p. 10 | The House of Rechab

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 7, 1886

The House of Rechab

By this Moses prevailed on Hobab to go with them; for when we come down to the book of Judges, we read: “And the children of the Kenite, Moses’s father-in-law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people.” Judges 1: 16. In 1 Chron. 2: 55, we have the first mention of Rechab, the father of the Rechabites. “And the families of the scribes which dwelt at Jabez; the Tirathites, the Shimeathites, and Suchathites. These are the Kenites that came of Hemath, the father of the house of Rechab.” The next mention we have of any of the house of Rechab, is in 2 Kings 10: 15, 23. When Jehu was on his way to execute judgment on the house of Ahab, “he lighted on Jehonadab the son of Rechab coming to meet him; and he saluted him, and said to him, Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? And Jehonadab answered, It is. If it be, give me thine hand. And he gave him his hand; and he took him up to him into the chariot.” After this there is no more mention of any of the house of Rechab till this time which is the subject of the lesson for to-day,—a period of about two hundred and seventy-seven years,—but here we find that this Jehonadab who accompanied Jehu was the one who had given the directions which the Rechabites had observed all these years, which the Lord adopts as the means of teaching an important lesson to his people.