7.18. Chapter 4 - The Primary Cause of Jewish Sufferings; Israel a Prophet of Judgment

Chapter 4 The Primary Cause of Jewish Sufferings; Israel a Prophet of Judgment

EVEN more sad and pathetic than actually to see Israel weep at the “Wailing Place,” and in their synagogues on the 9th of Ab, and on other solemn occasions, is the thought that to this day they neither know nor acknowledge the real and underlying cause of all their sorrows and their sufferings. This indeed constitutes the saddest symptom of Israel’s present spiritual blindness. They have a zeal for their God, but not according to knowledge; they feel the Lord’s hand heavy upon them, but they know not wherefore; they are smitten and even delude themselves into the belief that “they as a nation are the promised Messiah who are to atone for the sins of the world by unspeakable suffering.” Their leaders and teachers blame the cruelty and inhumanity of the Gentile nations, and verily the nations of Christendom in particular have a terrible account yet to settle with God for their attitude and dealings with the Jewish people;¹ but but behind these, for the most part apostate and corrupt nations who were used as God’s scourge, there is the anger of God.

“O Jehovah, God of Hosts, How long wilt Thou be angry [lit. “smoke”] against the prayer of Thy people?” (Psalms 80:4)

¹ We are sometimes asked, “But have not the sufferings of Israel all been minutely foretold by Moses and the prophets in advance?” Yes, certainly they have all been foretold; but have not the sufferings of Christ been even more minutely foretold and described also? And yet we read that it was “with wicked hands” that they took and crucified Him, and Israel was held responsible for their conduct and dealing in relation to Him. Prophecy, my dear reader, is given to us, not that it may be fulfilled, but because the omniscient God, who sees the end from the beginning, knows that it shall be fulfilled, and man is left a free and responsible agent; and the nations who know not that the great God is overruling all things, even their wicked actions, to the fulfilment of His predetermined counsel, are held accountable for their deeds. And that the “jealousy” and hot displease of Jehovah against the nations because of their attitude to Israel are to be dreaded, history also testifies. Where are the great nations of antiquity who have lifted up their hands against the Jewish people? And in modern times the ancient word which He spoke to Abraham is still verifying itself in the experience of nations as of individuals: “I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse.” (From the Author’s Notes on Zechariah.) The expression is a very striking one. Other scriptures speak of God’s anger as “smoking,” but here the figure is applied to Him—“How long wilt Thou smoke?” Yes, alas! the Light of Israel, He who should have been their “Sun and Shield” has been a smoking furnace, and a consuming fire to His own people; or in the words of the national song which God commanded Moses to write and to put into their mouth (Deu_32:14-23) that in case of their apostasy from Him it may be an everlasting witness against them:

“Because he forsook God which made, And lightly esteemed the God of his salvation, * * * * * Jehovah saw it, and abhorred them, Because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be: For they are a very froward generation, Children in whom is no faith.

They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God;

They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities: And I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people;

I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in mine anger, And burneth until the lowest pit, And devoureth the earth with her increase, And setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains.

I will heap mischiefs upon them;

I will spend Mine arrows upon them:

They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, And bitter destruction; And the teeth of beasts will I send upon them, With the poison of crawling things of the dust.

Without shall the sword bereave, And in the chambers terror;

It shall destroy both young man and virgin, The suckling with the man of grey hairs.”

(Deu_32:18-25)

It is also a remarkable fact of history that the suffering of the Jewish people since the destruction of the second Temple, which inaugurated the second stage of their dispersion among the nations, have been much terrible than those which followed the destruction of the first Temple. Now we know the special great national sin of Israel which brought about the overthrow of the Northern Kingdom and the seventy years’ captivity in Babylon; but what can be the outstanding great and awful sin of the Jewish nation which has been visited by God with a punishment so unique and unparalleled, and with a bondage lasting already early two thousand years? To this question neither the synagogue nor the Rabbis have any answer. Idolatry has been detested by the Jews ever since the captivity in Babylon. It is a matter of fact also that they have, as a people, outwardly at any rate, been more obedient to the letter of the Law—more “religious” and zealous for God at the time and since the appearing of Christ, than their fathers were before them. Not content merely with the Law, they have elaborated the Talmud, and have added innumerable precepts and commandments which have made Rabbinic Judaism a burden heavy indeed to be borne. To their superior morality and certain outstanding national virtues even their enemies have had to bear witness; for “in the vast mass of exhortatory sermons, accusations, and hostile declamations against the Jews, which in the endless representation of stereotyped phrases, pervades the ecclesiastical literature of the Middle Ages, their moral life, as far as regards family, chastity, temperance, faith in the performance of agreement, is never impeached.”¹ Indeed, it is their tenacious adherence to their religion, and their zeal for their Law, which was one chief caused of the accusations and persecutions which have been heaped upon them. What, then, I repeat, can be the great sin which has caused God to hide His face from His chosen people for so long, and which has occasioned Israel’s weary wanderings as a fugitive among the nations for so many centuries?

¹ Von Döllinger.

Alas! “Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider,” nor will they acknowledge it as a nation until the spirit of grace and supplication shall be poured upon them, and they “look upon Him whom they have pierced.” Then with broken hearts they shall confess, like Joseph’s brethren of old: “We are verily guilty concerning our brother” (Jesus, of whom Joseph is such a beautiful type)—“in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us” (Gen_42:21). Then Israel’s greatest but final mourning will take place—a weeping, not on account of their sufferings, but their great nation sin. “They shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and they shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem . . . and the whole land shall mourn, every family apart, and their wives apart” (Zec_12:10-14). then, and only then, also shall Israel be finally comforted: then the “oil of joy shall be given to them for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” “And the ransomed of Jehovah shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (Isa_35:10, Isa_61:3). But till then, in the words of one of Israel’s noblest and most gifted sons,¹ Israel has been, and must remain “a prophet of judgment.”

¹ The late Prof. Paulus Casssel, of Berlin. His erudition, versatility, and genuine disinterested love for his nation have been acknowledged by the Jews themselves.

“ ‘The Lord is righteous’ is Israel’s cry in Lam_1:18, ‘for I have rebelled against His commandment.’ ‘Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods,’ says Jethro ‘for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly He was above them’ (Exo_18:11).

“Israel is a prophet of judgment. When he had taken prisoner the heathen king Adoni-bezek whose custom had been to mutilate his prisoners, Israel treated him as he had treated others, and so was it with Israel himself. Ahab and Jezebel, who slew the prophets, perished ignominiously, and their blood was licked by dogs. Before Christ’s coming, and afterwards, Israel experienced what he did to others.

“Israel destroyed the temple of the body of their best and greatest Friend, an awful miracle which sin wrought, and their temple of stone and gold was rased to the ground. On the hill of Golgotha they shed blood, and the Mount Moriah, which their fathers’ holy footsteps had trodden, became a desolation. As they had shed blood, so were they for centuries slain like sheep of the slaughter, both in the East and in the West, both by Christians and Mohammedans. The prophecy of Moses in Deu_28:66 was fulfilled in a hundred places: ‘Thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life.’ A Jewish author in Spain makes a Christian servant say that he had been told by his masters that since Jews had put the Saviour to death it was no crime to murder a Jew.

“They struck the Innocent One, and fearfully has the rod of retribution been laid on their own backs. A Jewish poet of the Middle Ages mourns:

“ ‘ We are beaten with rods, The wounds bleed. ’

Even Queen Christina of Sweden allowed her attendants wantonly to beat her Jewish physician as if he were a fox. In Frankfort in the eighteenth century Spencer strongly reprobated from the pulpit the system of beating and mocking Jews, so that they could not pass through the streets without insult. Fools full of iniquity had struck the Lord in the face, and how has this been visited upon them! In the Middle Ages it was customary at Toulouse to give a Jew a violent blow on the face in the name of the community, so much so that death often ensued; and this was specially done at the seasons of Christmas, Good Friday, and the Feast of Assumption.

“They demanded the liberation of Barabbas, and they, who in their paschal hymns so beautifully styled themselves the sons of freedom, became the general slaves of the empire. They made Christ bear His cross on His weary way, and, for a long, long time, whilst longing and waiting from morning to evening, and from evening till morning, have they borne the ignominious cross as a mark on their hats and on their garments.

“In the Middle Ages they were forced in some countries to have the letter T on their clothes to distinguish them. It served as a memorial to represent the truncated cross, and had reference to the words of the prophet Ezekiel: ‘Go ye through the streets of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon their foreheads.’ It is asserted that in the East they have been branded in the face and neck like horses, which however, has been also done to Christians by Moslem princes. Hokem Biamsilla compelled them to wear the image of the golden calf on their breast.

“It was the most degrading punishment when Israel elevated Christ on the cross—the most exalted of their high priests; and from that moment how degraded has Israel been, for he degraded himself when he defiled his Priest and Prophet! Jews in the Middle Ages were considered unworthy of being hanged on the same gallows with Christians. In Wiesthümer they were raked with vile women and hangmen. In a Bavarian tax register of 1458 they are classified under ‘things for sale’ between trout and veal! Were not they the people who murmured against Jesus because He ate with publicans and sinners? and for 1,500 years they had to pay a poll tax, and form an important article in the revenue of the State.

“This tax was only removed in 1813 in Saxony, and originated in the principle of the Swabian law that the Emperor, like every sovereign prince before him, was the successor of the Emperor Titus, and consequently the master of their life and death, and this claim they could only redeem by paying every third penny they had. In a proclamation of Albrecht Achelles of Brandenburg, it is said these words occur: ‘Be it known throughout the Empire in the event of a king of the Romans being chosen—that he may either burn all the Jews according to ancient custom, or show them mercy in allowing them to purchase their lives by paying the one-third of all they possess.’

“They stoned Stephen and Paul, and in the course of time every one of these stoes finds its way back upon their own heads.

“In Beziers on Psalm Sunday, the custom was for Christians to have a stone-throwing at the Jews. The bishop gave his blessing to the people in these words: ‘Throw stones and manfully revenge Christ’s shame’; and with the blessing of their spiritual pastor, and the permission of their prince, we can imagine it would not be done by halves.

“The many complaints that when Christians were persecuted it was not for things they had done, but for the name they bore, and that the occasional misdeeds of a few were visited upon all, over which the Fathers (Justin, Tertullian, &c.) mourn so much, are constantly recurring facts in the history off the Jews. ‘One Israelite is surety for another’ has become a proverb. The community suffers for the crime of an individual.

“Dickens, in one of his tales, makes a pious Jew speak thus: ‘In Christian countries Jews are not treated like other people, for they say, “This is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. such a one is a bad Turk, but good ones can be found.” When they talk of Jews it is not so. they find out the bad amongst us easily enough—in every nation is it not easy to discover the bad?—but people take the worst amongst us as specimens of the best, and accept the vilest among us to represent the noblest, and say Jews are all alike.’

“Tertullian and Origen defended the early Christians from another reproach—that of being deficient in patriotism, and not to be depended upon as citizens. This accusation has been engraved on the hearts of Jews by all parties, with sword and with pen. When the Arabs took possession of Spain, the blame was laid on them. Yet they were even killed because they did not surrender the Spanish fortress after the flight of the Goths. In the year 1849, many of the inhabitants of Komorn were slain in the Hungarian revolution because one Jew, whose sympathies were Austrian, supported the besiegers, whilst at the same time every Jewish community was taxed by Prince Windishgrätz, where a single Jew was found who sympathised with Kossuth.

“The accusation brought against the Christians by the heathen and Jews, of drinking blood at their meetings, was a horrible misrepresentation of the Lord’s Supper. Justin Martyr appealed to the Jew Trypho to bear witness that it was not true; and how has this accusation recoiled upon the Jews, of whom thousands have lost their lives in consequence of their being supposed to drink blood, though there has never been a shadow of foundation for it.

“The Jews vilified Christ and His disciples, and gave them names of reproach; and their own honourable name of ‘Jew,’ which had won such glory in the heroic time of the Maccabees, the possession of which was the Apostle’s boast, and which is borne by the Lion of Judah, has become a term of opprobrium. They who bear it are sometimes themselves ashamed of it, as of a word of reproach. A French writer, wishing to describe with moral bitterness the extent to which corruption, love of money, and dishonesty prevailed in the time of Louis Philippe, entitled his book Jews, the Kings of the Time.

Rothschild has been called king of the Jews, and also the Jew of the kings;¹ but the crown of thorns which has encircled this name throughout history, with burning shame and reproach for young and old, in the schools and in life, in books and newspapers, has not lost its power to pierce.

¹ It may not be out of place here to mention the German saying referred to in the text—“The Jews used to have one king; now the kings have one Jew.”

“An idea prevalent in former times has latterly been revived—that Judas, who betrayed his Master, was a type of the Jewish people in their history; but this is utterly erroneous, for Judas only typifies the treachery of those who, professing to be disciples, betray their Master, from fear of man or self-made wisdom.

“The Jewish priests and elders who gave money to set aside the Saviour who came to them, gave money to lose love, offered money to betray the True One, have imprinted the judgment that befell them on the history of the nation. Israel had soon nothing to trust in but money. Money became his breastplate, his sword, his refuge. It saved the people from death, but did not ennoble their life. For money Israel sold Him who brought the noblest freedom, and by money he purchased a tolerated servitude. Money was his protection and his bitterest enemy. He was trodden under foot if he had it not, envied and hated if possessed of it. Henry III. of England pulled out the teeth of Jews in York till they gave up all their wealth, and his successors banished them from the kingdom. They were drained of all they had, and then punished for having nothing. Usury was their exclusive privilege, ad they were made to suffer for exacting it. Money is their power and their enemy.

“Such it has been, and such it is at the present time.”

People have not failed to draw the conclusion that the legendary wandering Jew is a type of his nation; but the one-sidedness of this view is apparent. Israel is no aged wanderer in the world’s history, but an ever youthful prophet of the judgment and the grace of God who appeared in his midst—like the legendary handkerchief on which remained the impress of our Lord’s features; but this handkerchief was a banner of glory and holiness. Israel’s history is the impression of the scars of judgment—a history so far of the cross, but through the Christ, who has never ceased to yearn over them, and on whose cross was inscribed Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judœorum—a relationship which He has never renounced, and which is indissoluble—it shall yet become one of victory and of glory.