CHAPTER IV. The Jews. WERE we to seek a single word wherewith to confound the adversaries of the gospel, and to confute all their arguments against the inspiration of scripture-that word would be, the Jews. We need not urge either the peculiarity of their fate ever since the days of Abraham, a period of three thousand seven hundred years, nor the miraculous preservation for ages, since their dispersion, of their exiled, wandering, miserable race. For we have only to read a multiplicity of prophecies concerning them, as they are written in the earliest records in the world, and, without once hinting what they are, to ask whose history they relate; and there scarcely is a man so ignorant in any country under heaven, who would not answer in one word, the Jews. To all the inhabitants of the earth, the scriptural appeal may here be made in relation to facts, of which all are witnesses-judge ye what we say. It is needful only to look to the Jews, and to hear Moses and the prophets, to know that the word must have been of God. And he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. 'I will scatter you among the heathen, and draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. And upon them that are left alive of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts, in the land of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.-And ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye shall perish among the heathen; and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquities in your enemies' land.And yet for all that when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them.* And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord will lead you.† The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them; and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.-The Lord shall smite thee with madness and blindness, and astonishment of heart: and thou shalt grope at noon day as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways; and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.-Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given to another people.There shall be no might in thine hand. The fruit of thy land and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway: so *Lev. xxvi. 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 44. + Deut. iv. 27. that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.-Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee.-All these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee and overtake thee till thou be destroyed: because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the Lord thy God;-and they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things: therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things; and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.*-If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name-THE LORD THY GOD; then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.-And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and thou shalt be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and among these nations thou shalt find no ease, * Deut. xxviii. 25, 28, 29, 32-34, 37, 45-48. neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest; but the Lord shall give thee a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrows of mind. And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.'* 'I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth. I will cast them out into a land that they know not, where I will show them no favour. I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known.t I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach, a proverb, a taunt, and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them; and I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers. I will bereave them of children.‡ I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a reproach, even among all the nations whither I have driven them.§ I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.|| 1 will scatter them among the nations, among * Deut. xxviii. 58, 59, 63-68. + Jer. xv. 4. xvi. 13. ix. 16. Jer. xxix. 18. Jer. xxiv. 9, 10; xv. 7. the heathens and disperse them in the countries.* They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels; because it is the stumbling-block of their iniquity. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him. I wilt sift the house of Israel among the nations like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.‡ Death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the Lord of hosts. They shall be wanderers among the nations.§ Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and convert and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? and he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. Though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them; and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil and not for good.¶ I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven Ezek. xii. 15. Isa. vi. 10-12. Ezek. vii. 19. Isa. lvii. 17. |