About B. C. 607, the greatest monarch who ever sat on the Babylonian throne moved upon Judah to take vengeance for the disloyalty shown in the recent war between Babylon and Egypt. Jeremiah had protested against putting trust in Egypt and had predicted the result. The armies of Nebuchadnezzar rapidly overran Syria and Palestine; Jerusalem was taken after little resistance; King Jehoiakim was put in chains and carried away a prisoner to Babylon; many noble youths, among them Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were taken into exile; the Temple was plundered, but permitted to stand. This event is the beginning of the seventy years' captivity. Jehoiakim, was shortly after permitted to return and to reassume the throne, but three years later, again revolted and attempted to cast off the yoke. The king was soon after besieged in Jerusalem and three years litter was slain. It was during one of these sieges that the events occurred which are narrated in our lesson.

      The Kenites, to whom we are introduced, were of Arabian stock, and had dwelt in the wild wastes about Sinai and south of Palestine. Jethro, "the Priest of Midian," and the father-in-law of Moses, seems to have been a Kenite, and by the invitation of Moses a branch of the tribe followed the Israelites into Palestine. Heber, the Kenite, had pitched his tents in northern Palestine, and it was Jael, the wife of Heber, who slew Sisera, the general of the Canaanites, in her tent (Judges 4:17). This clan continued as a pastoral people, simple in their habits, and faithful to Jehovah, until the captivity. One of their chieftains, Jehonadab, or Jonadab, was the stern supporter of King Jehu in his effort to extirpate the idolatry that had spread through Israel under Ahab and Jezebel. He was the founder of the first total abstinence society of which we have any account. We have instances of men who were Nazarites, but the Rechabites, as a people, were pledged to total abstinence. They dwelt in tents and avoided cities, but had been forced by the pressure of war and the devastations of the Assyrian armies to take refuge in Jerusalem.

      12. Then came the word of the Lord to Jeremiah. The impulse of God's spirit that constrained him to speak. He had previously, under the, direction of the Lord, [23] gone to the Rechabites and set before them a temptation to break the total abstinence pledge that was taken by every member of their society. He had set before them vessels of wine and cups and asked them to drink. They had refused and cited the command of the founder of their order. Jeremiah had expected this answer, and his object was to turn upon the Jews who were disobedient to God, the example of the Rechabites who were obedient to their ancestor.

      13. Go tell the men of Judah. God leaves the wicked without excuse. They are not left in ignorance or without warning. Noah preached for one hundred and twenty years to the antediluvians. For more than a generation Jeremiah called Judah to repentance. Now while the Assyrian armies are thundering around Jerusalem battering down the walls, he still comes and asks in the name of the Lord: "Will you not receive instruction to hearken to my words?" If the Lord had not spoken and warned them, "they had not had sin, but now they had no cloak for their sin."

      14. The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab. Jonadab, or Jehonadab, for thus the name is elsewhere written, was a contemporary of the prophet Elijah and a most remarkable character. Though not of Hebrew stock, he belonged to a branch of the Kenites who had followed the fortunes of Israel, and were faithful worshipers of Jehovah. He was the son, or descendant, of Rechab of whom we know nothing, and seems to have retained many of the traits of his Bedouin kinsmen. At the time of the overthrow of the family of Ahab by Jehu, he suddenly appears in the historical narrative (2 Kings 10:15) and joined King Jehu as he rode along in his chariot. His stern hatred of idolatry and austere character must have been known, for Jehu it once recognized him as an ally. The king lifted him into the chariot and gave to him the first intimation that he proposed to destroy the worship of Baal. In the religious revolution that followed Jehonadab was the most trusted helper of the king. He commanded his sons not to drink wine. His command was given to his son, and his tribe near two hundred and fifty years before the date that we have, now reached. He not only forbade, that they should drink wine, but that they should form luxurious habits of any kind. The drunkenness, license and corruption of his times seem to have alarmed and disgusted him and he commanded his tribe to abstain from wine, to refuse to dwell in cities, to have no fixed habitations, and not to live by agriculture. They were pledged to continue in the simple, nomadic tent life of their Arabian ancestors. This pledge created the society of the Rechabites and was required in order to Preserve them from the evils of the times. At this time, they had been driven from their tents [24] in the wilderness by the Assyrians who had spread over the land like locusts and compelled them to seek a refuge behind the walls of Jerusalem. Unto this day they drink none. This feature of their pledge was the one that struck Jeremiah with the greatest force. They had been forced from their tents and compelled to live in a mansion of Jerusalem, but they were still faithful to their pledge not to drink wine, which was the main command to which the others were subsidiary. The Lord, knowing the fidelity of this people, chose to try them hi this way, in order that he might, by their conscientious observance of the command of their forefathers, rebuke the Jews for their disregard of the word of the Lord.

      15. Rising up early and sending them. These verses point out the wonderful patience and long suffering of God and the continued effort to turn Israel away from its sins. They had from the time of Moses been assured that he would preserve them and keep them in the promised land, if they continued to serve him, but that if they turned to idols he would abandon them. They had made their choice and provoked the fate that was impending over them.

      16, 17. Therefore will I bring upon Judah . . . . . all the evil that I have pronounced against them. The threatenings of God, pronounced in Deut. chap. 28, by Isaiah, Jeremiah and other prophets, were all conditional. Blessings were promised for obedience; woes for disobedience. Now the national cup of iniquity was full, and the hour of destruction, long foretold, was at hand. In the hour when the temple should be desecrated by the Gentile and its sacred vessels carried away to Babylon, God bade them remember that these things had come "because he had spoken and they had not heard; called unto them and they had not answered." There is no greater insult than to treat the message of a king or a father as if he had not spoken; to meet it with silent contempt. [25]

      18, 19. Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me forever. The Jews are condemned for their unfaithfulness to God; but the Rechabites are commended for their fidelity to the pledge made by all their house to keep the command of Jonadab. Though mighty enemies were crushing the land under the iron heel of invasion, and it would soon be depopulated, they are assured that their society shall not cease and that Jonadab shall never want a man to stand before the Lord. It is somewhat uncertain just what this remarkable prediction means. If it means that he shall have spiritual descendants in every age who shall preserve his principles, it has certainly been remarkably fulfilled. There are millions of the human race now who will not touch wine. The Arabians still practice total abstinence, and in Christian lands almost all Christian people refuse to touch intoxicating drinks. The number of those who are Rechabites in spirit increases with every generation.

      If the passage means that his descendants shall not be destroyed from the face of the earth, there is reason to believe that the prediction has received a remarkable fulfillment. Though they are not mentioned again in sacred history, several travelers have declared that they have met with them in recent times in the Arabian deserts. Benjamin of Tudela, a traveler of the twelfth century, narrates that he met near El Jubar Jews who were called Rechabites, who kept their flocks, abstained from wine, paid tithes, and supported teachers who devoted themselves to studying the law and weeping over Jerusalem. He says that they numbered about 100,000. A much later traveler, Wolff, in 1839, came in contact with a tribe not far from Mecca, who claimed to be the descendants of Jonadab. One of them with whom he conversed showed him these very verses in an Arabic Bible, and said, "You see that these words of the prophet have been fulfilled that 'Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me forever.'" There were said to be 60,000 of them. An Italian traveler, Pierotti, in a paper read before the British Association in 1862, narrates that he had met with them not far from the Dead Sea. They also made the same claims, had the same habits, and had the Hebrew Bible. Whether they are lineal descendants or not there is no doubt from these and other testimonies that there are scattered through the Arabian deserts a numerous body who practice the abstinence principles of the ancient, and refer to the example of, Jonadab.

      1. Fidelity to principle builds a monument to one's name more enduring than [26] brass or marble. The world can never forget Joseph, or Jonadab, or Daniel, or the Hebrew children.

      2. A conscientious regard for obligations is praiseworthy before God. A covenant breaker is condemned. When one covenants to abstain from any vice, or to live a Christian life, it is unmanly and a proof of a moral break-down, that the pledge should be broken.

      3. Intemperance is associated with almost every other sin. The worship of Baal or Bacchus becomes a drunken service. When Jonadab would pledge his people to keep from idolatry he began by taking a temperance pledge.

      4. The evils of wine drinking were manifested in the earliest times. In the case of the people before the flood, one charge against them was drunkenness. Then we have the fatal drunkenness of Noah a year or two after the flood; then the case of Lot after his escape from Sodom. Absalom took advantage of Ammon's drunkenness to put him to death. Amon, king of Judah, was murdered in a drunken frolic.

      6. From the earliest times God has borne witness against intemperance. Aaron and his sons were commanded, under pain of death, not to drink wine when they went into the tabernacle of the congregation, so as to show to the people the difference between holy and unholy, between unclean and clean; teaching that a man drinking wine was spiritually unclean (Lev. 10:9). In the case of the Nazarites, men who made vows of holiness and dedicated themselves to holy purposes, they were prohibited from drinking wine (Num. 6:3). The mother of Samson was commanded not to drink wine previous to the birth of her son, as he was to be a servant of God, and the drinking of wine would defile him (Judges 13:4-14). Solomon declares: "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." (Prov. 20:1.) "He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man; he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich." (Prov. 21:17.) Isaiah testifies: "Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink." (Isa. 5:22). "But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink; they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment." (Isa. 28:7.) Ezekiel adds: "Neither shall any priest drink wine when they enter into the inner court." (Ezekiel 44:21.) Paul declares: "No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God." [1 Cor. 6:10.]

      6. The example of faithful, earnest worshippers of God is a powerful rebuke to the wicked. A righteous life is a sermon more powerful than the eloquence of the pulpit. A true saint is a shining light. An infidel, who had once live in Washington, Illinois, returned after living several years elsewhere, and declared to a church member that he had become a Christian. Said he: "John J----- and his wife," referring to two old members of the congregation, "convinced me. I could never answer such holy lives as they lived." An ancient Grecian philosopher, who at one time wrote against Christianity, was converted. He explained that the convincing argument was the pure lives of Christians. "Let your light so shine before men that they, seeing your good works, will glorify your Father in heaven." [27]

[CLC01 23-27]