The children of the Kenite, Moses’ father in law. — It is difficult to disentangle the names Jethro, Reuel, or Raguel, and Hobab (Judges 4:11); but in my article on Jethro in Kitto’s Bible Cyclopœdia I have shown that Jethro and Reuel are identical, the latter name (“friend of God”) being his local title as a priest of Midian; and that he was the father of Zipporah and Hobab. When Jethro refused to stay with the Israelites (Exodus 18:27), Hobab consented to accompany them as their hybeer or caravan-guide. He is well known in the Mohammedan legends as Schocib, but is confounded with Jethro.
The Kenites were the elder branch of the tribe of Midianites. They lived in the rocky district on the shores of the gulf of Akabah (Numbers 21:1; Numbers 24:21; 1 Samuel 15:6). They seem to have been named from a chieftain Kain (Genesis 15:19; Numbers 24:22; Heb., where there is a play on Kenite and Kinneka, “thy rest”). They were originally a race of troglodytes or cave-dwellers. The Targum constantly reads Salmaa for Kenite, because the Kenites were identified with the Kinim of 1 Chronicles 2:55. Jethro, they say. was a Kenite, who gave to Moses a house (Beth) and bread (lehem) (Exodus 2:20-21). They identify Jethro with Salmaa, because in 1 Chronicles 2:5 Salma is the father of Bethlehem. They also identify Rechab, the ancestor of the Rechabites — who were a branch of the Kenites — with Rechabiah, the son of Moses.
Went up. — Probably, in the first instance, in a warlike expedition.
The city of palm trees. — Probably Jericho (see Judges 3:13; Deuteronomy 34:3; 2 Chronicles 28:15). When Jericho was destroyed and laid under a curse, it would be quite in accordance with the Jewish feeling, which attached such “fatal force and fascination” to words, to avoid even the mention of the name. The Kenites would naturally attach less importance to the curse, or at any rate would not consider that they were braving it when they pitched their nomad tents among those beautiful groves of palms and balsams, which once made the soil “a divine country” (Jos. B. J. i. 6. §6; iv. 8, § 3; Antt. v. 1, § 22), though they have now entirely disappeared. Rabbinic tradition says that Jericho was assigned to Hobab. From the omission of the name Jericho, some have needlessly supposed that the reference is to Phaenico (a name which means “palm-grove”), an Arabian town mentioned by Diod Sic. iii. 41 (Le Clerc, Bertheau, Ewald); but there is no difficulty about the Kenites leaving Jericho when Judah left it.
The wilderness of Judah. — The Midbar — not a waste desert, but a plain with pasture — was a name applied to the lower Jordan valley and the southern hills of Judea (Genesis 21:14; Matthew 3:1; Matthew 4:1; Luke 15:4). The Kenites, like all Bedouins, hated the life of cities, and never lived in them except under absolute necessity (Jeremiah 35:6-7).
In the south of Arad. — Our E.V. has, in Numbers 21:1, King Arad; but more correctly, in Joshua 15:14, “the king of Arad.” It was a city twenty miles from Hebron, on the road to Petra, and the site is still called Tell-Arad (Wilton, Negeb, p. 198). They may have been attracted by the caves in the neighbourhood, and, although they left it at the bidding of Saul (1 Samuel 15:6), they seem to have returned to it in the days of David (1 Samuel 30:29).
Among the people. — It seems most natural to interpret this of the Israelites of the tribe of Judah; hut it may mean “the people to which he belonged,” i.e., the Amalekites (Numbers 21:21), and this accords with 1 Samuel 15:21. For the only subsequent notices of this interesting people, see Judges 4:11; 1 Samuel 15:6; 1 Chronicles 2:55; Jeremiah 35. They formed a useful frontier-guard to the Holy Land.