KENITE (Tr and in Sam. xxvii. ro ; KEvato/ • Cinmoi), a tribe of people who originally inhabited the rocky and desert region lying between Southern Palestine and the mountains of Sinai ad joining—and even partly intermingling with—the Amalckites (Num. xxiv. 21; I Sam. xv. 6). In the time of Abraham they possessed a part of that country which the Lord promised to him (Gen. xv. 19), and which extended from Egypt to the Eu phrates (ver. 18). At the Exodus the Kenites Pastured their flocks round Sinai and Horeb. Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, was a Kenite ( Judg. i. 16) ; and it was when Moses kept his flocks on the heights of Horeb, that the Lord appeared to him in the burning bush (Exod. 1, 2). Now Jethro is said to have been priest of (ver. 1), and a Midianite ' (Num. x. 29); hence we conclude that the Midianites and Kenites were identical. It seems, however, that there were tWO distinct tribes of Midianites, one descended from Abraham's son by Keturah (Gen. xxv. 2), and the other an older Arabian tribe [MtptANITEs]. If this be so, then the Kenites were the older tribe. They were nomads, and roamed over the country on the northern border of the Sinai peninsula, and along the eastern shores of the Gulf of Aka bah. This region agrees well witb the prophetic description of Balaam And he looked on the Kenites, and said, Strong is thy dwelling-place, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock ' (Num. xxiv. 21). The wild and rocky mountains along the irs est side of the valley of Arabah, and on both shores of the gulf of Akabah, were the home of the Kenites.
The connection of Moses with the Kenites, and the friendship shewn by that tribe to the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness, had an im portant influence upon their after history. Moses invited Jethro to accornpany him to Palestine ; he declined (Num. x. 29-32); but a portion of the tribe afterwards joined the Israelites, and had as signed to them a region on the southern border of Judah, such as fitted a nomad people ( Judg. 16).
There they had the Israelites on the one side, and the Amalekites on the other. One family of them, separating themselves from their brethren in the south, migrated away to northern Palestine, and pitched their tents beneath the oak trees on the upland grassy plains of Kedesh-Naphtali (Judg. iv. 1). And it was here that Jael, the wife of Heber their chief, slew Sisera, who had sought re fuge in her tent (vers. 17-21). It would appear from the narrative that while the Kenites preserved their old friendly intercourse with the Israelites, they were also at peace with the enemies of Israel, —with the Canaanites in the north and the Amale kites the south. When Saul marched against the Amalekites, he warned the Kenites to separate themselves from them, for, he said, ' Ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt ' (t Sam. xv. 6). The Kenites still retained their possessions in the south of Judah during the time of David ; but we hear no more of them in Scripture history. In the Targurns, instead of Kenites we find Shalmai ot.tnu,), and the Talmudists generally represent them as an Arabian tribe (Lightfoot, Opera, ii. 429 ; Reland, Pa/. 140). Procopfits describes the Kenites as holding the country about Petra and Cades (Kadesh), and bordering on the Amalekites (ad Gen. xv. ; see Reland, p. 81). The name has long since disappeared ; but probably the old Ke nites are represented by some of the nomad tribes that still pasture their flocks on the southern frontier of Palestine (See A. Murray, Comm. a'e Kinaeis. Hamb. 1718 ; Winer, Biblisch. Real- Worterbuch, s. v. Keniter).—J. L. P.