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Jeremiah 35
This work has been translated into many languages. The best and latest in our own is, curiously enough, by the learned German-Jewish bookseller, Mr. Asher of Berlin. Note: Published in London, but obviously from the cut of the type printed in Germany. It is in two volumes—the first comprising the Hebrew text and translation, with bibliography; the second, a large body of learned and curious notes, etc. From this we copy the following with regard to the Rechabites. Arrived at Pombeditha on the Euphrates, where he found three thousand Jews with their synagogues, sepulchers, and colleges, he reports seemingly what he heard there of the Jews far to the south in Arabia. He says: “Twenty-one days’ journey through the desert of Sheba or Al-Yemen, from which Mesopotamia lies in a northerly direction, are the abodes of the Jews who are called B’ne (children of) Rekhab, men of Thema. Note: Asher identifies this with the Thema of Isa_21:14; Jer_25:23. The seat of their government is Thema, or Tehama, where their prince and governor, Rabbi Chanon, resides. The city is large, and the extent of their country is sixteen days’ journey towards the northern mountain range. They possess large and strong cities, and are not subject to any of the Gentiles, but undertake warlike expeditions into distant provinces with the Arabians their neighbors and allies, ‘to take the spoil and to take the prey.’ The Arabians are Bedouins, who live in tents in the deserts, and have no fixed abode, and who are in the habit of undertaking marauding expeditions in the province of Yemen. The Jews are a terror to their neighbors; their country being very extensive, some of them cultivate the land, and some cattle. A number of learned and studious men, who spend their lives in the study of the law, are maintained by the tithes of all produce, part of which is employed towards maintaining the poor, and ascetics called Mourners of Tsion, and Mourners of Jerushalaim. These eat no meat, dress always in black, and live in caves or in low houses, and keep fasts all their lives except on Sabbaths and holy days. They continually implore the mercy of God for the Jews in exile, and devoutly pray that He may have compassion upon them for the sake of his own great name.
But that he calls them “sons of Rekhab” (Rechab), it would be difficult to recognize anything of the Rechabites in all this. They neither dwell in tents, nor abstain from the culture of the ground, nor from wine; for those who do so abstain are described as ascetics—and that they abstain, shows that the general body did not. Besides, they abstain from flesh also, which was not forbidden to the Rechabites, and which was indeed their proper food as a pastoral people. Moreover, that these ascetics, though habitual abstinents, did not fast on the Sabbaths and holy days, prove them to be (as Niebuhr conjectured) Talmudical Jews, fasting on these days being forbidden in the Talmud. Upon the whole, therefore, and supposing the story true, or partly true, we cannot recognize in this people the marks which should distinguish them from the Arabs, on the one hand, or from the Jews on the other. We should be more assured in recognizing these signs. But, on the other hand, Jeremiah does not foretell that the Rechabites should always retain the habits of life imposed by Jonadab, but only that their race should never become extinct. We do not know that change would be imputed as all offence to them, as, with the captivity, and with their removal from Canaan, the cause for these restrictions ceased; and that the Rechabites did not regard the command of their father as overruling in all cases (as a command From God would) the exercise of their own judgment from the necessity of circumstances, is clear; for, notwithstanding the command to dwell in tents, they went and lived in Jerusalem in a time of danger. The strongest circumstance is, that the people claimed to be sons of Rechab. People do not, without some ground, claim an inferior rank—and a Jewish people would count it a far greater honor to be descended from one of the twelve tribes than from Jonadab the son of Rechab. Even the fact of their being Talmudical Jews would not affect their claim in this respect. Their peculiarities were not religious, but social; and if they had become Jews, as we doubt not they had, they were subject, as much as the other Jews in Arabia, to the influences of Talmudical teaching.
We catch further glimpses of this people from travellers, who, however, seemed to know them only as Jews. Varthema, in the fifteenth century, speaks of Arabian Jews, potent and cruel, secured more by deserts and hills than by any greatness of their own. Niebuhr is as usual more explicit and exact than any preceding traveller. He tells that the highlands of the Hedjaz are possessed by a number of independent sovereign sheikhs, of whom little was known, except that they lived in houses and villages during part of the year, and (at least some of them) in tents during another part. The most remarkable, and least known of these highland communities, was one which had been formed by Jews in the mountains lying north-east of Medina. This tract of country is called Kheibar, and the Jews belonging to it are called by the Arabs Beni Kheibar. They had independent sheikhs of their own, and were divided into three tribes. They were so odious to the Mohammedans for their predatory attacks upon the caravans, that in Syria, the greatest affront that could be offered to a man was to call him Beni Kheibar. It did not appear that these Jews kept up any intercourse with their brethren dispersed over Asia. “When I asked the Jews in Syria concerning them,” says Niebuhr, “they told me that those false brethren durst not claim their fellowship, for that they did not observe the law.” This is certainly in favor of their claim to be Rechabites, and might go to suggest that they did not follow the law according to its Talmudical interpretations. Niebuhr finds evidence that “this branch of the Jews must have subsisted for more than twelve (now thirteen) centuries.” Beyond that the trace is lost.
More recently Dr. Wolff; the Jewish missionary, heard much of these people. “The Jews not only of Jerusalem, but likewise those of Yemen, told me that the Rechabites, mentioned in Jeremiah 35, were still existing around Mecca. The Mussulmans who performed their pilgrimage to Mecca confirmed that account; the latter knew them by the name of Khaibaree.” This identifies them with those of whom Niebuhr speaks. At “Jalooha,” in Mesopotamia, one was pointed out to him as belonging to this people. “I saw one before me standing, dressed and wild like an Arab, the bridle of his horse holding in his hand, I showed him the Bible in Hebrew and Arabic; he read both languages, and was rejoiced to see the Bible; he was not acquainted with the New Testament. After having proclaimed to him the tidings of salvation, and made him a present of the Hebrew and Arabic Bibles and Testaments, I asked him, Whose descendant are you?
“Mousa—(This was his name), with a loud voice—Come, I show to you; and then he began to read Jer_35:5-11.
“Wolf—Where do you reside?
“Mousa—(Recurring to Gen_10:27)—At Hadoram, now called Samar by the Arabs, at Usal, now called Sanaa by the Arabs, and (Gen_10:30) at Mesha, now called Mecca, in the deserts around those places. We drink no wine, and plant no vineyard, and sow no seed, and live in tents, as Jonadab our father commanded us. Hobab was our father too. Come to us; you will still find 60,000 in number; and you see thus the prophecy has been fulfilled. Therefore thus saith the Lord, ‘Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall not want a man to stand before Me forever.’ And saying this, Mousa the Rechabite mounted his horse, and fled away, and left behind him a host of evidence of sacred writ.”
Previously, in the very quarter where Rabbi Benjamin got his information, Wolff writes in his journal: “All the Jews of this country believe that the Beni Khaibr, near Mecca and Medina, are the descendants of the ancient Rechabites.”
Subsequently he met, at Ispahan, in Persia, with a Jew from Yemen; and when Wolff asked him, “Do you know the Jews, Khaibr?” he replied, “You mean the children of Rechab? They are mighty men, and have not felt the yoke of captivity” (and then he joyfully lifted up his fingers, and moved them about, and said, “They are the descendants of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, who said,” etc. “And thus they do—the children of Ishmael curse them, and we bless them.”
Lately some further information respecting this interesting people, has been furnished by Rabbi Joseph Schwartz, in his Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine, published at Philadelphia in 1850. After showing that the Rechabites were descendants of Heber the Kenite, and more remotely, from Jethro; and producing evidence from the Rabbinical writings, that they eventually settled in Yemen—a long statement ensues, of which the following is an abstract—
“There are many traces of them at present; they live entirely isolated, will not be recognized, and shun, or rather hate, all intercourse, and every connection with the other Jews. They only sojourn in Arabia, and for the most part on the western shores of the Red Sea, and are engaged solely in the raising of cattle. In the vicinity of Junbua, a sea-port on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, they are found at times laboring as smiths, and have commercial connections with other Arabic tribes, (that is) they barter with them. They are called Arab Sebh (i.e. Arabs who keep the seventh day), are generally esteemed and feared; so that they form, so to say, a gigantic people, whose power and greatness excite fear. They only speak Hebrew and Arabic, and will form no connection or acquaintance with the Jews; and should they be recognized as Jews, or if one should enter into conversation with them on the subject, they will quickly deny their origin, and assert that they are but of common Arabic descent. They will not touch another Arab, much less will they eat anything with him, even those things which are permitted to Jews, and they always stay at some distance from the other Arabs, should their barter trade at times bring them together, so as not to come into any mediate or immediate contact. They always appear on horseback, and armed; and people assert that they have noticed the fringes, commanded in Scripture, on their covering and clothes. They are occasionally seen in Palestine, but very seldom, and then, as it were, in secrecy and unrecognized. Some even say that several have been met within Jerusalem, but never make themselves known, although the reason of this singular silence, and the anxious desire to escape detection, has remained hitherto a profound secret. At the same time, it is clearly ascertained that they are Jews in every sense of the word—live according to the Jewish laws, and also possess some knowledge of the learned rabbis who flourished in the early ages of the Christian era.”
An anecdote, in proof of this last point, is given; and the fact shows that they must have been at some time subject to Rabbinical teaching.
The result of the whole seems to be, that this people is known to the Arabs only as Jews—whence also the reports of travellers who derived their accounts from Arabian information. But those who derive their information from Jewish sources recognize them as Rechabites, which they claim to be themselves, and are unwilling to be taken for Jews in their own country, resting more upon the rights of their Arabian descent than upon the degree in which they have adopted the Jewish religion—while proud of the testimony which the monuments of that religion bear to their history and their faithfulness.
From these particulars, which we have been at some pains to bring together, it is not difficult to perceive the real position of this people; and we see that the greater exactness of modern inquiry has strengthened the probability contained in the Rabbi Benjamin’s first information concerning them, that in this people we find the ancient Rechabites. Still, the evidence must be taken for what it is worth; and it must be borne in mind, that the fact that the Rechabites maintain at this day a descent recognizable by others, or even by themselves, is by no means necessary to the corroboration of Jeremiah’s prophecy. Although the family should not be at this day known, our ignorance is no evidence that it does not exist. A genealogical series may perish from the knowledge of men, but not from the nature of things, and from the knowledge of God. Though the seeds of wheat, barley, and other things may be mixed together, so that men cannot distinguish them, yet their distinction has not perished; and God not only knows it, but also discovers it, when He makes every seed to rise in its own body.