and her sister, from a painting by
Sandro Botticelli Age of the Patriarchs Genesis 15:18-21 mentions the Kenites as living in or around
Canaan as early as the time of
Abraham.
During the Exodus According to some traditions, Moses's father-in-law, Hobab, was a Kenite (), although according to Exodus his father-in-law was instead a priest of
Midian named Reuel (2:16-18) or Jethro (3:1). At
the Exodus, Jethro and his clan inhabited the vicinity of
Mount Sinai and
Mount Horeb. () , c. 1850 In Jethro is said to have been a "priest in the land of
Midian" and in , Hobab is the son of Reuel, although the text is not clear which is Moses's father-in-law. In Judges 3:1, Hobab the Kenite is Moses' father-in-law. The confusion of these names has led many scholars to believe that the terms "Kenite" and "Midianite" are intended (at least in parts of the Bible) to be used interchangeably, or that the Kenites formed a part of the Midianite tribal grouping. The Kenites journeyed with the Israelites to Canaan (); and their encampment, apart from the latter's, was noticed by
Balaam. The Kenites were closely allied with Moses, and are not mentioned to have participated in the first invasion of Canaan (, ) that was conducted against Moses's orders. During the second invasion of Canaan (), the Kenites would have seen the area around the town of Arad, the region of Canaan that the next generation of Kenites would later choose as their place to settle after the conquest. When the Israelites and Kenites were camped at the foot of Mount Peor,
King Balak of Moab allied himself with the five Kings of Midian, but seeing that they did not have the strength to defeat the Israelites, the leaders of Moab and Midian gathered together and paid a large fee to
Balaam to put a curse on the Israelite camp from the
high place (a type of religious shrine) on Mount Peor (). Balaam was unable to curse Israel, but prophesied about the Kenites, saying that they would endure, but foretold that someday they would be led away captive as slaves to
Assur, (), with the question of how long their future slavery would last being unanswered.
War between Israel and Midian While the camp was still encamped on the west side of Mount Peor, the local Moabites attempted to include the Israelites in their worship of their god Baal of Peor. During the commotion and bloodshed, Moses's grandnephew
Phinehas killed a Midianite princess, Cozbi, the daughter of King Zur, one of the five Kings of Midian (). Following this, Moses sent a strikeforce of 12,000 men (1000 from each Israelite tribe, the Kenites were not included) that succeed in killing the five kings Evi (אֱוִי), Rekem (רֶקֶם), Hur (חוּר), Reba (רֶבַע), and Zur (צַוָּר) the father of Cozbi, (, ) and burned each of the Midianite cities and all of their encampments, taking their livestock (). The Kenites were not included in the invasion of Midian, it is unclear how the Kenites reacted to the fall of the Midianite kings that they had formerly been subject to.
During the Conquest of Canaan After the death of Moses, Joshua led the Israelite invasion of Canaan; conquering a large portion of central Canaan. Upon Joshua's death, the Israelite tribes of Judah and Simeon took action to conquer southern Canaan, defeating the Canaanites and the Perizzites at the Battle of Bezek (now
Ibziq) in . After Judah's sieges of Jerusalem and Debir, says that Jethro's Kenite descendants "went up from the City of Palms, (which appears to be
Zoar or Tamar in the upper
Arabah), with the men of Judah to live among the people of the Desert of Judah in the Negev near
Arad." first as military rivals, under
Thutmose III and
Shaushtatar but after a long-negotiated marriage alliance under
Thutmose IV and
Artatama I they became close allies.) After 8 years the Israelites made war against Naharaim. The Israelites rose up under the leadership of
Othniel the son of Kenaz, (thus the nephew of Caleb, Judah's previous war-leader) who was a neighbor of the Kenites and lived in the same area (). Although the text is brief, it is likely Othniel had reliable political support at-the-ready from his relatives the Calebites and
Kenizzites, and probably from his Kenite neighbors as well, this likely gave him a large support base for the tribe of Judah to unite around. , As-Safi Later, King
Eglon of Moab allied with the Kingdom of
Ammon and nation of
Amalek, in order to invade the territory of Israel. () After defeating the Israelites, Moab and Amalek took the City of Palms (believed to be the later city of
Zoar or Tamar The Amarna letters are unusual in Egyptological research, because they are written not in the language of ancient Egypt, but in cuneiform, the writing system of ancient Mesopotamia. At this point, around 180 or 190 years after Joshua's invasion, the Canaanites in northern Canaan under King
Jabin ruling from
Hazor re-asserted their dominance over Canaan (). The Israelite leader
Shamgar appears to have been battling with the Philistines in south Canaan at the time, and was either caught off-guard, or unable to prevent the rising Canaanite military, economic, and political power. (Non-biblical sources depict the King of Hazor affirming loyalty to the Egyptian pharaoh, and joining the cities of
Qatna and
Mari to create a trade route that linked
Egypt to
Ekallatum) During this period,
Heber the Kenite and his wife
Jael separated from their Kenite brethren in the south, and went to live in northern Canaan (). After two decades of North Canaanite dominance in the region, the prophetess Deborah, who was now leading Israel, commissioned
Barak the son of
Abinoam as her commander to lead the Israelites against the Canaanites. () King
Jabin's general
Sisera learned that Barak was massing troops on
Mount Tabor, situated between Sisera's base at
Harosheth Haggoyim (believed to now be
Ahwat) and the Canaanite capital at Hazor, and set out northward to meet him with 900 chariots. The weather became unfavorable to Sisera's army, the sky became clouded (), and the river that his chariots needed to cross was flooded. While Sisera attempted to ford his chariots through the torrential
Kishon River at a river crossing close to the then-Canaanite city of Taanach (Now known as
Ti'inik) near
Megiddo (), Barak's 10,000 men went down southwestward from Mount Tabor () to give battle on the plain and rivers. Sisera left his chariot behind and escaped the battle on foot, while Barak pursued the chariots that were fleeing back to the Canaanite base at
Harosheth Haggoyim () , 1659As Sisera fled on foot near Kedesh-Naphtali, he was passing by the tent of
Heber the Kenite, and
Jael offered to shelter him. Accepting her offer, he asked her to stand in the doorway of the tent, and to deny his presence to anyone who was chasing him. However, once he was asleep, Jael hammered a tent peg into Sisera's head, and he died. (, ) From that point onwards, Israel grew stronger and continued to press Hazor harder, until King
Jabin's defeat. ()
In the early Israelite Monarchy , 1896–1902 In the time of
King Saul there were Kenites living in
Amalek territory. When King Saul of Israel went to war against Amalek, the kindness which the Kenites had shown to Israel in the wilderness was gratefully remembered. "Ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt," said Saul to them (); and so not only were they spared by King Saul, but later in the war
David also sent a share of the spoil that he took from the
Amalekites to the civic elders of the cities of the Kenites. While the Kenite territory in the Negev had earlier been seen as a separate territory from the parts of the Negev held by Judah and the Simeonites, as the Israelites grew in power, the Negev would be mentioned in the later histories as a single region and integral part of the Kingdom of Judah. In the northern Negev, the city of
Arad served as a key administrative and military stronghold for the Kingdom of Judah. It protected the route from the Judaean Mountains to the
Arabah and on to
Moab and
Edom. It underwent numerous renovations and extensions. ==Archeology==