Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 1:16

"And the children of the Kenite, Moses` brother-in-law, went up out of the city of palm-trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which is in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt with the people." — Judges 1:16 (ASV)

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). However, in my article on Jethro in Kitto’s Bible Cyclopedia, 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 Islamic legends as Schocib but is often confused 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 Aqaba (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, Hebrew, where there is a play on Kenite and Kinneka, “your 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 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 (Deuteronomy 34:3; 2 Chronicles 28:15). When Jericho was destroyed and laid under a curse, it would be quite in accordance with Jewish feeling, which attached such “fatal force and fascination” to words, to avoid even mentioning 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” (Josephus, Jewish War 1.6.6; 4.8.3; Antiquities 5.1.22), 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 Diodorus Siculus 3.41 (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 barren 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 city life and never lived in cities except under absolute necessity (Jeremiah 35:6–7).

In the south of Arad. —The English Version 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 neighborhood and, although they left it at Saul’s command (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 as referring to the Israelites of the tribe of Judah; but it may mean “the people to whom he belonged,” that is, the Amalekites (Numbers 21:21), and this interpretation accords with 1 Samuel 15:21. For the only subsequent mentions of this interesting people, see Judges 4:11; 1 Samuel 15:6; 1 Chronicles 2:55;Jeremiah 35:0. They formed a useful frontier-guard for the Holy Land.