Jeremiah 35:6

6 But they said, We will take no wine: for Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, gave us orders, saying, You are to take no wine, you or your sons, for ever:

Jeremiah 35:6 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 35:6

But they said, we will drink no wine
Or "we do not drink wine" ^F5; we are not used to it; we never do drink any; it is not lawful for us to do it; nor will we, let who will solicit us: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father;
not their immediate father, but their progenitor; perhaps the same Jonadab is meant who lived in the times of Jehu, and rode with him in his chariot; by which it appears he was a man of note and figure, and who lived near three hundred years before this time, ( 2 Kings 10:15 ) ; which is more likely than that he should be a descendant of his, and the proper father of the present Rechabites, which is the opinion of Scaliger ^F6: commanded us, saying, ye shall drink no wine, [neither ye], nor your
sons, for ever;
as long as any of them were in the world. What was the reason of this command, and of what follows, is not easy to say; whether it was to prevent quarrels and contentions, luxury and sensuality; or to inure them to hardships; or to put them in remembrance that they were but strangers in the land in which they lived; or to retain them in the original course of life their ancestors had lived in, feeding cattle; be it what it will, these his sons thought themselves under obligations to observe it; and perhaps finding, by experience, it was for their good so to do.

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FOOTNOTES:

F5 (Nyy htvn al) "non hibimus vinum", Vatablus, Schmidt.
F6 Elench. Trihaeres. Serrar. c. 24.

Jeremiah 35:6 In-Context

4 And I took them into the house of the Lord, into the room of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was near the rulers' room, which was over the room of Maaseiah, the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door;

5 And I put before the sons of the Rechabites basins full of wine and cups, and I said to them, Take some wine.

6 But they said, We will take no wine: for Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, gave us orders, saying, You are to take no wine, you or your sons, for ever:

7 And you are to make no houses, or put in seed, or get vine-gardens planted, or have any: but all your days you are to go on living in tents, so that you may have a long life in the land where you are living as in a strange country.

8 And we have kept the rules of Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, in everything which he gave us orders to do, drinking no wine all our days, we and our wives and our sons and our daughters;