Heber the Kenite. — See Judges 1:16; Judges 3:31; Numbers 10:29.
Which was of the children of Hobab. — Rather, had separated himself from Kain,from the children of Hobab. Nomadic settlements are constantly liable to send off these separate colonies. The life and movements of the Kenites resembled those of gipsies, except that they had flocks and herds. To this day a small Bedouin settlement presents very nearly the same aspect as a gipsy camp.
The father in law of Moses. — Rather, the brother-in-law. The names for these relationships are closely allied. (See Note on Judges 1:16.)
Pitched his tent. — (Genesis 12:8, &c.) The “tents” of the Bedouin are not the bell-shaped tents with which we are familiar, but coverings of black goats’ hair, sometimes supported on as many as nine poles. The Arab word for tent is beit, “house.”
Unto the plain of Zaanaim. — Rather, unto the terebinth in Zaanaim. (See Joshua 19:33.) Great trees are often alluded to in Scripture. (Allon-Bachuth, Genesis 35:8, “the oak of Tabor”; 1 Samuel 10:3, “the oak of the house of grace”; 1 Kings 4:9, “the enchanters’ oak”; Judges 9:37; Joshua 24:26, &c.) This terebinth is again alluded to in Joshua 19:33; and the size and beauty of the terebinths on the hills of Naphtali, to which we find allusion in the blessing of Jacob, probably led to its adoption as the symbol of the tribe. “Naphtali is a branching terebinth” (Genesis 49:21). The word elon (אלון) is constantly rendered “plain” by our translators (Judges 9:6-37; Genesis 12:6; Genesis 13:18; 1 Samuel 10:3, &c), because they were misled by the Targums and the Vulgate, which render it sometimes by vallis and convallis. They always render the cognate word allon by “oak,” and, in the looseness of common nomenclature, the “oak” and the “terebinth” were not always carefully distinguished. There is a large terebinth, called Sigar em-Messiah, six miles north-west of Kedes. The word Zaanaim (also written Zaannanim) means “wanderings,” or “unlading of tents,” with possible reference to this nomad settlement. The LXX. render it “the oak of the covetous,” because they follow another reading. In contrast with these “wandering tents” of the Bedouin, Jerusalem is called in Isaiah 33:20 “a tent that wanders not.”
Ewald, following the Targum, makes it mean “the plain of the swamp,” and this is also found in the Talmud, which seems to indicate this place by Aquizah hak-Kedesh (“swamp of the holy place”).
Which is by Kedesh. — Oaks and terebinths are still found abundantly in this neighbourhood; and such a green plain studded with trees would be a natural camping-ground for the Kenites.