”; but these
are the annotations of inexperience and folly, or superficiality. We are not men until we
have been thus moulded, tried, qualified. We can do little for one another in that pit of
temptation. We must be left with God. There is one Refiner; He sits over the furnace,
and when the fire has done enough He quenches the cruel, flame. Think it no strange
thin that temptation hath befallen you; yea, think it not strange that God Himself has
given you opportunities by which you may be burned. He never gives such an
opportunity without giving something else. Alas, how often we see the opportunity and
not the sustaining grace! The drinking of wine in this case was to be done in “the house
20

21. of the Lord.” Now light begins to dawn. Mark the limitations of our temptation. The
Lord is never absent from His house. Let God tempt me, and He will also save me; let
Him invite me into His own house, that there, under a roof beautiful as heaven, He may
work His will upon me, and afterwards I shall stand up, higher in nature, broader in
manhood, truer in the metal of the Spirit. Observe the details of this mysterious
operation. The men who were taken were proved men (verse 3). When the Lord calls for
giants to fight His battle and show the strength of His grace, they are chosen men. All
these men were conspicuous witnesses for the truth: they were identified with the faith
of Israel; they were the trustees of the morality of society. It is so in all ages. There are
certain men whom we may denominate our stewards, trustees, representatives; as for
ourselves, we say, it is not safe to trust us; we are weaker than a bruised reed; we cannot
stand great public ordeals; we were not meant to be illustrations of moral fortitude:
spare us from the agony of such trial! There are other men in society whom God Himself
can trust. What did the sons of Rechab say? Herein is a strange thing, that children
should obey the voice of a dead father. Yet this is a most pleasing contention; this is an
argument softened by pathos. The men stood up, and did not speak in their own name;
they said, We be the sons of a certain man, who gave a certain law, and by that law we
will live, and ever will live. The trial took place in the chamber of the sons of Hanan, the
son of Igdaliah, a man of God, which was above the chamber of Maaseiah. The father of
Maaseiah was Shallum, who was the husband of Huldah the prophetess, who had taken
an active part in the reformation wrought in the reign of Josiah. So all these were so
many guarantees of probity, and strength, and success. There will be no evil wrought in
that chamber I Not only are the Rechabites there, but their fathers are with them in
spirit. Though our fathers, physical and spiritual, be dead, yet they may live with us in
the spirit, and may go with us and sustain us in all the trials and difficulties of life. “We
will drink no wine.” Note the definiteness of the answer. No inquiry is made about the
kind of wine. Men are saved by their definiteness. A strong, proud, decisive answer is the
true reply to all temptation. An oath that strikes as with a fist of iron, a denial that is like
a long, sharp two-edged sword,—these must be our policies and watchwords in the time
of danger. The reason is given (verse 6). It is a filial argument. Good advice is not always
thrown away; and men should remember that though exhortation may be rejected for a
long time, yet there are periods when it may recur to the memory and come upon the
whole life like a blessing sent from God. The argument is a fortiori. The Lord has shown
how the sons of Jonadab can refuse wine: now He will take this example and apply it to
the whole host of Judah, and He will say, See what one section of your country can do; if
they can do this, why cannot you be equally loyal and true? why cannot you be equally
obedient to the spirit of righteousness? for three hundred years this bond has been kept
in this family; never once has it been violated: if one family can do this, why not a
thousand families? if one section of the country, why not the whole nation? This was
God’s method of applying truth to those who needed it. Thus we teach one another. One
boy can be obedient; why not all boys? One soul can be faithful; why not all souls? God
in His providence says: See what others can do, and as they toil and climb and succeed in
reaching the highest point, so do ye follow them: the grace that made them succeed will
not fail you in the hour of your trial and difficulty. (J. Parker, D. D.)
We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father,
commanded us.
21

22. The Rechabites
St. Austin says of the Syrophenician woman, who was both hardly spoken of by our
Saviour at first, and anon commended highly before her face; she that took not her
reproach in scorn, would not wax arrogant upon her commendation; so these Rechabites
who lived with good content in a life full of neglect, may the better endure to have their
good deeds scanned, without fear of begetting ostentation. And therefore I will branch
out my text into four parts, in every of which they will justly deserve our praise, and in
some our imitation. First, when the prophet Jeremiah did try them with this temptation,
whether they would feast it and-drink wine, they make him a resolute denial, a prophet
could., draw them to no inconvenient act. Some are good men of themselves, but easily
drawn aside by allurements; such are not the Rechabites. He that will sin to please
another, makes his friend either to be a God that shall rule him, or a devil that shall
tempt him. Three things, says Aristotle, do preserve the life of friendship.
1. To answer love with like affection.
2. Some similitude and likeness of condition.
3. But above either, neither to sin ourselves, nor for our sakes to lay the charge of sin
upon our familiars.
No, he is too prodigal of his kindness, that giveth his friend both his heart and his
conscience. I may not forget how Agesilaus’ son behaved himself in this point toward his
own father: the cause was corrupt wherein his father did solicit; the son answers him
with this modesty: Your education taught me from a child to keep the laws, and my
youth is so inured to your former discipline, that I cannot skill the latter. Here let
rhetoricians declaim Whether this were duty or disobedience. But let us examine the
case by philosophy. I am sure that no man s reason is so nearly conjoined to my soul as
my own appetite, although my appetite be merely sensitive. And must I oftentimes resist
my own appetite, and enthral it as a civil rebel: and have I not power much more to
oppose any man’s reason that Persuades me unto evil, his reason being but a stranger
unto me, and not of the secret council of my soul! Yes, out of question. How it pities me
to hear some men say, that they could live as soberly, as chastely, as saintlike as the best,
if it were not for company! Fie upon such weakness: says St. Austin, If thy mother speak
thee fair, if the wife of thy bosom tempt thy heart, beware of Eve, and think of Adam.
The serpent was a wise creature (Gen_3:1-24), and Eve could not but take his word in
good manners. Fond mother of mankind, so ready to believe the devil, that her posterity
ever since nave Dean slow to believe God. Never can there be a better season for
nolumus, for every Christian to be a Rechabite, than when any man reacheth out a cup of
intemperance unto us, to say boldly, We will not drink it. Now I proceed to the second
part of my text, which hath a strong connection with the former; for why did they resist
these enticements, and disavow the prophet (verse 8)? Their obedience is the second
part of their encomium, they will obey the voice of Jonadab their father. The name of
father was that wherewith God was pleased to mollify our stony hearts, and bring them
into the subjection of the fifth commandment. Surely as a parricide, that killed his
father, was to have no burial upon the earth, but sewed in an ox hide and east headlong
into the sea; so he that despiseth his father deserves not to hold any place of dignity
above others, but to be a slave to all men. For what are we but coin that hath our fathers’
image stamped upon it? and we receive our current value from them to be called sons of
men. And yet the more commendable was the obedience of the Rechabites, that their
father Jonadab being dead, his law was in as good force as if he had been living.
22

23. Concerning this virtue of obedience, let us extend our discourse a little further, and yet
tread upon our own ground. Obedience is used in a large sense, for a condition, or
modus, annexed unto all virtues. As the magistrate may execute justice dutifully under
his prince, the soldier may perform a valiant exploit dutifully under his captain; but
strictly, and according to the pattern of the Rechabites, says Aquinas. It is one peculiar
and entire virtue, whereby we oblige ourselves, for authority’s sake, to do things
indifferent to be done, or omitted; for sometimes that which is evil may be hurtful
prohibito to the party forbidden: as the laws forbid a man to murder himself: sometimes
a thing is evil prohibenti, so treasons, adulteries, and thefts are interdicted: but
sometimes the thing is no way in itself pernicious to any, but only propounded to make
trial of our duty and allegiance, as when Adam was forbid to eat the apple; and this is
true obedience, not to obey for the necessity of the thing commanded, but out of
conscience and subjection to just authority. Such obedience, and nothing else, is that
which hath made the little commonwealth of bees so famous: for are they not at
appointment who should dispose the work at home, and who should gather honey in the
fields? they flinch not from their task, and no creature under the sun hath so brave an
instinct of sagacity. Let us gather up this second part of my text into one closure: we
commend the Rechabites for their obedience, and by their example we owe duty to our
parents, natural and civil, those that begot us, those that govern us. We owe duty to the
dead, after our rulers have left us in the way of a good life, and changed their own for a
better. We owe duty to our rulers in all things honest and lawful; in obeying rites and
ceremonies indifferent, in laws civil and ecclesiastical. But where God controls, or
wherein our liberty cannot be enthralled, we are bound ad patiendum, and happy if we
suffer for righteousness’ sake. Now that the obedience of the Rechabites was lawful and
religious, and a thing wherein they might profitably dispense with freedom and liberty,
the third part of my text, that is their temperance, will make it manifest, for in this they
obeyed Jonadab. To spare somewhat which God hath given us for our sustenance, is to
restore a part of the plenty back again; if we lay hands upon all that is set before us, it is
suspicious that we expected more, and accused nature of frugality. And though the vine
did boast in Jotham’s parable, that it cheered up the heart of God and man, though it be
so useful a creature for our preservation, that no Carthusian or Caelestine monk of the
strictest order did put this into their vow to drink no wine, yet the Rechabites are
contented to be more sober than any, and lap the water of the brook, like Gideon’s
soldiers. Which moderation of diet did enable them to avoid luxury and swinish
drunkenness, into which sin whosoever falls makes himself subject to a fourfold
punishment. First, The heat of too liberal a proportion kindles the lust of the flesh. Lot,
who was not consumed in Sodom with the fire of brimstone, drunkenness set him on fire
with incestuous lust in Zoar. What St. Paul hath coupled (2Co_6:1-18.), let us not divide;
lastings go first, then follows pureness and chastity. Secondly, How many brawls and
unmanly combats have we seen? Thirdly, Superfluity of drink is the draught of
foolishness. Such a misery, in my opinion, that I would think men had rather lose their
right arm than the government of their reason, if they knew the royalty thereof. Lastly,
Whereas sobriety is the sustentation of that which decays in man, drunkenness is the
utter decay of the body. The Rechabites had encouragement to take this vow upon them
for three reasons:
1. As being but strangers to the true commonwealth of Israel.
2. To make the better preparation for the captivity of Babylon.
3. To draw their affections to the content of a little, and the contempt of the world.
23

24. Now I follow my own method to handle the second consideration of this vow, that these
circumstances were not only well foreseen, but that the conditions of the thing vowed are
just and lawful. Not to tumble over all the distinctions of the schoolmen, which are as
multiplicious in this cause as in any; of vows, some are singular, which concern one man
and no more, as when David vowed to build an house unto the Lord, this was not a vow
of many associated in that pious work, but of David only. Some are public when there is
a unity of consent in divers persons to obtest the same thing before the presence of God.
And such was this vow in my text, it concerned the whole family of the Rechabites. That
this vow was of some moment in the practice of piety, appears by God’s benediction
upon them. For as it was said of Socrates’ goodness, that it stood the common wealth of
Athens in more stead than all their warlike prowess by sea and land, so that religious life
of the Rechabites was the best wall and fortress to keep Judah in peace and safety. And
almost who doth not follow Christ rather to be a gainer by Him than a loser. Behold, we
have left all and followed Thee; that was the perfection of the apostles, that was the state
of the Rechabites; not simply all, everything that belonged to the maintenance of a man,
and so to live upon beggary, they have learned to ask nothing but a gourd to cover their
head, a few flocks of sheep to employ their hands, the spring water to quench their
thirst. They that must have no more, have cut off superfluous desires, that they can
never ask more. And so piety and a godly life were chiefly aimed at in the vow of the
Rechabites. The end and last part of all is this: That forasmuch as God was well pleased
with these abstemious people that would drink no wine, therefore promise unto the
Lord, and do the deed; for that is my final conclusion, that a vow justly conceived is to be
solemnly performed. When we have breathed out a resolved protestation before God, it
is like the hour we spake it in, past and gone, and can never be recalled. Says David, “I
have poured out my soul in prayer,” as if upon his supplication it were no longer his, but
God s for ever. Surely if our soul be gone from us in our prayers, then much more in our
vows they are flown up to Heaven, like Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham, they cannot,
they should not return to earth again. He that changed his sex in the fable is not so great
a wonder, as he that changeth any covenant which is drawn between God and his
conscience. He that hath consecrated himself to God, doth, as it were, carry heaven upon
his shoulders. Support your burdens in God’s name, lest if you shrink the wrath of God
press you down to the nethermost pit. I will give a brief answer to one question. Is Christ
so austere that He doth reclaim against all dispensation? no, says Aquinas, you are loose
again, if the thing in vow be sinful, nay if it be unuseful, nay if it cross the
accomplishment of a greater good. This is good allowance, and well spoken. The careful
pilot sets his adventure to a certain haven, and would turn neither to the right hand nor
to the left, if the winds were as constant as the loadstone, but they blow contrary to his
expectation. Suppose a Rechabite protesting to drink no wine, had lived after the
institution of our Saviour’s Supper, when He consecrated the fruit of the grape, and said,
Drink ye all of this, would it pass for an answer at the Holy Communion to say, We will
drink no wine? No more than if he had sworn before not to eat a paschal lamb, or any
sour herbs, quite against the institution of the passover. There is enough in this chapter
to stride over this doubt if you mark it. Jonadab indented with God, that he and his seed
should live in tabernacles for ever; and in tabernacles they did live for three hundred
years. Then comes the king of Babylon with an army into the country to invade the land.
It was dangerous now to live in tabernacles; there was no high priest, I assure you, to
absolve them; no money given to the publicans of the Church for a dispensation: but
they said, “Come and let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans and
Syrians, and let us dwell at Jerusalem.” The vow was unprofitable, tabernacles
24

25. dangerous, and so the bond is cancelled. Yet, do not take all the liberty due unto you, if I
may advise you: there are two things which you may choose to untie the knot of a vow.
The peremptory rejecting of a bad vow, and that is lawful, and the changing thereof into
some other vow, and that is more expedient, that God may have some service done unto
Him, by way of a vow. (Bishop Hacket.)
Obedience to parental authority
The first and principal commandment of the moral law, Honour thy father and thy
mother, begins with obedience to parents; but must of course be interpreted in a wider
sense so as to apply to all who have a right to obedience—the persons to be honoured in
that famous and excellent summary of the Catechism are the King, and all in authority
under him, my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters, and last of all “my
betters”; the falling into disuse of such an instructive word is a fact of very great
significance and needs no comment. But duty to parents comes clearly first, which an old
writer has called “the band and firmament of Commonwealths”; for society is near its
dissolution when this obligation is loosened or weakened in any way. The stability of an
empire like that of China is an illustration in point, and I was struck some time ago by
hearing a missionary of long experience select this one virtue of reverence for parents as
that which has for so many centuries preserved the cohesion of that people. Affection
may indeed be missing, but obedience and respect for authority are, I believe, universal.
So it has come to pass that a nation that we despise outdoes us in the discharge of one of
the most elementary moral duties; not that Confucius is a better teacher than Moses, or
made any advance upon him, but that we are somehow drifting from a commandment of
God, and seem powerless to enforce it. To arrest the widespread mischief we must go
back to first principles, and seek to re-establish authority in the family, in the elementary
schools, in places of higher education, and perhaps in the university itself. Authority
must be taught to be a trust delegated by God to some for the good of the whole body,
and the applications of the Christian precept: “All of you be subject one to another,” in
its several relations, must be laid down fearlessly and with distinctness by teachers and
preachers as the safeguard of society. To revert to filial reverence. It was once, I believe,
a characteristic of Englishmen, for even as late as the last century sons would address
their fathers by the reverential title of “sir.” The virtue is not exotic, it can stand our rude
climate, and it must not be thought for a moment to be a poor sickly plant, that has no
root in strong and masculine natures. On the contrary, take a specimen of it from the
most robust of our own countrymen. To most of us is known the compunction of Dr.
Johnson which has formed the subject of an historical picture. He has related of himself,
how when a young man he refused to stand at his father’s stall to sell books; it was, he
says, through pride he disobeyed, a trivial circumstance to a less sensitive man, but it
was a burden to him for fifty years, until on the very day he went to the very spot where
his father’s stall used formerly to be, and on a day of business stood in Uttoxeter market,
bareheaded, for an hour exposed to the gibes of the passers-by, and the inclemency of
the weather. “This was a penance by which I trust I have propitiated heaven for the only
instance I believe of contumacy to my father.” Upon which Mr. Leslie Stephen, by no
means a sentimental writer, remarks: “The anecdote cannot be read without emotion,
and if it illustrates a touch of superstition in Johnson’s mind, it reveals too that sacred
depth of tenderness which ennobled his character.” To both parents we are debtors.
Mothers are to be esteemed as highly as fathers, and dutiful obedience rendered to them.
Take care you despise them not in their old age or in lonely widowhood. Value them all
25

26. the more if they are alone. Do not think that you have outgrown their wisdom, for in his
mature years Solomon could stamp his own maxims with the authority of his mother’s
mint, and give them currency as the words which his mother had taught him. The wishes
of parents are also to be attended to, for wise fathers dealing with grown-up children will
not burden them with commands, but will leave them to act upon what their sons know
they would wish done. In a book that furnished my vacation reading I lighted upon a
passage in the undergraduate life of Dr. Corrie that will interest some of us. “When he
first came up, his father, knowing his son’s great love for horses, and fearing the scenes
of temptation into which this taste might lead him, expressed a strong desire that he
would not go to Newmarket. This injunction was faithfully respected. Though he was
fully aware that his father would never ask him whether his wish had been observed, his
loyalty would not permit him to trifle with the confidence thus placed in him.” A
characteristic anecdote of a man who was known as the soul of honour, who if he lacked
sons of his own, was looked up to and reverenced by hundreds of pupils and others, who
felt their own principles of duty strengthened by his unswerving fidelity to old traditions.
Obedience to a father’s law is the whole idea of the incarnation. Not to please Himself at
all, but to surrender Himself wholly to the Divine will, runs through all Christ’s life.
When He cometh into the world He saith, “I am come to do Thy will, O God,” and when
He is about to leave the world in that great fight of conflicting emotions the thought of
submission alone rules His prayer, “Not My will, but Thine be done.” Not only as a son,
but as a citizen, as a member of the Jewish synagogue and nation, He is obedient to the
law, to every ordinance of man, for His Father’s sake. Conscious of His Divinity, of His
real relation to God at twelve years old, He goes meekly home to be subject to earthly
parents and to learn His trade. When the time of His manifestation has come, He allows
John to baptize Him, to fulfil an ordinance of God, and by His obedience He approves
John’s commission in the eyes of the people. Though, as Son of God, He is free from the
temple tax, yet He works a miracle to pay the due, that He might give no offence to the
rulers who sat in Moses’ seat. He even acknowledges that the civil power of the Roman
Governor is of God. Under the terms of the new covenant we are no mere slaves but
sons, and can claim the spirit of adoption, the will to wish all things in conformity with
God’s will, and the power to perform the same. I have heard myself from the lips of those
whose whole life has been most wilful and contrary such a confession as this, “I love now
as much to do things for God as at one time I did everything against God,” for the love of
Christ converts and subdues a stubborn temper, which to its harm would kick against
the pricks into a service where there is no heavy burden, no galling yoke, but all is
perfect freedom. (C. E. Searle, D. D.)
The obedient Rechabites
I. The authority of the family. The power of human descent and family tradition in
moulding a career is well illustrated in the case of the Rechabites.
1. It controlled the natural tastes. Its members must renounce pleasure, comfort, and
fixed habitation; their inheritance was the loss of those very things which sons
expect, and parents delight to bequeath. But with the loss came a better gain,—health
of body, purity of morals, loyalty of conscience. They had that best possession,—
noble character.
2. The authority of the family also controlled their external alliances; those entering
it by marriage must accept its obligations. A man may leave father and mother to
26

27. cleave unto his wife, but may not leave truth and virtue.
3. In the same way the family tradition proved superior to surrounding influences.
They were as faithful in the city as in the country, as loyal among strangers as where
well known. So from lonely farmhouses among the hills, young men and young
women have gone to seek an easier fortune in the great city, or in the lawless West,
and been delivered from evil by the abiding influence of their sanctified homes.
4. The faithfulness of the Rechabites displays the normal influence of the family in
transmitting a tendency to virtue, and confirming that inherited disposition by
congenial surroundings and careful training. This is what God means the family to
be,—His surest and mightiest agency for spreading righteousness on the earth.
II. This higher authority of God. If human descent and family tradition exert authority
over the individual, the Divine Creator and Governor holds a far higher claim upon him.
Whatever depravity sin may breed into the race, virtue is always its normal life, holiness
its ideal. The Scriptures describe man as directly connected with God in his origin. “And
God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” When the clay was shaped,
He “breathed into his nostrils thy breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The
characteristics of our Divine origin are as discernible as the marks of our human
descent. Our intellect is made after the likeness of the Divine mind, else the universe
would be to us an insoluble mystery. In our tastes we can trace kinship with Him who
has adorned the earth with beauty. Pure human affection gives us our worthiest
conception of the Divine love. Misfortune cannot turn it, ingratitude cannot chill it,
death itself cannot overcome it, The Heavenly Father uses this earthly tie to symbolise
His own regard; the Saviour describes His fostering care and close union with the
Church by naming it His “bride.” Our moral nature is plainly Divine in origin.
Conscience is the voice of God in man. He who obeys it is lifted to the plane of Divine
action, is made a co-worker with God. Over this lordly realm, crowned its regent by the
Creator Himself, is the Personal Soul, the “Self,” the “I.” Self-consciousness is its throne,
self-determination its sceptre. By this solemn conviction “I am,” “I will,” man separates
himself from all the universe around him; through this he balances his soul against the
whole world and weighs it down; with it he faces eternity. He is his own, something for
which the Infinite asks, and he may give. It is here that man’s Divine origin finds its
explanation; for the glad choice of God, all the dignity of human nature was given; to this
end converge the constant teachings of the revealing universe, the open instructions of
the inspired Word, the solemn persuasions of the Holy Spirit. Lessons—
1. The responsibility of parents. One writer on heredity declares that the dispositions
of Bacon and Goethe were formed by the simple addition of the dispositions of their
ancestors. We know that passionate temper, fretfulness, and despondency may be
inherited. Let a parent beware how he sins.
2. The responsibility resting upon the child of godly parents. When one who has had
a virtuous ancestry seeks out vice and courts godlessness, he has not long to wait
before every red drop in his veins will turn against him and curse him traitor. There
is something back of his own will,—an authority he knows not how to resist and
cannot defy.
3. The ultimate responsibility of each soul to God. When Samuel J. Mills was
struggling against the convictions of the Spirit, he exclaimed, “I wish I had never
been born!” His mother replied, “But you are born, my son, and can never escape
your accountability to God.” The glad choice of the holy God is the highest exercise of
27

28. the created will. (C. M. Southgate.)
The obedience of the Rechabites
I. Wherein it resembles christian obedience.
1. It was total. They did not consult their preferences or their “affinities.” They did
not proceed upon any law of “natural selection.” They did not show punctilious
fidelity with reference to one commandment, and great laxity concerning another.
This is one essential characteristic of Christian obedience. It is total. If we can make
choice of such commands as we feel like obeying and disregard the rest, what are we
but masters instead of subjects, dictating terms instead of receiving orders?
2. It was constant. It kept an unbroken path. It bore the stress of storms and tests.
And herein it was marked by another essential characteristic of Christian
obedience—a beautiful constancy. Enlistment in the Lord’s army is for life, and there
is no discharge in that war.
II. Wherein this Rechabite obedience was unlike Christian obedience.
1. The Rechabites obeyed Jonadab: Christians obey God. This is a substantive
difference. And we must not confound things that radically differ. The source of a
command has a great deal to do with the value of obedience to it. The lower relation
must give way to the higher when the two conflict.
2. Jonadab’s commands, so far as we know, were for temporal and material ends, in
the interests of a rugged manhood and a sturdy independence. God’s commands are
for spiritual ends, for good of soul, and they stand vitally connected with those
higher interests that relate not only to the life that now is, but to that which is to
come. Rechabite obedience, therefore, conserves temporal good; Christian obedience
conserves eternal good.
3. Rechabite obedience was not necessary to salvation; Christian obedience is
indispensable.
III. Wherein it shames Christian disobedience.
1. These Rechabites are obedient to their father Jonadab, a mere man who had been
dead nearly three hundred years, while Judah is in open and flagrant disobedience to
the Most High God.
2. Jonadab commanded but once, and he had instant and constant heed, generation
upon generation, for centuries. “But I,” saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel—“I
have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking. I have also sent unto you,” &c.
3. Obedience to Jonadab was at a cost, and it brought at the best only power to
endure and the spirit of independence. It left the Rechabites poor and homeless.
Obedience to God was also at a cost, but it gave His people assured possessions,
peace of conscience, protection from their enemies, and all the exceeding riches of an
eternal inheritance in God’s kingdom of grace and glory. Yet the Rechabites obeyed
Jonadab with a beautiful constancy, while Judah hearkened not to the voice of the
Lord.
Practical suggestions—
28

29. 1. The very essence of Christian fidelity is obedience.
2. A true obedience has two infallible signs. It will have no reservations, and it will
never cry “Halt!”
3. See the shame and guilt of disobedience under the Gospel.
4. In respect to one particular in this Rechabite obedience, namely, abstinence from
wine—three things are clear.
(1) Abstinence from wine is not here made obligatory.
(2) Abstinence from wine is not wrong.
(3) Abstinence from wine for the sake of the stumblers is lifted by the New
Testament to the sublime height of a duty, and made imperative (Rom_14:21).
Wine-drinking is a sin “for that man who drinks with offence” (Rom_14:20). Wine-
drinking is a sin for that man who by it “puts a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in a
brother s way (Rom_14:15). When wine-drinking wounds a weak conscience” it is “as in
against Christ” (1Co_8:12). (H. Johnson, D. D.)
The obedience of the Rechabites
Jonadab saw that his people were but a handful among a more powerful people, and
likely soon to be swallowed up by their neighbours, and he hit upon a happy method of
preserving their independent existence. He enjoined them “not to drink wine”; this was
to save them from luxury and intemperance, which would prey upon them from within,
and make them ripe for destruction; and he also commanded them “not to till the
ground, nor to have any houses, nor to dwell in cities”; this was in order that they might
have no riches to tempt others to make war upon them; and thus, to use his own words,
“they might live many days in the land wherein they were strangers.” Luxury and wealth
are the bane of nations, and by keeping his tribe a simple, pastoral people, pure in their
habits, and destitute of property, he accomplished his wishes for them.
I. The obedience of the Rechabites contrasted with the disobedience of Israel to God. An
ancestor of that family, who had been dead nearly three hundred years, had issued his
commands, and they were still obeyed; but the living God had spoken repeatedly to
Israel, by His prophets, yet they would not hear. The commands of Jonadab, too, were
very arbitrary. There could be no sin in cultivating the fields, or in living in houses,
whatever moral worth there may have been in the precept to drink no wine: but still,
because Jonadab commanded it they obeyed. The complaint of God has still an
application. It is a fact, that among sinners, any and every law, precept, or tradition, of
mere human authority, is better obeyed than the laws of God Himself. See, in a few
instances, how this has been verified. Mahomet arose, a sensualist, an adulterer, a
breaker of treaties, and a robber, and issued his commands, which for centuries have
been religiously obeyed. At the cry of the muezzin, and the hour of prayer, every follower
of his, whether in the desert, on board the ship, in the city, or the field, suspends his
labour, his pleasures, and even his griefs, and casts himself upon his knees in prayer. But
the blessed Jesus, pure, peaceful, and glorious, speaks, and even those who acknowledge
Him as Lord over all, and own the goodness of His commands, can listen to such words
as, “This do in remembrance of Me,” and obey them not. The founder of some monkish
order, again, has enjoined upon all his fraternity certain rules and austerities, and he is
29

30. obeyed. Day after day, and year after year, the same tedious round of ceremonies is gone
through with, as though salvation depended upon it, and the deluded ones will rise at the
midnight hour to inflict stripes upon themselves or to offer prayer. But Christ may
enjoin the reasonable duty of praying to our Father in spirit and in truth, and multitudes
can suffer days and years to pass, and pray not. The commander of the order of Jesuits
can place his inferior priests in any country of the world, and whether the mandate be to
act as father confessor in some palace, or to Penetrate to China or Paraguay, there is no
more resistance for apparent regard for the sacrifices to be made than in the machinery
which is moved by mechanic power. Christ commands His disciples to “go preach the
Gospel to every creature,” but only here and there one goes forth. The heathen priest
bids the worshippers of idols to cast their children rote the fire or the water, and it is
done. Jesus says, “Suffer little children to come to Me,” and has appointed a sacrament
in which they may be received, but men will admit the duty, and yet neglect the baptism
of their children. The Rechabites of modern times, and Sons of Temperance, may
institute a vow of temperance, and it is kept; or command one of their number to
minister to the sick, and it is done; or provide well for their poor; but Christ says, that
“no drunkard shall enter heaven,” and enjoins charity to the sick and the destitute, while
many heed Him not.
II. The rewards of obedience. Modern travellers, moreover, state that the Rechabites are
still in existence. Mr. Wolf, the famous Jewish missionary, asserts this as his belief. “And
another traveller who visited a tract to the south of Judea, which has been unexplored
for centuries, met there a native who claimed to be a Rechabite, and when an Arabic
Bible was shown to him, turned to this chapter and read from it the description of his
People, and said that it was still true of them, and that they still kept the precepts of
Jonadab, their father. Over three thousand years have passed away since that family of
the Kenites came with Israel into Canaan, and for two thousand years no traces of them
were preserved; but now, after so long a lapse of time, recent discoveries have brought
them to light, retaining their name, and glorying in their independence. Though
surrounded by Mohammedan Arabs, they conform to the law of Moses yet maintaining
that they are not Israelites; and are much hated by the Mussulman.” This account was
given by a traveller so late as 1832, and is confirmed by English residents at Mocha, and
from other sources. No doubt every promise of God’s Word is as abundantly fulfilled. We
may not always be able to trace out the literal accomplishment of every one as strikingly
as in this case, but we never could prove one promise in all the Bible false; and the more
light we have the more abundantly do we see that all have been yea and amen. Let us rest
upon God’s Word. Exceeding great and precious promises are given to us in the sacred
book. They are like good notes from a prompt paymaster, falling due at different times.
We may sometimes question their worth, or may even forget in the multitude of cares
that we have such securities treasured up, but the time of their payment will come, and
we shall find all redeemed. (W. H. Lewis, D. D.)
The Rechabites
Their record was an honourable one, and reached far back into the early days of Hebrew
history. When Israel was passing through the wilderness of Sinai, the tribe of the Kenites
showed them kindness; and this laid the foundation of perpetual friendliness between
the two peoples. They seem to have adopted the religious convictions of Israel, and to
have accompanied them into the Land of Promise. Retaining their integrity as s pastoral
30