Kenites

The Kenites (meaning smiths or metalworkers) were a nomadic tribe of metalworkers who inhabited the desert regions between Canaan and the Sinai peninsula. Moses's father-in-law Jethro (also called Reuel and Hobab) was a Kenite, and his family joined Israel during the wilderness period, providing invaluable expertise in desert navigation. The close relationship between Israel and the Kenites continued through the period of the Judges and into the monarchy.

Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, achieved fame by killing the Canaanite general Sisera in her tent after the battle of Kishon (Judges 4–5). The Kenites who settled near Arad in the Negev maintained friendly relations with both Israel and the surrounding peoples. Saul warned the Kenites to separate themselves from the Amalekites before he attacked the latter, in recognition of their kindness to Israel during the Exodus (1 Samuel 15:6). The Rechabites, that distinctively ascetic community of vine-abstaining tent-dwellers who appear in Jeremiah 35, were Kenites according to 1 Chronicles 2:55—preserving their nomadic identity well into the late monarchic period.