… and the clans of scribes who lived at Jabez: the Tirathites, Shimeathites and Sucathites. These are the Kenites who came from Hammath, the father of the Rekabites. – 1 Chronicles 2:55

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 30, 2019): 1 Chronicles 2

When Moses ran from Egypt into the wilderness, he left behind all that he knew. He moved away from his biological family, the children of Israel, as well as his adopted family, the royal family of Egypt. At this moment, Moses was lost and alone. He was also probably more vulnerable than we sometimes realize. All alone in a world that had proved to be very hostile, he had no one to confide in and no one to help shape him.

Eventually, that task fell on the shoulders of Jethro, Moses’s Father-in-law, and a priest of Midian. Jethro gave Moses religious instruction that was likely decidedly different from that which he had received in Egypt. There is no indication that Moses had received any teaching about the God of Israel. His instruction about the gods would have been centered on the many gods of Egypt and then, later in his life, in the education that Moses received from Jethro. There is a theory that the God that Jethro introduced Moses to was a monotheistic God named Yahweh, the God of Midians. When Moses meets the God of Israel at the burning bush, his only frame of reference is that this must be the God about whom Jethro had taught him. This must be Yahweh. The Israelites, at this time, would have likely called him El-Shaddai, or “God Almighty.” According to this theory, it was at this time that Yahweh and El-Shaddai became one God, the God of Israel.

But it was also at this time that a foreign people started a process that would lead them to become a part of Israel. Jethro was likely a Kenite (Judges 1:16). The Kenites were a foreign nomadic clan that wandered the wilderness of the area that we know of as the Levant in ancient times. But through Jethro, this nomadic tribe possibly made its first significant contact with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even though the Kenites had been living in the Levant long before Abraham come to the land.

Gradually, the Kenites grew to be friends of Israel. And eventually, they were adopted into the Tribe of Judah. There they continued to make a difference, adding their distinctive nature to the people of God, and the belief in this God who was known as both Yahweh and El-Shaddai.     

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Chronicles 3