Kenites
From BibleEncyclopedia.Net
Smiths, the name of a tribe inhabiting the desert lying between southern Palestine and the mountains of Sinai. Jethro was of this tribe (Jdg_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 gypsies and traveling 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 (Jdg_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 (Jdg_4:11, Jdg_4:17-21; 1Sa_27:10; 1Sa_30:29). The Rechabites belonged to this tribe (1Ch_2:55) and in the days of Jeremiah (Jer_35:7-10) are referred to as following their nomad habits. Saul bade them depart from the Amalekites (1Sa_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 kindness 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 1Sa_27:10; compare 1Sa_30:20.
kē´nīts (הקּני, ha-ḳēnī, הקּיני, haḳēnī; in Num_24:22 and Jdg_4:11, קין, ḳāyin; of οί Κεναῖοι, hoi Kenaíoi, οί Κιναῖοι, hoi Kinaíoi:
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 (Gen_15:19). Balaam, seeing them from the heights of Moab; puns upon their name, which resembles the Hebrew ḳēn, “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 Exo_3:1; Exo_18:1; but in Jdg_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 HaZôr, pitched his tent far North of his ancestral seats (Jdg_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 ff).
The word ḳēnī 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.”
