Kenites

Smiths, the name of a tribe inhabiting the desert lying between southern Palestine and the mountains of Sinai. Jethro was of this tribe (Judg. 1:16). He is called a “Midianite” (Num. 10:29), and hence it is concluded that the Midianites and the Kenites were the same tribe. They were wandering smiths, “the gipsies and travelling tinkers of the old Oriental world. They formed an important guild in an age when the art of metallurgy was confined to a few” (Sayce’s Races, etc.). They showed kindness to Israel in their journey through the wilderness. They accompanied them in their march as far as Jericho (Judg. 1:16), and then returned to their old haunts among the Amalekites, in the desert to the south of Judah. They sustained afterwards friendly relations with the Israelites when settled in Canaan (Judg. 4:11, 17-21; 1 Sam. 27:10; 30:29). The Rechabites belonged to this tribe (1 Chr. 2:55) and in the days of Jeremiah (35:7-10) are referred to as following their nomad habits. Saul bade them depart from the Amalekites (1 Sam. 15:6) when, in obedience to the divine commission, he was about to “smite Amalek.” And his reason is, “for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” Thus “God is not unrighteous to forget the kindnesses shown to his people; but they shall be remembered another day, at the farthest in the great day, and recompensed in the resurrection of the just” (M. Henry’s Commentary). They are mentioned for the last time in Scripture in 1 Sam. 27:10; comp. 30:20.

ke'-nits (ha-qeni, haqeni; in Nu 24:22 and Jud 4:11, qayin; of hoi Kenaioi, hoi Kinaioi): A tribe of nomads named in association with various other peoples. They are first mentioned along with the Kadmonites and Kenizzites among the peoples whose land was promised to Abram (Ge 15:19). Balaam, seeing them from the heights of Moab; puns upon their name, which resembles the Hebrew ken, "a nest," prophesying their destruction although their nest was "set in the rock"--possibly a reference to Sela, the city. Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, is called "the priest of Midian" in Ex 3:1; 18:1; but in Jud 1:16 he is described as a Kenite, showing a close relation between the Kenites and Midian. At the time of Sisera's overthrow, Heber, a Kenite, at "peace" with Jabin, king of Hazor, pitched his tent far North of his ancestral seats (Jud 4:17). There were Kenites dwelling among the Amalekites in the time of Saul (1Sa 15:6). They were spared because they had "showed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt." David, in his answer to Achish, links the Kenites with the inhabitants of the South of Judah (1Sa 27:10). Among the ancestors of the tribe of Judah, the Chronicler includes the Kenite Hammath, the father of the Rechabites (1Ch 2:55). These last continued to live in tents, practicing the ancient nomadic customs (Jer 35:6).ichly varied landscape, With smiling cornfields, and hills clothed with oak and terebinth.

The word qeni in Aramaic means "smith." Professor Sayce thinks they may really have been a tribe of smiths, resembling "the gipsies of modern Europe, as well as the traveling tinkers or blacksmiths of the Middle Ages" (HDB, under the word). This would account for their relations with the different peoples, among whom they would reside in pursuit of their calling.

In Josephus they appear as Kenetides, and in Ant, IV, vii, 3 he calls them "the race of the Shechemites."

W. Ewing

• 1. A Canaanite tribe whose country was given to Abraham Ge 15:19; Nu 24:21-23
• 2. The descendants of Jethro, a Midianite, the father-in-law of Moses
  • Join the Israelites and live at Jericho Jud 1:16; 4:11; 1Ch 2:55
  • Later in the wilderness of Judah Jud 1:16,17
  • Jael, one of the, betrays and kills Sisera Jud 4:17-21