Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Rechabites Who Would Not Drink
Jeremiah 35:1-19
1 The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, · WEB
A family that has kept its ancestor's rule for generations is offered wine in the temple and refuses, and their refusal is turned into the case against Judah.
The staging is careful and slightly cruel. Jeremiah brings a whole clan into a room of the temple — a room belonging to a man of God, next to the princes' room, above the doorkeeper's. He sets out bowls and cups full of wine and says Drink wine! The invitation comes from a prophet, in the sanctuary, with an audience. Everything about the setting is designed to make refusal difficult.
They refuse, and the reason they give is genealogical rather than moral. Jonadab the son of Rechab, their ancestor, commanded them to drink no wine, build no house, sow no seed and plant no vineyard, but to live in tents. They recite the rule and state that they have kept it — we, our wives, our sons, or our daughters. Then they add the one exception with complete candor. They are inside Jerusalem at the moment because two armies are in the countryside. The text records that departure without a word of criticism, which is its own small comment on how such rules are properly kept.
The application is not a recommendation of their way of life. Nothing in the chapter suggests that Judah should stop drinking wine or move into tents. The command they obey came from a man, not from God. The comparison runs entirely on the obedience itself: The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab... are performed; and to this day they drink none, for they obey their father's commandment; but I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking, and you have not listened to me. One family kept a human rule about drinking for generations, without a single enforcement. A nation could not keep the commandments of the God who brought it out of Egypt. Prophets were sent early and often, and it made no difference.
The verdict on Judah is therefore delivered without any new charge, and the blessing on the Rechabites is proportionate to what they actually did: Jonadab the son of Rechab will not lack a man to stand before me forever. The promise given to a nomad clan for keeping their father's word is worded like the promise given in the previous chapters to David and to the priests. It is the book's quietest statement of what it values. It is placed here, among the collapse of everything institutional, on purpose.
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