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标 题: On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Wed Jan 12 23:21:23 2011, 美东)
by Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Translated by Martin H. Bertram
copyright © 1971 Fortress Press & Augsburg Fortress - On the Jews and
Their Lies is from Luther’s Works Volume 47. Augsburg Fortress is the
publishing ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Funded through sales revenue, Augsburg Fortress is called to provide
products and services that communicate the Gospel, enhance faith, and
enrich the life of the Christian community from a Lutheran perspective.
Part I
I had made up my mind to write no more either about the Jews or against
them. But since I learned that those miserable and accursed people do
not cease to lure to themselves even us, that is, the Christians, I have
published this little book, so that I might be found among those who
opposed such poisonous activities of the Jews and who warned the
Christians to be on their guard against them. I would not have believed
that a Christian could be duped by the Jews into taking their exile and
wretchedness upon himself. However, the devil is the god of the world,
and wherever God's word is absent he has an easy task, not only with the
weak but also with the strong. May God help us. Amen.
Grace and peace in the Lord. Dear sir and good friend, I have received a
treatise in which a Jew engages in dialog with a Christian. He dares to
pervert the scriptural passages which we cite in testimony to our faith,
concerning our Lord Christ and Mary his mother, and to interpret them
quite differently. With this argument he thinks he can destroy the basis
of our faith.
This is my reply to you and to him. It is not my purpose to quarrel with
the Jews, nor to learn from them how they interpret or understand
Scripture; I know all of that very well already. Much less do I propose
to convert the Jews, for that is impossible. Those two excellent men,
Lyra and Burgensis, together with others, truthfully described the Jews'
vile interpretation for us two hundred and one hundred years ago
respectively. Indeed they refuted it thoroughly. However, this was no
help at all to the Jews, and they have grown steadily worse.
They have failed to learn any lesson from the terrible distress that has
been theirs for over fourteen hundred years in exile. Nor can they
obtain any end or definite terminus of this, as they suppose, by means
of the vehement cries and laments to God. If these blows do not help, it
is resonable to assume that our talking and explaining will help even
less.
Therefore a Christian should be content and not argue with the Jews. But
if you have to or want to talk with them, do not say any more than this:
"Listen, Jew, are you aware that Jerusalem and your sovereignty,
together with your temple and priesthood, have been destroyed for over
1,460 years?" For this year, which we Christians write as the year 1542
since the birth of Christ, is exactly 1,468 years, going on fifteen
hundred years, since Vespasian and Titus destroyed Jerusalem and
expelled the Jews from the city. Let the Jews bite on this nut and
dispute this question as long as they wish.
For such ruthless wrath of God is sufficient evidence that they
assuredly have erred and gone astray. Even a child can comprehend this.
For one dare not regard God as so cruel that he would punish his own
people so long, so terribly, so unmercifully, and in addition keep
silent, comforting them neither with words nor with deeds, and fixing no
time limit and no end to it. Who would have faith, hope, or love toward
such a God? Therefore this work of wrath is proof that the Jews, surely
rejected by God, are no longer his people, and neither is he any longer
their God. This is in accord with Hosea 1:9, "Call his name Not my
people, for you are not my people and I am not your God." Yes,
unfortunately, this is their lot, truly a terrible one. They may
interpret this as they will; we see the facts before our eyes, and these
do not deceive us.
If there were but a spark of reason or understanding in them, they would
surely say to themselves: "O Lord God, something has gone wrong with us.
Our misery is too great, too long, too severe; God has forgotten us!"
etc. To be sure, I am not a Jew, but I really do not like to contemplate
God's awful wrath toward this people. It sends a shudder of fear through
body and soul, for I ask, What will the eternal wrath of God in hell be
like toward false Christians and all unbelievers? Well, let the Jews
regard our Lord Jesus as they will. We behold the fulfillment of the
words spoken by him in Luke 21:20: "But when you see Jerusalem
surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near ...
for these are days of vengeance. For great distress shall be upon the
earth and wrath upon this people.
In short, as has already been said, do not engage much in debate with
Jews about the articles of our faith. From their youth they have been so
nurtured with venom and rancor against our Lord that there is no hope
until they reach the point where their misery finally makes them pliable
and they are forced to confess that the Messiah has come, and that he is
our Jesus. Until such a time it is much too early, yes, it is useless to
argue with them about how God is triune, how he became man, and how Mary
is the mother of God. No human reason nor any human heart will ever
grant these things, much less the embittered, venomous, blind heart of
the Jews. As has already been said, what God cannot reform with such
cruel blows, we will be unable to change with words and works. Moses was
unable to reform the Pharaoh by means of plagues, miracles, pleas, or
threats; he had to let him drown in the sea.
Now, in order to strengthen our faith, we want to deal with a few crass
follies of the Jews in their belief and their exegesis of the
Scriptures, since they so maliciously revile our faith. If this should
move any Jew to reform and repent, so much the better. We are now not
talking with the Jews but about the Jews and their dealings, so that our
Germans, too, might be informed.
There is one thing about which they boast and pride them selves beyond
measure, and that is their descent from the foremost people on earth,
from Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and from the twelve
patriarchs, and thus from the holy people of Israel. St. Paul himself
admits this when he says in Romans 9:5: *Quorum patres*, that is, "To
them belong the patriarchs, and of their race is the Christ," etc. And
Christ himself declares in John 4:22, "Salvation is from the Jews."
Therefore they boast of being the noblest, yes, the only noble people on
earth. In comparison with them and in their eyes we Gentiles (Goyim) are
not human; in fact we hardly deserve to be considered poor worms by
them. For we are not of that high and noble blood, lineage, birth, and
descent. This is their argument, and indeed I think it is the greatest
and strongest reason for their pride and boasting.
Therefore, God has to endure that in their synagogues, their prayers,
songs, doctrines, and their whole life, they come and stand before him
and plague him grievously (if I may speak of God in such a human
fashion). Thus he must listen to their boasts and their praises to him
for setting them apart from the Gentiles, for letting them be descended
from the holy patriarchs, and for selecting them to be his holy and
peculiar people, etc. And there is no limit and no end to this boasting
about their descent and their physical birth from the fathers.
And to fill the measure of their raving, mad, and stupid folly, they
boast and they thank God, in the first place, because they were created
as human beings and not as animals; in the second place. because they
are Israelites and not Goyim (Gentiles); in the third place because they
were created as males and not as females. They did not learn such
tomfoolery from Israel but from the Goyim. For history records that the
Greek Plato daily accorded God such praise and thanksgiving—if such
arrogance and blasphemy may be termed praise of God. This man, too,
praised his gods for these three items: that he was a human being and
not an animal; a male and not a female; a Greek and not a non-Greek or
barbarian. This is a fool's boast, the gratitude of a barbarian who
blasphemes God! Similarly, the Italians fancy themselves the only human
beings; they imagine that all other people in the world are nonhumans,
mere ducks or mice by comparison.
No one can take away from them their pride concerning their blood and
their descent from Israel. In the Old Testament they lost many a battle
in wars over this matter, though no Jew understands this. All the
prophets censured them for it, for it betrays an arrogant, carnal
presumption devoid of spirit and of faith. They were also slain and
persecuted for this reason. St. John the Baptist took them to task
severely because of it, saying, "Do not presume to say to yourselves,
"We have Abraham for our father'; for I tell you, God is able from these
stones to raise up children to Abraham" [Matt. 3:9]. He did not call
them Abraham's children but a "brood of vipers" [Matt. 3:7]. Oh, that
was too insulting for the noble blood and race of Israel, and they
declared, "He has a demon" [Matt. 11:18] Our Lord also calls them a
"brood of vipers"; furthermore, in John' 3:39 he states: "If you were
Abraham's children would do what Abraham did.... You are of your father
the devil." It was intolerable to them to hear that they were not
Abraham's but the devil's children, nor can they bear to hear this
today. If they should surrender this boast and argument, their whole
system which is built on it would topple and change.
I hold that if their Messiah, for whom they hope, should come and do
away with their boast and its basis they would crucify and blaspheme him
seven times worse than they did our Messiah; and they would also say
that he was not the true Messiah, but a deceiving devil. For they have
portrayed their Messiah to themselves as one who would strengthen and
increase such carnal and arrogant error regarding nobility of blood and
lineage. That is the same as saying that he should assist them in
blaspheming God and in viewing his creatures with disdain, including the
women, who are also human beings and the image of God as well as we;
more over, they are our own flesh and blood, such as mother, sister,
daughter, housewives, etc. For in accordance with the aforementioned
threefold song of praise, they do not hold Sarah (as a woman) to be as
noble as Abraham (as a man). Perhaps they wish to honor themselves for
being born half noble, of a noble father, and half ignoble, of an
ignoble mother. But enough of this tomfoolery and trickery.
We propose to discuss their argument and boast and prove convincingly
before God and the world not before the Jews, for, as already said, they
would accept this neither from Moses nor from their Messiah himself that
their argument is quite empty and stands condemned. To this end we quote
Moses in Genesis 17, whom they surely ought to believe if they are true
Israelites. When God instituted circumcision, he said, among other
things, "Any uncircumcised male shall be cut off from his people" [Gen.
17:14]. With these words God consigns to condemnation all who are born
of flesh, no matter how noble, high, or how low their birth may have
been. He does not even exempt from this judgment the seed of Abraham,
although Abraham was not merely of high and noble birth from Noah, but
was also adjudged holy (Genesis 15) and became Abraham instead of Abram
(Genesis 17). Yet none of his children shall be numbered among God's
people, but rather shall he rooted out, and God will not be his God,
unless he, over and above his birth, is also circumcised and accepted
into the covenant of God.
To be sure, before the world one person is properly accounted nobler
than another by reason of his birth, or smarter than another because of
his intelligence, or stronger and more handsome than another because of
his body, or richer and mightier than another in view of his
possessions, or better than another on account of his special virtues.
For this miserable, sinful, and mortal life must be marked by such
differentiation and inequality; the requirements of daily life and the
preservation of government make it indispensable.
But to strut before God and boast about being so noble, so exalted, and
so rich compared to other people—that is devilish arrogance, since every
birth according to the flesh is condemned before him without exception
in the aforementioned verse, if his covenant and word do not come to the
rescue once again and create a new and different birth, quite different
from the old, first birth. So if the Jews boast in their prayer before
God and glory in the fact that they are the patriarchs' noble blood,
lineage, and children, and that he should regard them and be gracious to
them in view of this, while they condemn the Gentiles as ignoble and not
of their blood, my dear man, what do you suppose such a prayer will
achieve? This is what it will achieve: Even if the Jews were as holy as
their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob themselves, yes, even if they
were angels in heaven, on account of such a prayer they would have to be
hurled into the abyss of hell. How much less will such prayers deliver
them from their exile and return them to Jerusalem!
For what does such devilish, arrogant prayer do other than to give God's
word the lie, for God declares: Whoever is born and not circumcised
shall not only he ignoble and worthless but shall also be damned and
shall not be a part of my people, and I will not be his God. The Jews
rage against this with their blasphemous prayer as if to say: "No, no,
Lord God, that is not true; you must hear us, because we are of the
noble lineage of the holy fathers. By reason of such noble birth you
must establish us as lords over all the earth and in heaven too. If you
fail to do this, you break your word and do us an injustice, since you
have sworn to our fathers that you will accept their seed as your people
forever."
This is just as though a king, a prince, a lord, or a rich, handsome,
smart, pious, virtuous person among us Christians were to pray thus to
God: "Lord God, see what a great king and lord I am! See how rich,
smart, and pious I am! See what a handsome lad or lass I am in
comparison to others! Be gracious to me, help me, and in view of all of
this save me! The other people are not as deserving, because they are
not so handsome, rich, smart, pious, noble, and high-born as I am."
What, do you suppose, should such a prayer merit? It would merit that
thunder and lightning strike down from heaven and that sulphur and
hellfire strike from below. That would be just punishment; for flesh and
blood must not boast before God. For as Moses says, whoever is born even
from holy patriarchs and from Abraham himself stands condemned before
God and must not boast before him. St. Paul says the same thing in
Romans 3:27, as does John 3:6.
Such a prayer was also spoken by the Pharisee in the Gospel as he
boasted about all his blessings, saying, "I am not like other men."
Moreover, his prayer was beautifully adorned, since he said it with
thanksgiving and fancied that he was sitting on God's lap as his pet
child. But thunder and lightning from heaven cast him down to hell's
abyss, as Christ himself declared, saying that the publican was
justified but the Pharisee condemned. Oh, what do we poor muck-worms,
maggots, stench, and filth presume to boast of before him who is the God
and Creator of heaven and earth, who made us out of dirt and out of
nothing! And as far as our nature, birth, and essence are concerned, we
are but dirt and nothing in his eyes; all that we are and have comes
from his grace and his rich mercy.
Abraham was no doubt even nobler than the Jews, since as we pointed out
above, he was descended from the noblest patriarch, Noah who in his day
was the greatest and oldest lord, priest, and father of the entire world
and from the other nine succeeding patriarchs. Abraham saw, heard, and
lived with all of them, and some of them (as for instance Shem, Shelah,
Eber) outlived him by many years. So Abraham obviously was not lacking
in nobility of blood and birth; and yet this did not in the least aid
him in being numbered among God's people. No, he was idolatrous, and he
would have remained under condemnation if God's word had not called him,
as Joshua in chapter 24:2 informs us out of God's own mouth: "Your
fathers lived of old beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham
and Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham
from beyond the River and led him," etc.
Even later, after he had been called and sanctified through God's word
and through faith, according to Genesis 15, Abraham did not boast of his
birth or of his virtues. When he spoke with God (Genesis 18) he did not
say: "Look how noble I am, born from Noah and the holy patriarchs, and
descended from your holy nation," nor did he say, "How pious and holy I
am in comparison with other people!" No, he said, "Behold, I have taken
upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes" [Gen.
18:27]. This is, indeed, how a creature must speak to its Creator, not
for getting what it is before him and how it is regarded by him. For
that is what God said of Adam and of all his children (Genesis 3:19 ),
"You are dust, and to dust you shall return," as death itself persuades
us visibly and experientially, to counteract, if need be, any such
foolish, vain, and vexatious presumption.
Now you can see what fine children of Abraham the Jews really are, how
well they take after their father, yes, what a fine people of God they
are. They boast before God of their physical birth and of the noble
blood inherited from their fathers, despising all other people, although
God regards them in all these respects as dust and ashes and damned by
birth the same as all other heathen. And yet they give God the lie; they
insist on being in the right, and with such blasphemous and damnable
prayer they purpose to wrest God's grace from him and to regain
Jerusalem.
Furthermore, even if the Jews were seven times blinder than they are if
that were possible they would still have to see that Esau or Edom, as
far as his physical birth is concerned, was as noble as Jacob, since he
was not only the son of the same father, Isaac, and of the same mother,
Rebekah, but he was also the firstborn; and primogeniture at that time
conferred the highest nobility over against the other children. But what
did his equal birth or even his primogeniture by virtue of which he was
far nobler than Jacob benefit him? He was still not numbered among God's
people, although he called Abraham his grandfather and Sarah his
grandmother just as Jacob did, indeed, as has already been said, even
more validly than did Jacob. Conversely, Abraham himself as well as
Sarah had to regard him as their grandson, the son of Isaac and Rebekah;
they even had to regard him as the firstborn and the nobler, and Jacob
as the lesser. But tell me, what good did his physical birth and his
noble blood inherited from Abraham do him?
Someone may interpose that Esau forfeited his honor because he became
evil, etc. We must rejoin, first of all, that the question at issue is
whether nobility of blood in itself is so valid before God that one
could thereby be or become God's people. If it is not, why then do the
Jews exalt this birth so highly before other children of men! But if it
is valid, why then does God not guard it from falling? For if God
regards physical birth as adequate for making the descendants of the
holy patriarchs his people, he dare not let them become evil, thereby
losing his people and becoming a non God. If he does, however, let them
become evil, it is certain that he does not regard birth as a means of
yielding or producing a people for him.
In the second place, Esau was not ejected from the people of God because
he became evil later on, nor was Jacob counted among the people of God
in view of his subsequent good life. No, while they were both still in
their mother's womb the word of God distinguishd between the two: Jacob
was called Esau was not, in accordance with the words, "The elder shall
serve the younger" [Gen. 25:23]. This was not at all affected by the
fact that they were both carried under the same mother's heart; that
they were both nourished with the same milk and blood of one and the
same mother, Rebekah; that they were born of her at the same time. So
one must say that no matter how identical flesh, blood, milk body, and
mother were in this instance, they could not help Esau, nor could they
hinder Jacob from acquiring the grace by which people become God's
children or his people; decisive here are the word and calling, which
ignore the birth.
Ishmael, too, can say that he is equally a true and natural son of
Abraham. But what does his physical birth avail him? Despite this, he
has to yield up the home and heritage of Abraham and leave it to his
brother Isaac. You may say that Ishmael was born of Hagar while Isaac
was born of Sarah. If anything, this strengthens our argument. For
Isaac's birth from Sarah was effected by the word of God and not by
flesh and blood, since Sarah was past the natural age for bearing
children. To discuss the question of birth a bit further, although
Ishmael is Abraham's flesh and blood and his natural son, still the
flesh and blood of such a holy father does not help him. It rather harms
him, because he has no more than flesh and blood from Abraham and does
not also have God's word in his favor. The fact that Isaac is descended
from the blood of Abraham does not handicap him even though it was
useless to Ishmael because he has the word of God which distinguishes
him from his brother Ishmael, who is of the flesh and blood of the same
Abraham.
Why should so much ado be made of this? After all, if birth counts
before God, I can claim to be just as noble as any Jew, yes, just as
noble as Abraham himself, as David, as all the holy prophets and
apostles. Nor will I owe them any thanks if they consider me just as
noble as themselves before God by reason of my birth. And if God refuses
to acknowledge my nobility and birth as the equal to that of Isaac,
Abraham, David, and all the saints, I maintain that he is doing me an
injustice and that he is not a fair judge. For I will not give it up and
neither Abraham, David, prophets, apostles nor even an angel in heaven,
shall deny me the right to boast that Noah, so far as physical birth or
flesh and blood is concerned, is my true, natural ancestor, and that his
wife (whoever she may have been) is my true, natural ancestress; for we
are all descended, since the Deluge, from that one Noah. We did not
descend from Cain, for his family perished forever in the flood together
with many of the cousins, brothers-in-law, and friends of Noah.
I also boast that Japheth, Noah's firstborn son, is my true, natural
ancestor and his wife (whoever she may have been) is my true, natural
ancestress; for as Moses informs us in Genesis 10, he is the progenitor
of all of us Gentiles. Thus Shem, the second son of Noah, and all of his
descendants have no grounds to boast over against his older brother
Japheth because of their birth. Indeed, if birth is to play a role, then
Japheth as the oldest son and the true heir has reason for boasting over
against Shem, his younger brother, and Shem's descendants, whether these
be called Jews or Ishmaelites or Edomites. But what does physical
primogeniture help the good Japheth, our ancestor? Nothing at all. Shem
enjoys precedence—not by reason of birth, which would accord precedence
to Japheth, but because God's word and calling are the arbiter here.
I could go back to the beginning of the world and trace our common
ancestry from Adam and Eve, later from Shem, Enoch, Kenan, Mahalalel,
Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech; for all of these are our ancestors
just as well as the Jews', and we share equally in the honor, nobility,
and fame of descent from them as do the Jews. We are their flesh and
blood just the same as Abraham and all his seed are. For we were in the
loins of the same holy fathers in the same measure as they were, and
there is no difference whatsover with regard to birth or flesh and
blood, as reason must tell us. Therefore the blind Jews are truly stupid
fools, much more absurd than the Gentiles, to boast so before God of
their physical birth, though they are by reason of it no better than the
Gentiles, since we both partake of one birth, one flesh and blood, from
the very first, best, and holiest ancestors. Neither one can reproach or
upbraid the other about some peculiarity without implicating himself at
the same time.
But let us move on. David lumps us an together nicely and convincingly
when he declares in Psalm 51:5: "Behold, I was brought forth in
iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Now go, whether you are
Jew or Gentile, born of Adam or Abraham, of Enoch or David, and boast
before God of your fine nobility, of your exalted lineage, your ancient
ancestry! Here you learn that we all are conceived and born in sin, by
father and mother, and no human being is excluded.
But what does it mean to be born in sin other than to be born under
God's wrath and condemnation, so that by nature or birth we are unable
to be God's people or children, and our birth, glory, and nobility, our
honor and praise denote nothing more and can denote nothing else than
that, in default of anything to our credit other than our physical
birth, we are condemned sinners, enemies of God, and in his disfavor?
There, Jew, you have your boast, and we Gentiles have ours together with
you, as well as you with us. Now go ahead and pray that God might
respect your nobility, your race, your flesh and blood.
This I wanted to say for the strengthening of our faith; for the Jews
will not give up their pride and boasting about their nobility and
lineage. As was said above, their hearts are hardened. Our people,
however, must be on their guard against them, lest they be misled by
this impenitent, accursed people who give God the lie and haughtily
despise all the world. For the Jews' would like to entice us Christians
to their faith, and they do this wherever they can. If God is to become
gracious also to them, the Jews, they must first of all banish such
blasphemous prayers and songs, that boast so arrogantly about their
lineage, from their synagogues, from their hearts, and from their lips,
for such prayers ever increase and sharpen God's wrath toward them.
However, they will not do this, nor will they humble themselves
abjectly, except for a few individuals whom God draws unto himself
particularly and delivers from their terrible ruin.
The other boast and nobility over which the Jews gloat and because of
which they haughtily and vainly despise all mankind is their
circumcision, which they received from Abraham. My God, what we Gentiles
have to put up with in their synagogues, prayers, songs, and doctrines!
What a stench we poor people are in their nostrils because we are not
circumcised! Indeed, God himself must again submit to miserable torment
if I may put it thus as they confront him with inexpressible
presumption, and boast: "Praised be Thou, King of the world, who singled
us out from all the nations and sanctified us by the covenant of
circumcision!" And similarly with many other words, the tenor of all of
which is that God should esteem them above an the rest of the world
because they in compliance with his decree are circumcised, and that he
should condemn all other people, just as they do and wish to do.
In this boast of nobility they glory as much as they do in their
physical birth. Consequently I believe that if Moses himself would
appear together with Elijah and their Messiah and would try to deprive
them of this boast or forbid such prayers and doctrine, they would
probably consider all three of them to be the three worst devils in
hell, and they would be at a loss to know how to curse and damn them
adequately, to say nothing of believing them. For they have decided
among themselves that Moses, together with Elijah and the Messiah,
should endorse circumcision, yes, rather that they should help to
strengthen and praise such arrogance and pride in circumcision, that
these should, like themselves, look upon all Gentiles as awful filth and
stench because they are not circumcised. Moses, Elijah, and the Messiah
must do an that they prescribe, think, and wish. They insist that they
are right, and if God himself were to do other than they think, he would
be in the wrong.
Part II
Now just behold these miserable, blind, and senseless people. In the
first place (as I said previously in regard to physical birth), if I
were to concede that circumcision is sufficient to make them a people of
God, or to sanctify and set them apart before God from all other
nations, then the conclusion would have to be this: Whoever was
circumcised could not be evil nor could he be damned. Nor would God
permit this to happen, if he regarded circumcision as imbued with such
holiness and power. Just as we Christians say: Whoever has faith cannot
be evil and cannot be damned so long as faith endures. For God regards
faith as so precious, valuable, and powerful that it will surely
sanctify and prevent him who has faith and retains his faith from being
lost or becoming evil. But I shall let this go for now.
In the second place, we note here again how the Jews provoke God's anger
more and more with such prayer. For there they stand and defame God with
a blasphemous, shameful, and impudent lie. They are so blind and stupid
that they see neither the words found in Genesis 17 nor the whole of
Scripture, which mightily and explicitly condemns this lie. For in
Genesis 17:12 Moses states that Abraham was ordered to circumcise not
only his son Isaac who at the time was not yet born but an the males
born in his house, whether sons or servants, including the slaves. All
of these were circumcised on one day together with Abraham; Ishmael too,
who at the time was thirteen years of age, as the text informs us. Thus
the convent or decree of circumcision encompasses the entire seed of all
the descendants of Abraham, particularly Ishmael, who was the first seed
of Abraham to be circumcised. Accordingly Ishmael is not only the equal
of his brother Isaac, but he might even if this were to be esteemed
before God be entitled to boast of his circumcision more than Isaac,
since he was circumcised one year sooner. In view of this, the
Ishmaelites might well enjoy a higher repute than the Israelites, for
their forefather Ishmael was circumcised before Isaac, the progenitor of
the Israelites, was born.
Why then do the Jews lie so shamefully before God in their prayer and
preaching, as though circumcision were theirs alone, through which they
were set apart from all other nations and thus they alone are God's holy
people? They should really (if they were capable of it) be a bit ashamed
before the Ishmaelites, the Edomites, and other nations when they
consider that they were at all times a small nation, scarcely a handful
of people in comparison with others who were also Abraham's seed and
were also circumcised, and who indubitably transmitted such a command of
their father Abraham to their descendants; and that the circumcision
transmitted to the one son Isaac is rather insignificant when compared
with the circumcision transmitted to Abraham's other sons. For Scripture
records that Ishmael, Abraham's son, became a great nation, that he
begot twelve princes, also that the six son of Keturah (Genesis 25:1),
possessed much greater areas of land than Israel. And undoubtedly these
observed the rite of circumcision handed down to them by their fathers.
Now since circumcision, as decreed by God in Genesis 17, is practiced by
so many nations, beginning with Abraham (whose seed they all are the
same as Isaac and Jacob), and since there is no difference in this
regard between them and the children of Israel, what are the Jews really
doing when they praise and thank God in their prayers for singling them
out by circumcision from all other nations, for sanctifying them, and
for making them his own people? This is what they are doing: they are
blaspheming God and giving him the lie concerning his commandment and
his words where he says (Genesis 17:12) that circumcision shall not be
prescribed for Isaac and his descendants alone, but for all the seed of
Abraham. The Jews have no favored position exalting them above Ishmael
by reason of circumcision, or above Edom, Midian, Ephah, Epher, etc.,
all of whom are reckoned in Genesis as Abraham's seed. For they were all
circumcised and made heirs of circumcision, the same as Israel.
Now, what does it benefit Ishmael that he is circumcised? What does it
benefit Edom that he is circumcised — Edom who, moreover, is descended
from Isaac, who was set apart, and not from Ishmael? What does it
benefit Midian and his brothers, born of Keturah, that they are
circumcised? They are, for all of that, not God's people; neither their
descent from Abraham nor their circumcision, commanded by God, helps
them. If circumcision does not help them in becoming God's people, how
can it help the Jews. For it is one and the same circumcision, decreed
by one and the same God, and there is one and the same father, flesh and
blood or descent that is common to all. There is absolute equality;
there is no difference, no distinction among them all so far as
circumcision and birth are concerned.
Therefore it is not a clever and ingenious, but a clumsy, foolish, and
stupid lie when the Jews boast of their circumcision before God,
presuming that God should regard them graciously for that reason, though
they should certainly know from Scripture that they are not the only
race circumcised in compliance with God's decree, and that they cannot
on that account be God's special people. Something more, different, and
greater is necessary for that, since the Ishmaelites, the Edomites, the
Midianites, and other descendants of Abraham may equally comfort
themselves with this glory, even before God himself. For with regard to
birth and circumcision these are, as already said, their equals.
Perhaps the Jews will declare that the Ishmaelites and Edomites, etc.,
do not observe the rite of circumcision as strictly as they do. In
addition to cutting off the foreskin of a male child, the Jews force the
skin back on the little penis and tear it open with sharp fingernails,
as one reads in their books. Thus they cause extra ordinary pain to the
child, without and against the command of God, so that the father, who
should really be happy over the circumcision, stands there and weeps as
his child's cries pierce his heart. We answer roundly that such an
addendum is their own invention, yes, it was inspired by the accursed
devil, and is in contradiction to God's command, since Moses says in
Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32: "You shall not add to the word which I
command you, nor take from it." With such a devilish supplement they
ruin their circumcision, so that in the sight of God no other nation
practices circumcision less than they, since with such wanton
disobedience they append and practice this damnable supplement
Now let us see what Moses himself says about circumcision. In
Deuteronomy 10:16 he says: "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your
heart, and be no longer stubborn," etc. Dear Moses, what do you mean?
Does it not suffice that they are circumcised physically? They are set
apart from all other nations by this holy circumcision and made a holy
people of God. And you rebuke them for stubbornness against God? You
belittle their holy circumcision? You revile the holy, circumcised
people of God? You should venture to talk like that today in their
synagogues! If there were not stones conveniently near, they would
resort to mud and dirt to drive you from their midst, even if you were
worth ten Moseses.
He also chides them in Leviticus 26:41, saying: 'If then their
uncircumcised heart is humbled," etc. Be careful, Moses! Do you know
whom you are speaking to? You are talking to a noble, chosen, holy,
circumcised people of God. And you dare to say that they have
uncircumcised hearts? That is much worse than having a seven-times-
uncircumcised flesh; for an uncircumcised heart can have no God. And to
such the circumcision of the flesh is of no avail. Only a circumcised
heart can produce a people of God, and it can do this even when physical
circumcision is absent or is impossible, as it was for the children of
Israel during their forty years in the wilderness.
Thus Jeremiah also takes them to task, saying in chapter 4:4:
"Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts,
O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like
fire, and burn with none to quench it. . . ." Jeremiah, you wretched
heretic, you seducer and false prophet, how dare you tell that holy,
circumcised people of God to circumcise themselves to the Lord? Do you
mean to imply that they were hitherto circumcised physically to the
devil, as if God did not esteem their holy, physical circumcision? And
are you furthermore threatening them with God's wrath, as an eternal
fire, if they do not circumcise their hearts? But they do not mention
such circumcision of the heart in their prayer, nor do they praise or
thank God for it with as much as a single letter. And you dare to
invalidate their holy circumcision of the flesh, making it liable to
God's wrath and the eternal fire? I advise you not to enter their
synagogue; all devils might dismember and devour you there.
In Jeremiah 6:10 we read, further, "Their ears are uncircumcised, they
cannot listen." Well, well, my dear Jeremiah, you are surely dealing
roughly and inconsiderately with the noble, chosen, holy, circumcised
people of God. Do you mean to say that such a holy nation has
uncircumcised ears? And, what is far worse, that they are unable to
hear? Is that not tantamount to saying that they are not God's people?
For he who cannot hear or bear to hear God's word is not of God's
people. And if they are not God's people, then they are the devil's
people; and then neither circumcising nor skinning nor scraping will
avail. For God's sake, Jeremiah, stop talking like that! How can you
despise and condemn holy circumcision so horribly that you separate the
chosen, circumcised, holy people from God and consign them to the devil
as banished and damned? Do they not praise God for having set them apart
through circumcision both from the devil and from all the other nations
and for making them a holy and peculiar people? Yea, "He has spoken
blasphemy! Crucify him, crucify him!"
In chapter 9:25 Jeremiah says further: "Behold, the days are coming,
says the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised but yet
uncircumcised — Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon Moab, and all who
dwell in the desert... for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all
the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart...."
In the face of this, what becomes of the arrogant boast of circumcision
by reason of which the Jews claim to be a holy nation, set apart from
other peoples? Here God's word lumps them together with the heathen and
uncircumcised, and threatens the same visitation for both. Moreover, the
best part of Israel, the noble, royal tribe of Judah, is mentioned here,
and after that the entire house of Israel. Worst of all, he declares
that the heathen are, to be sure, uncircumcised according to the flesh,
but that Judah, Edom, and Israel, who are circumcised according to the
flesh, are much viler than the heathen, since they have an uncircumcised
heart; and this, as said before, is far worse than uncircumcised flesh.
These and similar passages prove irrefutably that the Jews' arrogance
and boast of circumcision over against the uncircumcised Gentiles are
null and void, and, unless accompanied by something else, deserves
nothing but God's wrath. God says that they have an uncircumcised heart.
But the Jews do not pay attention to such a foreskin of the heart;
rather they think that God should behold their proud circumcision in the
flesh and hear their arrogant boasts over against all Gentiles, who are
unable to boast of such circumcision. These blind, miserable people do
not see that God condemns their uncircumcised heart so clearly and
explicitly in these verses, and thereby condemns their physical
circumcision together with their boasting and their prayer. They go
their way like fools, making the foreskins of their heart steadily
thicker with such haughty boasts before God and their contempt for all
other people. By virtue of such futile, arrogant circumcision in the
flesh they presume to be God's only people, until the foreskin of their
heart has become thicker than an iron mountain and they can no longer
hear, see, or feel their own clear Scripture, which they read daily with
blind eyes overgrown with a pelt thicker than the bark of an oak tree.
If God is to give ear to their prayers and praises and accept them, they
must surely first purge their synagogues, mouths and hearts of such
blasphemous, shameful, false, and deceitful boasting and arrogance.
Otherwise they will only go from bad to worse and arouse God's anger
ever more against themselves. For he who would pray before God dare not
confront him with haughtiness and lying, he dare not praise only
himself, condemn all others, claim to be God's only people, and execrate
all the others, as they do. As David says in Psalm 5:4: "For thou are
not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not sojourn with thee.
The boastful may not stand before thy eyes; thou hatest all evildoers.
Thou destroyest those who speak lies; the Lord abhors bloodthirsty and
deceitful men." But rather, as verse 7 tells us: "I through the
abundance of thy steadfast love will enter thy house, I will worship
toward thy holy temple in the fear of thee."
This psalm applies to all men, whether circumcised or not, but
particularly and especially to the Jews, for whom it was especially
given and composed — as was all the rest of Scripture also. And they are
more masterfully portrayed in it than all other heathen. For they are
the ones who constantly have pursued godless ways, idolatry, false
doctrine, and who have had uncircumcised hearts, as Moses himself and
all the prophets cry out and lament. But in all this they always claimed
to be pleasing to God and they slew all the prophets on this account.
They are the malicious, stiff-necked people that would not be converted
from evil to good works by the preaching, reproof, and teaching of the
prophets. The Scriptures bear witness to this everywhere. And still they
claim to be God's servants and to stand before him. They are the
boastful, arrogant rascals who to the present day can do no more than
boast of their race and lineage, praise only themselves, and disdain and
curse all the world in their synagogues, prayers, and doctrines. Despite
this, they imagine that in God's eyes they rank as his dearest children.
They are real liars and bloodhounds who have not only continually
perverted and falsified all of Scripture with their mendacious glosses
from the beginning until the present day. Their heart's most ardent
sighing and yearning and hoping is set on the day on which they can deal
with us Gentiles as they did with the Gentiles in Persia at the time of
Esther. Oh, how fond they are of the book of Esther, which is so
beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous yearning
and hope. The sun has never shone on a more bloodthirsty and vengeful
people than they are who imagine that they are God's people who have
been commissioned and commanded to murder and to slay the Gentiles. In
fact, the most important thing that they expect of their Messiah is that
he will murder and kill the entire world with their sword. They treated
us Christians in this manner at the very beginning through out all the
world. They would still like to do this if they had the power, and often
enough have made the attempt, for which they have got their snouts boxed
lustily.
We can perhaps enlarge on this subject later; but let us now return to
their false, lying boast regarding circumcision. These shameful liars
are well aware that they are not the exclusive people of God, even if
they did possess circumcision to the exclusion of all other nations.
They also know that the foreskin is no obstacle to being a people of
God. And still they brazenly strut before God, lie and boast about being
God's only people by reason of their physical circumcision, unmindful of
the circumcision of the heart. Against this there are weighty scriptural
examples. In the first place, we adduce Job, who, as they say, descended
from Nahor. God did not impose circumcision on him and his heirs. And
yet his book shows clearly that there were very few great saints in
Israel who were the equal of him and of his people. Nor did the prophet
Elisha oblige Naaman of Syria to become circumcised; and yet he was
sanctified and became a child of God, and undoubtedly many others with
him.
Furthermore, there stands the whole of the prophet Jonah, who converted
Nineveh to God and preserved it together with kings, princes, lords,
land, and people, yet did not circumcise these people. Similarly, Daniel
converted the great kings and peoples of Babylon and Persia, such as
Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, etc., and yet they remained Gentiles,
uncircumcised, and did not become Jews. Earlier, Joseph instructed
Pharaoh the king, his princes, and his people, as Psalm 105:22 informs
us, yet he left them uncircumcised. This, I say, these hardened and
inveterate liars know, and yet they stress circumcision so greatly, as
though no uncircumcised person could be a child of God. And whenever
they seduce a Christian they try to alarm him so that he will be
circumcised. Subsequently they approach God and exult in their prayer
that they have brought us to the people of God through circumcision — as
though this were a precious deed. They disdain, despise, and curse the
foreskin on us as an ugly abomination which prevents us from becoming
God's people, while their circumcision, they claim, effects all.
What is God to do with such prayer and praise which they bring forth
together with their coarse, blasphemous lying, contrary to all Scripture
(as already stated)? He will indeed hear them and bring them back to
their country! I mean that if they were dwelling in heaven, such boasts,
prayers, praise, and lies about circumcision alone would hurl them
instantly into the abyss of hell. I have already written about this
against the Sabbatarians. Therefore, dear Christian, be on your guard
against such damnable people whom God has permitted to sink into such
profound abominations and lies, for all they do and say must be sheer
lying, blasphemy, and malice, however fine it may look.
But you may ask: Of what use then is circumcision? Or why did God
command it so strictly? We answer: Let the Jews fret about that! What
does that matter to us Gentiles? It was not imposed on us, as you have
heard, nor do we stand in need of it, but we can be God's people without
it, just as the people in Nineveh, in Babylon, in Persia, and in Egypt
were. And no one can prove that God ever commanded a prophet or a Jew to
circumcise the Gentiles. Therefore they should not harass us with their
lies and idolatry. If they claim to be so smart and wise as to instruct
and circumcise us Gentiles, let them first tell us what purpose
circumcision serves, and why God commanded it so strictly. This they owe
us; but they will not do it until they return to their home in Jerusalem
again — that is to say, when the devil ascends into heaven. For when
they assert that God enjoined circumcision for the purpose of
sanctifying them, saving them, making them God's people, they are lying
atrociously, as you have heard. For Moses and all the prophets testify
that circumcision did not help even those for whom it was commanded,
since they were of uncircumcised hearts. How, then, should it help us
for whom it was not commanded?
But to speak for us Christians — we know very well why it was given or
what purpose it served. However, no Jew knows this, and even when we
tell him it is just like addressing a stump or a stone. They will not
desist from their boasting and their pride, that is, from their lies.
They insist that they are in the right; God must be the liar and he must
be in error. Therefore, let them go their way and lie as their fathers
have done from the beginning. But St. Paul teaches us in Romans 3 that
when circumcision is performed as a kind of work it cannot make holy or
save, nor was it meant to do so. Nor does it damn the uncircumcised
Gentiles, as the Jews mendaciously and blasphemously say. Rather, he
says, "circumcision is of great value in this way — that they were
entrusted with the word of God" [cf. Rom. 3:1 ff.]. That is the point,
there it is said, there it is found! Circumcision was given and
instituted to enfold and to preserve God's word and his promise. This
means that circumcision should not be useful or sufficient as a work in
itself, but those who possess circumcision should be bound by this sign,
covenant, or sacrament to obey and to believe God in his words and to
transmit all this to their descendants.
But where such a final cause or reason for circumcision no longer
obtained, circumcision as a mere work no longer was to enjoy validity or
value, all the more so if the Jews should patch or attach another final
cause or explanation to it. This is also borne out by the words in
Genesis 17: "I will be your God, and in token of this you shall bear my
sign upon your flesh" [cf. Gen. 17:8, 11]. This expresses the same
thought found in St. Paul's statement that circumcision was given so
that one should hear or obey God's word. For when God's word is no
longer heard or kept, then he is surely no longer our God, since we in
this life must comprehend and have God solely through his word. This
wretched life cannot bear and endure him in his brilliant majesty, as he
says in Exodus 36 [33:20]: "Man shall not see me and live."
There are innumerable examples throughout all of Scripture which show
what cause or purpose the Jews assigned to circumcision. For as often as
God wanted to speak with them through the prophets whether about the Ten
Commandments, in which he reproved them, or about the promise of future
help they were always obdurate, or as the quoted verses from Moses and
Jeremiah testify, they were of uncircumcised heart and ears. They always
claimed to do the right and proper thing, while the prophets (that is,
God himself whose word they preached) always did the wrong and evil
thing. Therefore the Jews slew them all, and they have never yet allowed
any to die unpersecuted and uncondemned, with the exception of a few at
the time of David, Hezekiah, and Josiah. The entire course of the
history of Israel and Judah is pervaded by blasphemy of God's word, by
persecution, derision, and murder of the prophets. Judging them by
history, these people must be called wanton murderers of the prophets
and enemies of God's word. Whoever reads the Bible cannot draw any other
conclusion.
As we said, God did not institute circumcision nor did he accept the
Jews as his people in order that they might persecute, mock, and murder
his word and his prophets, and thereby render a service to justice and
to God. Rather, as Moses says in the words dealing with circumcision in
Genesis 17, this was done in order that they might hear God and his
word; that is, that they might let him be their God. Apart from this
circumcision in itself would not help them, since it would then no
longer be God's circumcision, for it would be without God, contending
against his word; it would have become merely a human work. For he had
bound himself, or his word, to circumcision. Where these two part
company, circumcision remains a hollow husk or empty shell devoid of nut
or kernel.
The following is an analogous situation for us Christians: God gave us
baptism, the sacrament of his body and blood, and the keys for the
ultimate purpose or final cause that we should hear his word in them and
exercise our faith therein. That is, he intends to be our God through
them, and through them we are to be his people. However, what did we do?
We proceeded to separate the word and faith from the sacrament (that is,
from God and his ultimate purpose) and converted it into a mere *opus
legis*, a work of the law, or as the papists call it, an *opus operatum*
— merely a human work which the priests offered to God and the laity
performed as a work of obedience as often as they received it. What is
left of the sacrament? Only the empty husk, the mere ceremony, *opus
vanum,* divested of everything divine. Yes, it is a hideous abomination
in which we perverted God's truth into lies and worshiped the veritable
calf of Aaron. Therefore God also delivered us into all sorts of
terrible blindness and innumerable false doctrines, and, furthermore, he
permitted Muhammad and the pope together with all devils to come upon
us.
The people of Israel fared similarly. They always divorced circumcision
as an *opus operatum,* their own work, from the word of God, and
persecuted all the prophets through whom God wished to speak with them,
according to the terms on which circumcision was instituted. Yet despite
this, they constantly and proudly boasted of being God's people by
virtue of their circumcision. Thus they are in conflict with God. God
wants them to hear him and to observe circumcision properly and fully;
but they refuse and insist that God respect their work of circumcision,
that is, half of circumcision, indeed, the husk of circumcision. God, in
turn, refuses to do this; and so they move farther and farther apart,
and it is impossible to reunite or reconcile them.
Now, who wishes to accuse God of an injustice? Tell me, anyone who is
reasonable, whether it is fitting that God regard the works of those who
refuse to hear his word, or if he should consider them to be his people
when they do not want to regard him as their God? With all justice and
good reason God may say, as the psalm declares [Ps. 81:11 f.]: "Israel
would have none of me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to
follow their own counsels." And in Deuteronomy 32:21, Moses states,
"They have stirred me to jealously with what is no god.... So I will
stir them to jealousy with those who are no people."
Similarly among us Christians the papists can no longer pass for the
church. For they will not let God be their God, because they refuse to
listen to his word, but rather persecute it most terribly, then come
along with their empty husks, chaff, and refuse, as they hold mass and
practice their ceremonies. And God is supposed to recognize them and
look upon them as his true church, ignoring the fact that they do not
acknowledge him as the true God, that is, they do not want him to speak
to them through his preachers. His word must be accounted heresy, the
devil, and every evil. This he will indeed do, as they surely will
experience, far worse than did the Jews.
Now we can readily gather from all this that circumcision was very
useful and good, as St. Paul declares — not indeed on its own account
but on account of the word of God. For we are convinced, and it is the
truth, that the children who were circumcised on the eighth day became
children of God, as the words state, "I will be their God" [Gen. 17:7],
for they received the perfect and full circumcision, the word with the
sign, and did not separate the two. God is present, saying to them, "I
will be their God"; and this completed the circumcision in them.
Similarly, our children receive the complete, true, and full baptism,
the word with the sign, and do not separate one from the other; they
receive the kernel in the shell. God is present; he baptizes and speaks
with them, and thereby saves them.
But now that we have grown old, the pope comes along and the devil with
him and teaches us to convert this into an *opus legis* or *opus
operatum.* He severs word and sign from each other, teaching that we are
saved by our own contrition, work, and satisfaction. We share the
experience related by St. Peter in II Peter 2:22: "The dog turns back to
his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire." Thus
our sacrament has be come a work, and we eat our vomit again. Likewise
the Jews, as they grew old, ruined their good circumcision performed on
the eighth day, separated the word from the sign, and made a human or
even a swinish work out of it. In this way they lost God and his word
and now no longer have any understanding of the Scriptures.
Part III
God truly honored them highly by circumcision, speaking to them above
all other nations on earth and entrusting his word to them. And in order
to preserve this word among them, he gave them a special country; he
performed great wonders through them, ordained kings and government, and
lavished prophets upon them who not only apprised them of the best
things pertaining to the present but also promised them the future
Messiah, the Savior of the world. It was for his sake that God accorded
them all of this, bidding them look for his coming, to expect him
confidently and without delay. For God did all of this solely for his
sake: for his sake Abraham was called, circumcision was instituted, and
the people were thus exalted so that all the world might know from which
people, from which country, at which time, yes, from which tribe,
family, city, and person, he would come, lest he be reproached by devils
and by men for coming from dark corner or from unknown ancestors. No,
his ancestors had to be great patriarchs, excellent kings, and
outstanding prophets, who bear witness to him.
We have already stated how the Jews, with few exceptions, viewed such
promises and prophets. They were never able to tolerate a prophet, and
always persecuted God's word and declined to give ear to God. That is
the complaint and lament of all the prophets. And as their fathers did,
so they still do today, nor will they ever mend their ways. If Isaiah,
Jeremiah, or other prophets went about among them today and proclaimed
what they proclaimed in their day, or declared that the Jews' present
circumcision and hope for the Messiah are futile, they would again have
to die at their hands as happened then. Let him who is endowed with
reason, to say nothing of Christian understanding, note how arbitrarily
they pervert and twist the prophets' books with their confounded
glosses, in violation of their own conscience (on which we can perhaps
say more later). For now that they can no longer stone or kill the
prophets physically or personally, they torment them spiritually
mutilate, strangle, and maltreat their beautiful verses so that the
human heart is vexed and pained. For this forces us to see how, because
of God's wrath, they are wholly delivered into the devil's hands. In
brief, they are a prophet-murdering people; since they can no longer
murder the living ones, they must murder and torment the ones that are
dead.
Subsequently, after they have scourged, crucified, spat upon,
blasphemed, and cursed God in his word, as Isaiah 8 prophesies, they
pretentiously trot out their circumcision and other vain, blasphemous,
invented, and meaningless works. They presume to be God's only people,
to condemn all the world, and they expect that their arrogance and
boasting will please God, that he should repay them with a Messiah of
their own choosing and prescription. Therefore, dear Christian, be on
your guard against such accursed, in corrigible people, from whom you
can learn no more than to give God and his word the lie, to blaspheme,
to pervert, to murder prophets, and haughtily and proudly to despise all
people on earth. Even if God would be willing to disregard all their
other sins which, of course, is impossible he could not condone such
ineffable (although poor and wretched) pride. For he is called a God of
the humble, as Isaiah 66:2 states: "But this is the man to whom I will
look. he that is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my
word." I have said enough about the second false boast of the Jews,
namely, their false and futile circumcision, which did not avail them
when they were taken to task by Moses and by Jeremiah because of their
uncircumcised heart. How much less is it useful now when it is nothing
more than the devil's trickery with which he mocks and fools them, as he
also does the Turks. For wherever God's word is no longer present,
circumcision is null and void.
In the third place, they are very conceited because God spoke with them
and issued them the law of Moses on Mount Sinai. Here we arrive at the
right spot, here God really has to let himself be tortured, here he must
listen as they tire him with their songs and praises because he hallowed
them with his holy law, set them apart from other nations, and led them
out of Egypt. Here we poor Goyim are really despised, and are mere
ciphers compared to the holy, chosen, noble, and highly exalted people
which is in possession of God's word! They state, as I myself heard:
"Indeed, what do you have to say to this — that God himself spoke with
us on Mount Sinai and that he did this with no other people?" We have
nothing with which to refute that, for we cannot deny them this glory.
The books of Moses are ready to give proof of it, and David, too,
testifies to it, saying in Psalm 147:19: "He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and ordinances to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any
other nation; they do not know his ordinances." And in Psalm 103:7: "He
made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel."
They relate that the chiefs of the people wore wreaths at Mount Sinai at
that time as a symbol that they had contracted a marriage with God
through the law, that they had become his bride, and that the two had
wedded one another. Later we read in all the prophets how God appears
and talks with the children of Israel as a husband with his wife. From
this also sprang the peculiar worship of Baal; for "Baal" denotes a man
of the house or a master of the house, "Beulah" denotes a housewife. The
latter also has taken a German form, as when we say "My dear *Buhle*"
[sweetheart], and "I must have a *Buhle.*" Formerly this was an
inoffensive term, designating a young lass. It was said that a young man
courted [*buhlte*] a young girl with a view to marriage. Now the word
has assumed a different connotation.
Now we challenge you, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the prophets, and
whoever will, to come and to be bold enough to say that such a noble
nation with whom God himself converses and with whom he himself enters
into marriage through the law, and to whom he joins himself as to a
bride, is not God's people. Anyone doing that, I know, would make
himself ridiculous and come to grief. In default of any other weapons,
they would tear and bite him to pieces with their teeth for trying to
dispossess them of such glory, praise, and honor. One can neither
express nor understand the obstinate, unbridled, incorrigible arrogance
of this people, springing from this advantage — that God himself spoke
to them. No prophet has ever been able to raise his voice in protest or
stand up against them, not even Moses. For in Numbers 16, Korah arose
and asserted that they were all holy people of God, and asked why Moses
alone should rule and teach. Since that time, the majority of them have
been genuine Korahites; there have been very few true Israelites. For
just as Korah persecuted Moses, they have never subsequently left a
prophet alive or unpersecuted, much less have they obeyed him.
So it became apparent that they were a defiled bride, yes, an
incorrigible whore and an evil slut with whom God ever had to wrangle,
scuffle, and fight. If he chastised and struck them with his word
through the prophets, they contradicted him, killed his prophets, or,
like a mad dog, bit the stick with which they were struck.. Thus Psalm
95:10 declares: "For forty years I loathed that generation and said,
'They are a people who err in heart, and they do not regard my ways.'"
And Moses himself says in Deuteronomy 31:27: "For I know how rebellious
and stubborn you are; behold, while I am yet alive with you, today you
have been rebellious against the Lord; how much more after my death!"
And Isaiah 48:4: "Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck
is an iron sinew and your forehead brass... ." And so on; anyone who is
interested may read more of this. The Jews are well aware that the
prophets upbraided the children of Israel from beginning to end as a
disobedient, evil people and as the vilest whore, although they boasted
so much of the law of Moses, or circumcision, and of their ancestry.
But it might be objected: Surely, this is said about the wicked Jews,
not about the pious ones as they are today. Well and good, for the
present I will be content if they confess, as they must confess, that
the wicked Jews cannot be God's people, and that their lineage,
circumcision, and law of Moses cannot help them. Why, then, do they all,
the most wicked as well as the pious, boast of circumcision, lineage,
and law? The worse a Jew is, the more arrogant he is, solely because he
is a Jew — that is, a person descended from Abraham's seed, circumcised,
and under the law of Moses. David and other pious Jews were not as
conceited as the present-day, incorrigible Jews. However wicked they may
be, they presume to be the noblest lords over against us Gentiles, just
by virtue of their lineage and law. Yet the law rebukes them as the
vilest whores and rogues under the sun.
Furthermore, if they are pious Jews and not the whoring people, as the
prophets call them, how does it happen that their piety is so concealed
that God himself is not aware of it, and they are not aware of it
either? For they have, as we said, prayed, cried, and suffered almost
fifteen hundred years already, and yet God refuses to listen to them. We
know from Scripture that God will hear the prayers or sighing of the
righteous, as the Psalter says [Ps. 145:19]: "He fulfills the desire of
all who fear him, he also hears their cry." And Psalm 34:17: "When the
righteous cry for help, the Lord hears." As he promised in Psalm 50:15:
"Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you." The same is
found in many more verses of the Scripture. If it were not for these,
who would or could pray? In brief, he says in the first commandment that
he will be their God. Then, how do you explain that he will not listen
to these Jews? They must assuredly be the base, whoring people, that is,
no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must
be accounted as filth. If there were a single pious Jew among them who
observed these, he would have to be heard; for God cannot let his saints
pray in vain, as Scripture demonstrates by many examples. This is
conclusive evidence that they cannot be pious Jews, but must be the
multitude of the whoring and murderous people.
Such piety is, as already has been said, so concealed among them that
they themselves also can know nothing of it. How then shall God know of
it? For they are full of malice, greed, envy, hatred toward one another,
pride, usury, conceit, and curses against us Gentiles. Therefore, a Jew
would have to have very sharp eyes to recognize a pious Jew, to say
nothing of the fact that they all should be God's people as they claim.
For they surely hide their piety effectively under their manifest vices;
and yet they all, without exception, claim to be Abraham's blood, the
people of the circumcision and of Moses, that is, God's nation, compared
with whom the Gentiles must surely be sheer stench. Although they know
that God cannot tolerate this, nor did he tolerate it among the angels,
yet he should and must listen to their lies and blasphemies to the
effect that they are his people by virtue of the law he gave them and
because he conversed with their forefathers at Mount Sinai.
Why should one make many words about this? If the boast that God spoke
with them and that they possess his word or commandment were sufficient
so that God would on this basis regard them as his people, then the
devils in hell would be much worthier of being God's people than the
Jews, yes, than any people. For the devils have God's word and know far
better than the Jews that there is a God who created them, whom they are
obliged to love with all their heart, to honor, fear, and serve, whose
name they dare not misuse, whose word they must hear on the Sabbath and
at all times; they know that they are forbidden to murder or to inflict
harm on any creature. But what good does it do them to know and to
possess God's commandment? Let them boast that this makes them God's own
special, dear angels, in comparison with whom other angels are nothing!
How much better off they would be if they did not have God's commandment
or if they were ignorant of it. For if they did not have it, they would
not be condemned. The very reason for their condemnation is that they
possess his commandment and yet do not keep it, but violate it
constantly.
In the same manner murderers and whores, thieves and rogues and all evil
men might boast that they are God's holy, peculiar people; for they,
too, have his word and know that they must fear and obey him, love and
serve him, honor his name, refrain from murder, adultery, theft, and
every other evil deed. If they did not have God's holy and true word,
they could not sin. But since they do sin and are condemned, it is
certain that they do have the holy, true word of God, against which they
sin. Let them boast, like the Jews, that God has sanctified them through
his law and chosen them above all other men as a peculiar people!
It is the same kind of boasting when the Jews boast in their synagogues,
praising and thanking God for sanctifying them through his law and
setting them apart as a peculiar people, although they know full well
that they are not at all observing this law, that they are full of
conceit, envy, usury, greed, and all sorts of malice. The worst
offenders are those who pretend to be very devout and holy in their
prayers. They are so blind that they not only practice usury not to
mention the other vices but they teach that it is a right which God
conferred on them through Moses. Thereby, as in all the other matters,
they slander God most infamously. However, we lack the time to dwell on
that now.
But when they declare that even if they are not holy because of the Ten
Commandments (since all Gentiles and devils are also duty-bound to keep
these, or else are polluted and condemned on account of them) they still
have the other laws of Moses, besides the Ten Commandments, which were
given exclusively to them and not also to the Gentiles, and by which
they are sanctified and singled out from all other nations — O Lord God,
what a lame, loose, and vain excuse and pretext this is! If the Ten
Commandments are not obeyed, what does the keeping of the other laws
amount to other than mere jugglery and mummery, indeed, a veritable
mockery which treats God as a fool. It is just as if an evil, devilish
fellow among us were to parade about in the garb of a pope, cardinal,
bishop, or pastor and observe all the precepts and the ways of these
persons, but underneath this spiritual dress would be a genuine devil, a
wolf, an enemy of the church, a blasphemer who trampled both the gospel
and the Ten Commandments under foot and cursed and damned them. What a
fine saint he would be in God's sight!
Or let us suppose that somewhere a pretty girl came along, adorned with
a wreath, and observed all the manners, the duties, the deportment and
discipline of a chaste virgin, but underneath was a vile, shameful
whore, violating the Ten Commandments. What good would her fine
obedience in observing outwardly all the duties and customs of a
virgin's station do her? It would help her this much — that one would be
seven times more hostile to her than to an impudent, public whore. Thus
God constantly chided the children of Israel through the prophets,
calling them a vile whore because, under the guise and decor of external
laws and sanctity, they practiced all sorts of idolatry and villainy, as
especially Hosea laments in chapter 2.
To be sure, it is commendable when a pious virgin or woman is decently
and cleanly dressed and adorned and outwardly conducts herself with
modesty. But if she is a whore, her garments, adornments, wreath, and
jewels would better befit a sow that wallows in the mire. As Solomon
says [Prov. 11:22]: "Like a gold ring in a swine's snout is a beautiful
woman without discretion." That is to say, she is a whore. Therefore,
this boast about the external laws of Moses, apart from obedience to the
Ten Commandments, should be silenced; indeed, this boast makes the Jews
seven times more unworthy to be God's people than the Gentiles are. For
the external laws were not given to make a nation the people of God, but
to adorn and enhance God's people externally. Just as the Ten
Commandments were not given that any might boast of them and haughtily
despise all the world because of them, as if they were holy and God's
people because of them; rather they were given to be observed, and that
obedience to God might be shown in them, as Moses and all the prophets
most earnestly teach. Not he who has them shall glory, as we saw in the
instance of the devils and of evil men, but he who keeps them. He who
has them and fails to keep them must be ashamed and terrified because he
will surely be condemned by them.
But this subject is beyond the ken of the blind and hardened Jews.
Speaking to them about it is much the same as preaching the gospel to a
sow. They cannot know what God's commandment really is, much less do
they know how to keep it. After all, they could not listen to Moses, nor
look into his face; he had to cover it with a veil. This veil is there
to the present day, and they still do not behold Moses' face, that is,
his doctrine. It is still veiled to them [cf. II Cor. 3:13 ff.; Exod.
34:33 ff.]. Thus they could not hear God's word on Mount Sinai when he
talked to them, but they retreated, saying to Moses: "You speak to us,
and we will hear; but let not God speak to us, lest we die" [Exod.
20:19]. To know God's commandment and to know how to keep it requires a
high prophetic understanding.
Moses was well aware of that when he said in Exodus 34 that God forgives
sin and that no one is guiltless before him, which is to say that no one
keeps his commandments but he whose sins God forgives. As David also
testifies in Psalm 32:1, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
... to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity." And in the same psalm [cf. v.
6]: "Therefore let every one who is godly offer prayer to thee for
forgiveness," which means that no saint keeps God's commandments. But if
the saints fail to keep them, how will the ungodly, the unbelievers, the
evil people keep them? Again we read in Psalm 143:2: "O Lord, enter not
into judgment with thy servant; for no man living is righteous before
thee." That attests clearly enough that even the holy servants of God
are not justified before him unless he sets aside his judgment and deals
with them in his mercy; that is, they do not keep his commandments and
stand in need of forgiveness of sins.
This calls for a Man who will assist us in this, who bears our sin for
us, as Isaiah 53:6 says: "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us
all." Indeed, that is truly to understand God's law and its observance —
when we know, recognize, yes, and feel that we have it, but do not keep
it and cannot keep it; that in view of this, we are poor sinners and
guilty before God; and that it is only out of pure grace and mercy that
we receive forgiveness for such guilt and disobedience through the Man
on whom God has laid this sin. Of this we Christians speak and this we
teach, and of this the prophets and apostles speak to us and teach us.
They are the ones who were and still are our God's bride and pure
virgin; and yet they boast of no law or holiness as the Jews do in their
synagogues. They rather wail over the law and cry for mercy and
forgiveness of sins. The Jews, on the other hand, are as holy as the
barefoot friars who possess so much excess holiness that they can use it
to help others to get to heaven, and still retain a rich and abundant
supply to sell. It is of no use to speak to any of them about these
matters, for their blindness arrogance are as solid as an iron mountain.
They are in the right; God is in the wrong. Let them go their way, and
let us remain with those who pray the *Miserere,* Psalm 51, that is,
with those who know and understand what the law is, and what it means to
keep and not to keep it.
Learn from this dear Christian, what you are doing if you permit the
blind Jews to mislead you. Then the saying will truly apply, 'When a
blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into the pit" [cf. Luke
6:39]. You cannot learn anything from them except how to misunderstand
the divine commandments, and, despite this, boast haughtily over against
the Gentiles — who really are much better before God than they, since
they do not have such pride of holiness and yet keep far more of the law
than these arrogant saints and damned blasphemers and liars.
Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they
have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in-which
sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men
are practiced most maliciously and vehming his eyes on them. God's wrath
has consigned them to the presumption that their boasting, their
conceit, their slander of God, their cursing of all people are a true
and a great service rendered to God — all of which is very fitting and
becoming to such noble blood of the fathers and circumcised saints. This
they believe despite the fact that they know they are steeped in
manifest vices mently, just as the devils themselves do. And where you
see or hear a Jew teaching, remember that you are hearing nothing but a
venomous basilisk who poisons and kills people merrily by fasten- And
with all this, they claim to be doing right. Be on your guard against
them!
In the fourth place, 34 they pride themselves tremendously on having
received the land of Canaan, the city of Jerusalem, and the temple from
God. God has often squashed such boasting and arrogance, especially
through the king of Babylon, who led them away into captivity and
destroyed everything (just as the king of Assyria earlier had led all of
Israel away and had laid everything low). Finally they were exterminated
and devastated by the Romans over fourteen hundred years ago — so that
they might well perceive that God did not regard, nor will regard, their
country, city, temple, priesthood, or principality, and view them on
account of these as his own peculiar people. Yet their iron neck, as
Isaiah calls it [Isa. 48:4] is not bent, nor is their brass forehead red
with shame. They remain stone-blind, obdurate, immovable, ever hoping
that God will restore their homeland to them and give everything back to
them.
Moses had informed them a great many times, first, that they were not
occupying the land because their righteousness exceeded that of other
heathen for they were a stubborn, evil disobedient people and second,
that they would soon be expelled from the land and perish if they did
not keep God's commandments. And when God chose the city of Jerusalem he
added very clearly in the writings of all the prophets that he would
utterly destroy this city of Jerusalem, his seat and throne, if they
would not keep his commandments. Furthermore, when Solomon had built the
temple, had sacrificed and prayed to God, God said to him (I Kings 9:3),
"I have heard your prayer and your supplications ... I have consecrated
this house," etc.; but then he added shortly thereafter: "But if you
turn aside from following me ... and do not keep my commandments ...
then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and
the house which I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my
sight; and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples."
With an utter disregard for this, they stood and still stand, firm as a
rock or as an inert stone image, insisting that God gave them country,
city, and temple, and that therefore they have to be God's people or
church.
They neither hear nor see that God gave them all of this that they might
keep his commandments, that is, regard him as their God, and thus be his
people and church. They boast of their race and of their descent from
the fathers, but they neither see nor pay attention to the fact that he
chose their race that they should keep his commandments. They boast of
their circumcision; but why they are circumcised namely, that they
should keep God's commandments counts for nought. They are quick to
boast of their law, temple, worship, city, land and government; but why
they possess all of this, they disregard.
The devil with all his angels has taken possession of this people, so
that they always exalt external things their gifts, their deeds, their
works before God, which is tantamount to offering God the empty shells
without the kernels. These they expect God to esteem and by reason of
them accept them as his people, and exalt and bless them above all
Gentiles. But that he wants his laws observed and wants to be honored by
them as God, this they do not want to consider. Thus the words of Moses
are fulfilled when he says [Deut. 32:21] that God will not regard them
as his people, since they do not regard him as their God. Hosea 2 [cf.
1:9] expresses the same thought.
Indeed, if God had not allowed the city of Jerusalem to be destroyed and
had them driven out of their country, but had permitted them to remain
there, no one could have convinced them that they are not God's people,
since they would still be in possession of temple, city, and country
regardless of how base, disobedient, and stubborn they were. [They would
not have believed it] even if it had snowed nothing but prophets daily
and even if a thousand Moseses had stood up and shouted: "You are not
God's people, because you are disobedient and rebellious to God." Why,
even today they cannot refrain from their nonsensical, insane boasting
that they are God's people, although they have been cast out, dispersed,
and utterly rejected for almost fifteen hundred years. By virtue of
their own merits they still hope to return there again. But they have no
such promise with which they could console themselves other than what
their false imagination smuggles into Scripture.
Our apostle St. Paul was right when he said of them that "they have a
zeal for God, but it is not enlightened," etc. [Rom. 10:2]. They claim
to be God's people by reason of their deeds, works, and external show,
and not because of sheer grace and mercy, as all prophets and all true
children of God have to be, as was said. Therefore they are beyond
counsel and help. In the same way as our papists, bishops, monks, and
priests, together with their following, who insist that they are God's
people and church; they believe that God should esteem them because they
are baptized, because they have the name, and because they rule the
roost. There they stand like a rock. If a hundred thousand apostles came
along and said: "You are not the church because of your behavior or your
many doings and divine services, even though these were your best
efforts; no, you must despair of all this and adhere simply and solely
to the grace and mercy of Christ, etc. If you fail to do this, you are
the devil's whore or a school of knaves and not the church," they would
wish to murder, burn at the stake, or banish such apostles. As for
believing them and abandoning their own devices, of this there is no
hope; it will not happen.
The Turks follow the same pattern with their worship, as do all
fanatics. Jews, Turks, papists, radicals abound everywhere. All of them
claim to be the church and God's people in accord with their conceit and
boast, regardless of the one true faith and the obedience to God's
commandments through which alone people become and remain God's
children. Even if they do not all pursue the same course, but one
chooses this way, another that way, resulting in a variety of forms,
they nonetheless all have the same intent and ultimate goal, namely, by
means of their own deeds they want to manage to become God's people. And
thus they boast and brag that they are the ones whom God will esteem.
They are the foxes of Samson which are tied together tail to tail but
whose heads turn away in different directions [cf. Judg. 15:4].
But as we noted earlier, that is beyond the comprehension of the Jews,
as well as of the Turks and papists. As St. Paul says in [I Corinthians
1, "The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God,
because they are spiritually discerned" [I Cor. 2:14]. Thus the words of
Isaiah 6:9 come true: "Hear and hear, but do not understand; see and
see, but do not perceive." For they do not know what they hear, see,
say, or do. And yet they do not concede that they are blind and deaf.
Part IV
That shall be enough about the false boast and pride of the Jews, who
would move God with sheer lies to regard them as his people. Now we come
to the main subject, their asking God for the Messiah. Here at last they
show themselves as true saints and pious children. At this point they
certainly do not want to be accounted liars and blasphemers but reliable
prophets, asserting that the Messiah has not yet come but will still
appear. Who will take them to task here for their error or mistake? Even
if all the angels and God himself publicly declared on Mount Sinai or in
the temple in Jerusalem that the Messiah had come long ago and that he
was no longer to be expected, God himself and all the angels would have
to be considered nothing but devils. So convinced are these most holy
and truthful prophets that the Messiah has not yet appeared but will
still come. Nor will they listen to us. They turned a deaf ear to us in
the past and still do so, although many fine scholarly people, including
some from their own race, have refuted them so thoroughly that even
stone and wood, if endowed with a particle of reason, would have to
yield. Yet they rave consciously against recognized truth. Their
accursed rabbis, who in deed know better, wantonly poison the minds of
their poor youth and of the common man and divert them from the truth.
For I believe that if these writings were read by the common man and the
youth they would stone all their rabbis and hate them more violently
than they do us Christians. But these villains prevent our sincere views
from coming to their attention.
If I had not had the experience with my papists, it would have seemed
incredible to me that the earth should harbor such base people who
knowingly fly in the face of open and manifest truth, that is, of God
himself. For I never expected to encounter such hardened minds in any
human breast, but only in that of the devil. However, I am no longer
amazed by either the Turks' or the Jews' blindness, obduracy, and
malice, since I have to witness the same thing in the most holy fathers
of the church, in pope, cardinals, and bishops. O you terrible wrath and
incomprehensible judgment of the sublime Divine Majesty! How can you be
so despised by the children of men that we do not forthwith tremble to
death before you? What an unbearable sight you are, also to the hearts
and eyes of the holiest men, as we see in Moses and the prophets. Yet
these stony hearts and iron souls mock you so defiantly.
However, although we perhaps labor in vain on the Jews for I said
earlier that I don't want to dispute with them we nonetheless want to
discuss their senseless folly among ourselves, for the strengthening of
our faith and as a warning to weak Christians against the Jews, and,
chiefly, in honor of God, in order to prove that our faith is true and
that they are entirely mistaken on the question of the Messiah. We
Christians have our New Testament, which furnishes us reliable and
adequate testimony concerning the Messah. That the Jews do not believe
it does not concern us; we believe their accursed glosses still less. We
let them go their way and wait for their Messiah. Their unbelief does
not harm us; but as to the help they derive and to date have derived
from it, they may ask of their long-enduring exile. That will, in deed,
supply the answer for us. Let him who will not follow lag behind. They
act as though they were of great importance to us. Just to vex us, they
corrupt the sayings of Scripture. We do not at all desire or require
their conversion for any advantage, usefulness, or help accruing to us
therefrom. All that we do in this regard is prompted rather by a concern
for their welfare. If they do not want it, they can disregard it; we are
excused and can easily dispense with them, together with all that they
are, have, and can do for salvation. We have a better knowledge of
Scripture, thanks be to God; this we are certain of, and all the devils
shall never deprive us of it, much less the miserable Jews.
First we want to submit the verse found in Genesis 49:10: "The scepter
shall not depart from Judah... until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be
the obedience of the peoples." This saying of the holy patriarch Jacob,
spoken at the very end of his life, has been tortured and crucified in
many ways down to the present day by the modern, strange Jews, in
violation of their own conscience. For they realize fully that their
twisting and perverting is nothing but wanton mischief. Their glosses
remind me very much of an evil, stubborn shrew who clamorously
contradicts her husband and insists on having the last word although she
knows she is in the wrong. Thus these blinded people also suppose that
it suffices to bark and to prattle against the text and its true
meaning; they are entirely indifferent to the fact that they are lying
impudently. I believe they would be happier if this verse had never been
written rather than that they should change their mind. This verse pains
them intensely, and they cannot ignore it.
The ancient, true Jews understood this verse correctly, as we Christians
do, namely, that the government or scepter should remain with the tribe
of Judah until the advent of the Messiah; then "to him shall be the
obedience of the peoples," to him they will adhere. That is, the scepter
shall then not be confined to the tribe of Judah, but, as the prophets
later explain, it shall be extended to all peoples on earth at the time
of the Messiah. However, until he appears, the scepter shall remain in
that small nook and corner, Judah. That, I say, is the understanding of
the prophets and of the ancient Jews; this they cannot deny. For also
their Chaldaean Bible, which they dare oppose as little as the Hebrew
Bible itself, shows this clearly.
In translation it reads thus: "The shultan shall not be put away from
the house of Judah nor the saphra from his children's children eternally
until the Messiah comes, whose is the kingdom, and the peoples will make
themselves obedient to him." This is a true and faithful translation of
the Chaldaean text, as no Jew or devil can deny.
For Moses' Hebrew term shebet ["scepter"] we use the word Zepter in
German, whereas the Chaldaean translator chooses the word shultan. Let
us explain these words. The Hebrew shebet is the designation for a
virga; it is really not a rod in the usual sense, for this term suggests
to the German the thought of birch switches with which children are
punished. Nor is it a staff used by invalids and the aged for walking.
But it designates a mace held upright, such as a judge holds in his hand
when he acts in his official capacity. As luxury increased in the world,
this mace was made of silver or of gold. Now it is called a scepter,
that is, a royal rod. Skeptron is a Greek word, but it has now been
taken up into the German language. In his first book, Homer describes
his King Achilles as having a wooden scepter adorned with small silver
nails. From this we learn what scepters originally were and how they
gradually came to be made entirely of silver and gold. In brief, it is
the rod, whether of silver, wood, or gold, carried by a king or his
representative. It symbolizes nothing other than do minion or kingdom.
Nobody questions this.
To make it very clear: the Chaldaean translator does not use the word
shebet, mace or scepter; but he substitutes the person who bears this
rod, saying shultan, indicating that a prince, lord, or king shall not
depart from the house of Judah; there shall be a sultan in the house of
Judah until the Messiah comes. "Sultan" is also a Hebrew term, and a
word well known to us Christians, who have waged war for more than six
hundred years against the sultan of Egypt, and have gained very little
to show for it. For the Saracens call their king or prince "sultan,"
that is, lord or ruler or sovereign. From this the Hebrew word schilt is
derived, which has become a thoroughly German word (Schild ["shield"]).
It is as though one wished to say that a prince or lord must be his
subjects' shield, protection, and defense, if he is to be a true judge,
sultan, or lord, etc. Some people even try to trace the German term
Schultheiss ["village mayor"] back to the word "sultan"; I shall not
enter into this.
saphra is the same as the Hebrew sopher (for Chaldee and Hebrew are
closely related, indeed they are almost identical, just as Saxons and
Swabians both speak German, but still there is a great difference). The
word sopher we commonly translate into the German by means of Kanzler
["chancellor"]. Everyone, including Burgensis, translates the word
saphra with scriba or scribe. These people are called scribes in the
Gospel. They are not ordinary scribes who write for wages or without
official authority. They are sages, great rulers, doctors and
professors, who teach, order, and preserve the law in the state. I
suppose that it also encompasses the chancelleries, parliaments,
councillors, and all who by wisdom and justice aid in governing. That is
what Moses wishes to express with the word mehoqeq, which designates one
who teaches, composes, and executes commands and decrees. Among the
Saracens, for instance, the sultan's scribes or secretaries, his
doctors, teachers, and scholars, are those who teach, interpret, and
preserve the Koran as the law of the land. In the papacy the pope's
scribes or saphra are the canonists or jackasses who teach and preserve
his decretals and laws. In the empire the doctores legum, the secular
jurists, are the emperor's saphra or scribes who teach, administer, and
preserve the imperial laws.
Thus Judah, too, had scribes who taught and preserved the law of Moses,
which was the law of the land. Therefore we have translated the word
mehoqeq with "master," that is, doctor, teacher, etc. So this passage,
"The mehoqeq, i.e., master, will not be taken from between his feet,"
means that teachers and listeners who sit at their feet will remain in
an orderly government. For every country, if it is to endure, must have
these two things: power and law. The country, as the saying goes, must
have a lord, a head, a ruler. But it must also have a law by which the
ruler is guided. These are the mace and the mehoqeq, or sultan and
saphra. Solomon indicates this also, for when he had received the rod,
that is, the kingdom, he prayed only for wisdom so that he might rule
the people justly (I Kings 3). For wherever sheer power prevails without
the law, where the sultan is guided by his arbitrary will and not by
duty, there is no government, but tyranny, akin to that of Nero,
Caligula, Dionysius, Henry of Brunswick, and their like. Such does not
endure long. On the other hand, where there is law but no power to
enforce it, there the wild mob will also do its will and no government
can survive. Therefore both must be present: law and power, sultan and
saphra, to supplement one another.
Thus the councillors who gathered in Jerusalem and who were to come from
the tribe of Judah were the saphra; the Jews called them the Sanhedrin
Herod, a foreigner, an Edomite, did away with this, and he himself
became both sultan and saphra, mace and mehoqeq in the house of Judah,
lord and scribe. Then the saying of the patriarch began to be fulfilled
that Judah was no longer to retain the government or the saphra. Now it
was time for the Messiah to come and to occupy his kingdom and sit on
the throne of David forever, as Isaiah 9:6] prophesies. Therefore let us
now study this saying of the patriarch.
"Judah," he declares, "your brothers shall praise you," etc. [Gen.
49:8]. This, it seems to me, requires no commentary; it states clearly
enough that the tribe of Judah will be honored above all of his brothers
and will enjoy the prerogative. The text continues: "Your hand shall be
on the neck of your enemies," etc. This also declares plainly that the
famous and prominent tribe of Judah must encounter enemies and
opposition, but that all will end successfully and victoriously for it.
We continue: "Your father's sons shall bow down before you," etc. Again
it is clear that this does not refer to the captivity but to the rule
over his brothers, all of which was fulfilled in David. But not only did
the tribe of Judah, in David, become lord over his brothers; he also
spread his rule beyond, like a lion, forcing other nations into
submission; for instance the Philistines, the Syrians, the Moabites, the
Ammonites, the Edomites.
This is what he praises in these beautiful words [Gen. 49:9]: "Judah is
a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped
down, he crouched as a lion, and as a lioness; who dares to rise up
against him? This is to say that he was enthroned and established a
kingdom which no one could overwhelm, though the adjacent nations
frequently and mightily tried to do so.
All right, up to this point the patriarch has established, ordained, and
confirmed the kingdom, the sultan, the rod, the saphra in the tribe of
Judah. There Judah, the sultan, sits enthroned for his rule. What is to
happen now? This, he says: He shall remain thus until the Messiah comes;
that is, many will oppose him, at tempting to overthrow and destroy the
kingdom and simply make it disappear from the earth. The histories of
the kings and the prophets amply testify that all the Gentile nations
ever earnestly strove to do this. And the patriarch himself declares, as
we heard before, that Judah must have its foes. For such is the course
of events in the world that wherever a kingdom or principality rises to
a position of might, envy will not rest until it is destroyed. All of
history illustrates this with numerous examples.
However, in this instance the Holy Spirit states: This kingdom in the
tribe of Judah is mine, and no one shall take it from me, no matter how
angry and mighty he may be, even if the gates of hell should try. The
words will still prove true: Non auferetur, "It shall not be taken
away." You devils and Gentiles may say: Auferetur, we shall put an end
to it, we shall devour it, we shall silence it, as Psalm 74 bemoans. But
it shall remain undevoured, undevastated. "The shebet or sultan shall
not depart from the house of Judah, nor the saphra from his children's
children," until the shiloh or Messiah comes—no matter how you all rant
and rage.
And when he does appear, the kingdom will become far different and still
more glorious. For since you would not tolerate the tribe of Judah in a
little, narrow corner, I shall change him into a truly strong lion who
will become sultan and saphra in all the world. I will do this in such a
way that he will not draw a sword nor shed a drop of blood, but the
nations will voluntarily and gladly submit themselves to him and obey
him. Such shall be his kingdom. For after all, the kingdom and all
things are his.
Approach the text, both Chaldaean and Hebrew, with this understanding
and this thought, and I wager that your heart together with the letters
will surely tell you: By God! that is the truth, that is the patriarch's
meaning. And then consult the histories to ascertain whether this has
not happened and come to pass in this way and still continues to do so.
Again you will be compelled to say: It is verily so. For it is
undeniable that the sultan and saphra remained with the tribe of Judah
until Herod's time, even if it was at times feeble and was not
maintained without the opposition of mighty foes. Nevertheless, it was
preserved. Under Herod and after Herod, however, it fell into ruin and
came to an end. It was so completely destroyed that even Jerusalem, once
the throne-seat of the tribe of Judah, and the land of Canaan were wiped
out. Thus the verse was fulfilled which said that the sultan has
departed and the Messiah has come.
I do not have the time at present to demonstrate what a rich
fountainhead this verse is and how the prophets drew so much information
from it concerning the fall of the Jews and the election of the
Gentiles, about which the modern Jews and bastards know nothing at all.
But we have clearly and forcefully seen from this verse that the Messiah
had to come at the time of Herod. The alternative would be to say that
God failed to keep his promise and, consequently, lied. No one dare do
that save the accursed devil and has servants, the false bastards and
strange Jews. They do this incessantly. In their eyes God must be a
liar. They claim that they are right when they assert that the Messiah
has not yet come, despite the fact that God declared in very plain words
that the Messiah would come before the scepter had entirely departed
from Judah. And this scepter has been lost to Judah for almost fifteen
hundred years now. The clear words of God vouch for this, and so do the
visible effect and fulfillment of these same words.
What do you hope to accomplish by engaging an obstinate Jew in a long
dispute on this? It is just as though you were to talk to an insane
person and prove to him that God created heaven and earth, according to
Genesis 1, pointing out heaven and earth to him with your hands, and he
would nevertheless prattle that these are not the heaven and earth
mentioned in Genesis 1, or that they were not heaven and earth at all,
but were called something else, etc. For this verse, "The scepter shall
not depart from Judah," etc., is as clear and plain as the verse, "God
created heaven and earth." And the fact that this scepter has been
removed from Judah for almost fifteen hundred years is as patent and
manifest as heaven and earth are, so that one can readily perceive that
the Jews are not simply erring and misled but that they are maliciously
and willfully denying and blaspheming the recognized truth in violation
of their conscience. Nobody should consider such a person worthy of
wasting a single word on him, even if it dealt with Markolf the
mockingbird, much less if it deals with such exalted divine words and
works.
But if anyone is tempted to become displeased with me, I will serve his
purpose and give him the Jews' glosses on this text. First I will
present those who do not dismiss this text but adhere to it,
particularly to the Chaldaean version, which no sensible Jew can deny.
These twist and turn as follows: To be sure, they say, God's promise is
certain; but our sins prevent the fulfillment of the promise. Therefore
we still look forward to it until we have atoned, etc. Is this not an
empty pretext, even a blasphemous one? As if God's promise rested on our
righteousness, or fell with our sins! That is tantamount to saying that
God would have to become a liar because of our sin, and conversely, that
he would have to become truthful again by reason of our righteousness.
How could one speak more shamefully of God than to imply that he is a
shaking reed which is easily swayed back and forth either by our falling
down or standing up?
If God were not to make a promise or keep a promise until we were rid of
sin, he would have been unable to promise or do anything from the very
beginning. As David says in Psalm 130:3: "If thou, O Lord, shouldst mark
iniquity, Lord, who could stand?" And in Psalm 102 [143:2]: "Enter not
into judgment with thy servant; for no man living is righteous before
thee." And there are many more such verses. The example of the children
of Israel in the wilderness can be cited here. God led them into the
land of Canaan without any righteousness on their part, in fact, with
their great sins and shame, solely on account of his promise. In
Deuteronomy 9:5 Moses says: "Know therefore that the Lord your God is
not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness;
for you are a stubborn and a disobedient people (it seems to me that
this may indeed be called sin), but because of the promise which the
Lord gave to your fathers," etc. By way of example he often wanted to
exterminate them, but Moses interceded for them. So little was God's
promise based upon their holiness.
It is true that wherever God promises anything conditionally, or with
reservation, saying: "If you will do that, I will do this," then the
fulfillment is contingent on our action; for instance, when he declared
to Solomon [I Kings 9], "If you will keep my statutes and my ordinances,
then this house shall be consecrated to me; if not, I shall destroy it."
However, the promise of the Messiah is not thus conditional. For he does
not say: "If you will do this or that, then the Messiah will come; if
you fail to do it, he will not come." But he promises him
unconditionally, saying: "The Messiah will come at the time when the
scepter has departed from Judah." Such a promise is based only on divine
truth and grace, which ignores and disregards our doings. That renders
this subterfuge of the Jews inane, and, moreover, very blasphemous.
The others who depart from this text subject almost every single word of
it to severe and violent misinterpretation. They really do not deserve
to have their drivel and filth heard; still, in order to expose their
disgrace we must exercise a bit of patience and also listen to their
nonsense. For since they depart from the clear meaning of the text, they
already stand condemned by their own conscience, which would constrain
them to heed the text; but to vex us, they conjure up the Hebrew words
before our eyes, as though we were not conversant with the Chaldaean
text.
Some engage in fantasies here and say that Shiloh refers to the city of
that name, where the ark of the covenant was kept (Judges 21 [cf. I Sam.
4:3]), so that the meaning would be that the scepter shall not depart
from Judah until Shiloh comes, that is, until Saul is anointed king of
Shiloh. That is surely foolish prattle. Prior to King Saul not only did
Judah have no scepter, but neither did all of Israel. How, then, can it
have departed when Saul became king? The text declares that Judah had
first been lord over his brothers and that he then became a lion, and
therefore received the scepter. Likewise, before Saul's time no judge
was lord or prince over the people of Israel, as we gather from Gideon's
speech to the people in reply to their wish that he and his descendants
rule over them: "I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over
you; the Lord will rule over you" (Judges 7 [8:23]). Nor was there a
judge from the tribe of Judah, except perhaps for Othniel [Judg. 3:9],
Joshua's immediate successor. All the others down to Saul were from the
other tribes. And although Othniel is called Caleb's youngest brother,
this does not prove that he was of the tribe of Judah, since he may have
had a different father. And it does not make sense that Shiloh should
here refer to a city or to Saul's coronation in Shiloh, for Saul was
anointed by Samuel in Ramath (I Samuel 10) and confirmed at Gilgal.
In any case, what is the meaning of the Chaldaean text which says that
the kingdom belongs to Shiloh and that nations shall be subject to it?
When was the city of Shiloh or Saul ever accorded such an honor? Israel
is one nation, not many, with one body of laws, one divine worship, one
name. There are many nations, however, which have different and various
laws, names, and gods. Now Jacob declares that not the one nation Israel
which was already his or was under Judah's scepter but other nations
would fall to Shiloh. Therefore this foolish talk reflects nothing other
than the great stubbornness of the Jews, who will not submit to this
saying of Jacob, although they stand convicted by their own conscience.
Others indulge in the fancy that Shiloh refers to King Jeroboam, who was
crowned in Shiloh, and to whom ten tribes of Israel had defected from
Rehoboam, the king of Judah (I Kings 12). Therefore, they say, this is
Jacob's meaning: The scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh,
that is, Jeroboam, comes. This is just as inane as the other
interpretation; for Jeroboam was not crowned in Shiloh but in Shechem (I
Kings 12). Thus the scepter did not depart from Judah, but the kingdom
of Judah remained, together with the tribe of Benjamin and many of the
children of Israel who dwelt in the cities of these two tribes, as we
hear in I Kings 12. Moreover, the entire priesthood, worship, temple,
and everything remained in Judah. Furthermore, Jeroboam never conquered
the kingdom of Judah, nor did other nations fall to him, as they were to
fall to Shiloh.
The third group babbles thus: "Shiloh means 'sent,' and this term
applies to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon." So the meaning is that the
scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh, that is, the king of
Babylon, comes. He was to lead Judah into exile and destroy it. This
also doesn't hold water, and a child learning his letters can disprove
it. For Shiloh and shiloch are two different words. The latter may mean
"sent." But that is not the word found here; it is Shiloh, and that, as
the Chaldee says, means "Messiah." But the king of Babylon is not the
Messiah who is to come from Judah, as the Jews and all the world know
very well. Nor did the scepter depart from Judah even though the Jews
were led captive into Babylon. That was just a punishment for seventy
years. Also during this time great prophets Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel
appeared who upheld the scepter and said how long the exile would be.
Furthermore, Jehoiachin, the king of Judah, was regarded as a king in
Babylon. And many of those who were led away into captivity returned
home again during their lifetime (Haggai 2). This cannot be viewed as
loss of the scepter, but as a light flogging. Even if they were deprived
of their country for a while by way of punishment, God nonetheless
pledged his precious word that they could remain assured of their land.
But during the past fifteen hundred years not even a dog, much less a
prophet, has any assurance concerning the land. Therefore the scepter
has now definitely departed from Judah. I have written more about this
against the Sabbatarians.
The fourth group twists the word shebet and interprets it to mean that
the rod will not depart from Judah until Shiloh, that is, his son, will
come, who will weaken the Gentiles. These regard the rod as the
punishment and exile in which they now live. But the Messiah will come
and slay all the Gentiles. That is humbug. It ignores the Chaldaean text
entirely something they may and dare not do and is a completely
arbitrary interpretation of the word shebet. They overlook the preceding
words in which Jacob makes Judah a prince and a lion or a king, adding
immediately thereafter that the scepter, or shebet, shall not depart
from Judah. How could such an odd meaning about punishment follow right
on the heels of such glorious words about a principality or kingdom? The
sins which provoked such a punishment would have to have been proclaimed
first. But all that we find mentioned here are praise, honor, and glory
to the tribe of Judah.
And even if the word shebet does designate a rod for punishment, how
would that help them? For the judge's or the king's rod is also a rod of
punishment for the evildoers. Indeed, the rod of punishment cannot be
any but a judge's or sultan's rod, since the right to administer
punishment belongs solely to the authority (Deuteronomy 32): Mihi
vindicatam, "Vengeance is mine." In any event, this meaning remains
unshaken that the scepter or rod of Judah shall remain even if this rod
is one of punishment. But this arbitrary interpretation of the rabbis
points to a foreign rod which does not rest in Judah's hand but on
Judah's back and is wielded by a foreign hand. Even if this meaning were
possible which it is not what would we do with the other passage that
speaks of the saphra or mehoqeq at his feet? This would then also have
to be a foreign lord's mehoqeq and a foreign nation's feet. But since
Jacob declares that it is to be Judah and the mehoqeq of his feet, the
other term, the rod, must also represent the rule of his tribe.
Part V
Some twist the word donec ("until") and try to make "be cause" (quia)
out of it. So they read: "The scepter of Judah will not depart donec;
that is, because (quia) the Messiah will come." He who perpetrated this
is a precious master, worthy of being crowned with thistles. He reverses
the correct order of things in this manner: The Messiah will come,
therefore the scepter will remain. Jacob, however, first makes Judah a
prince and a lion to whom the scepter is assigned prior to the coming of
the Messiah; he then, in turn, will give it to the Messiah. Thus Judah
retains neither the principality nor the role of lion nor the scepter,
which Jacob assigned to him. Furthermore, the fool arbitrarily makes out
of the term "until" a new term, "because." This, of course, the language
does not permit.
And finally there is a rabbi who twists the word "come" and claims that
it means "to set," just as the Hebrew uses the word "to come" for the
setting of the sun. This fellow is given to such nonsense that I am at a
loss to know whether he is trying to walk on his head or on his ears.
For I fail to understand the purport of his words when he says that the
scepter will not depart from Judah until Shiloh (the city) goes down
(sets). Then David, the Messiah, will come. Where, to repeat what was
said above, was the scepter of Judah prior to Shiloh or Saul? But they
who rage against their own conscience and patent truth must needs speak
such nonsense. In brief, Lyra is right when he says that even if they
invent these and many other similar glosses, the Chaldaean text topples
all of them and convicts them of being willful liars, blasphemers, and
perverters of God's word. However, I wanted to present this to us
Germans so that we might see what rascals the blind Jews are and how
powerfully the truth of God in our midst stands with us and against
them.
And now that some have noticed that such evasions and silly glosses are
null and void, they admit that the Messiah came at the time of the
destruction of Jerusalem; but, they say, he is in the world secretly,
sitting in Rome among the beggars and doing penance for the Jews until
the time for his public appearance is at hand. These are not the words
of Jews or of men but those of the arrogant, jeering devil, who most
bitterly and venomously mocks us Christians and our Christ through the
Jews, as if to say: "The Christians glory much in their Christ, but they
have to submit to the yoke of the Romans; they must suffer and be
beggars in the world, not only in the days of the emperors, but also in
those of the pope. After all, they are impotent in my kingdom, the
world, and I will surely remain their master." Yes, vile devil, just
mock and laugh your fill over this now; you will still tremble enough
for it.
Thus the words of Jacob fared very much the same as did these words of
Christ in our day: "This is my body which is given for you." The
enthusiasts distorted each word singly and collectively, putting the
last things first, rather than accept the true meaning of the text, as
we have observed. It is clear in this instance too that Christians such
as Lyra, Raymund, Burgensis, and others certainly went to great lengths
in an effort to convert the Jews. They hounded them from one word to
another, just as foxes are hunted down. But after having been hounded a
long time, they still persisted in their obstinacy and now set to erring
consciously, and would not depart from their rabbis. Thus we must let
them go their way and ignore their malicious blasphemy and lying.
I once experienced this myself. Three learned Jews came to me, hoping to
discover a new Jew in me because we were beginning to read Hebrew here
in Wittenberg, and remarking that matters would soon improve since we
Christians were starting to read their books. When I debated with them,
they gave me their glosses, as they usually do. But when I forced them
back to the text, they soon fled from it, saying that they were obliged
to believe their rabbis as we do the pope and the doctors, etc. I took
pity on them and give them a letter of recommendation to the
authorities, asking that for Christ's sake they let them freely go their
way. But later, I found out that they called Christ a tola, that is, a
hanged highwayman. Therefore I do not wish to have anything more to do
with any Jew. As St. Paul says, they are consigned to wrath; the more
one tries to help them the baser and more stubborn they become. Leave
them to their own devices.
We Christians, however, can greatly strengthen our faith with this
statement of Jacob, assuring us that Christ is now present and that he
has been present for almost fifteen hundred years -- but not, as the
devil jeers, as a beggar in Rome; rather, as a ruling Messiah. If this
were not so, then God's word and promise would be a lie. If the Jews
would only let Holy Scripture be God's word, they would also have to
admit that there has been a Messiah since the time of Herod (no matter
where), rather than awaiting another. But before doing this, they will
rather tear and pervert Scripture until it is no longer Scripture. And
this is in fact their situation: They have neither Messiah nor
Scripture, just as Isaiah 28 prophesied of them.
But may this suffice on the saying of Jacob. Let us take another saying
which the Jews did not and cannot twist and distort in this way. In the
last words of David, we find him saying (II Samuel 23:2): "The Spirit of
the Lord speaks by me, his word is upon my tongue. The God of Israel has
spoken, the Rock of Israel ...." And a little later [in v. 5]: "Does not
my house stand so with God?" Or, to translate it literally from the
Hebrew: "My house is of course not thus," etc. That is to say: "My house
is, after all, not worthy; this is too glorious a thing and it is too
much that God does all of this for a poor man like me." "For he has made
with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure." Note
well how David exults with so numerous and seemingly superfluous words
that the Spirit of God has spoken through him and that God's word is
upon his tongue. Thus he says: "The God of Israel has spoken, the Rock
of Israel," etc. It is as if he were to say: "My dear people, give ear.
Whoever can hear, let him hear. Here is God, who is speaking and saying,
'Listen,'" etc. What is it, then, that you exhort us to listen to? What
is God saying through you? What does he wish to say to you? What shall
we hear?
This is what you are to hear: that God made an everlasting, firm, and
sure covenant with me and my house, a covenant of which my house is not
worthy. Indeed, my house is nothing compared to God; and yet he did
this. What is this everlasting covenant? Oh, open your ears and listen!
My house and God have bound themselves together forever through an oath.
This is a covenant, a promise which must exist and endure forever. For
it is God's covenant and pledge, which no one shall or can break or
hinder. My house shall stand eternally; it is "ordered in all things and
secure." The word aruk ("ordered") conveys the meaning that it will not
disappoint or fail one in the least. Have you heard this? And do you
believe that God is truthful? Yes, without doubt. My dear people, do you
also believe that he can and will keep his word?
Well and good, if God is truthful and almighty and spoke these words
through David which no Jew dares to deny then David's house and
government (which are the same thing) must have endured since the time
he spoke these words, and must still endure and will endure forever that
is, eternally. Otherwise, God would be a liar. In brief, either we must
have David's house or heir, who reigns from the time of David to the
present and in eternity, or David died as a flagrant liar to his last
day, uttering these words (as it seems) as so much idle chitchat: "God
speaks, God says, God promises." It is futile to join the Jews in giving
God the lie, saying that he did not keep these precious words and
promises. We must, I say, have an heir of David from his time onward, in
proof of the fact that his house has never stood empty no matter where
this heir may be. For his house must have been continuous and must ever
remain so. Here we find God's word that this is an everlasting, firm,
and sure covenant, without a flaw. but everything in it must be aruk,
magnificently ordered, as God orders all his work. Psalm 111:3: "Full of
honor and majesty in his work."
Now let the Jews produce such an heir of David. For they must do so,
since we read here that David's house is everlasting, a house that no
one will destroy or hinder, but rather as we also read here [II Sam.
23:4], it shall be like the sun shining forth, which no cloud can
hinder. If they are unable to present such an heir or house of David,
then they stand fully condemned by this verse, and they show that they
are surely without God, without David, without Messiah, without
everything, that they are lost and eternally condemned. Of course, they
cannot deny that the kingdom or house of David endured uninterruptedly
until the Babylonian captivity, even throughout the Babylonian
captivity, and following this to the days of Herod. It endured, I say,
not by its own power and merit but by virtue of this everlasting
covenant made with the house of David. For most of their kings and
rulers were evil, practicing idolatry, killing the prophets, and living
shamefully. For example, Rehoboam, Joram, Joash, Ahaz, Manasseh, etc.,
surpassed all the Gentiles or the kings of Israel in vileness. Because
of them, the house and tribe of David fully deserved to be exterminated.
That was what finally happened to the kingdom of Israel. However, the
covenant made with David remained in effect. The books of the kings and
of the prophets exultantly declare that God preserved a lamp or a light
to the house of David which he would not permit to be extinguished. Thus
we read in II Kings 8:19 and in II Chronicles 21:7: "Yet the Lord would
not destroy the house of David because of the covenant which he had made
with David, since he had promised to give a lamp to him and to his sons
forever." The same thought is expressed in II Samuel 7:12.
By way of contrast, look at the kingdom of Israel, where the rule never
remained with the same tribe or family beyond the second generation,
with the exception of Jehu [65] who by reason of a special promise
carried it into the fourth generation of his house. Otherwise it always
passed from one tribe to another, and at times scarcely survived for one
generation; moreover, it was not long until the kingdom died out
completely. But through the wondrous deeds of God the kingdom of Judah
remained within the tribe of Judah and the house of David. It withstood
strong opposition on the part of the Gentiles round about, from Israel
itself, from uprisings within, and from gross idolatries and sins, so
that it would not have been surprising if it had perished in the third
generation under Rehoboam, or at least under Joram, Ahaz, and Manasseh.
But it had a strong Protector who did not let it die or let its light
become extinguished. The promise was given that it would remain firm,
eternally firm and secure. And so it has remained and must remain down
to the present and forever; for God does not and cannot lie.
The Jews drivel that the kingdom perished with the Babylonian captivity.
As we said earlier, this is empty talk; for this constituted but a short
punishment, definitely confined to a period of seventy years. God had
pledged his word for that. Moreover, he preserved them during this time
through splendid prophets. Furthermore, King Jehoiachin was exalted
above all the kings in Babylon, and Daniel and his companions ruled not
only over Judah and Israel but also over the Babylonian Empire. [66]
Even if their seat of government was not in Jerusalem for a short span
of time, they nonetheless ruled elsewhere much more gloriously than in
Jerusalem. Thus we may say that the house of David did not be come
extinct in Babylon but shone more resplendently than in Jerusalem. They
only had to vacate their homeland for a while by way of punishment. For
when a king takes the field of a foreign country he cannot be regarded
as an ex-king because he is not in his home land, especially if he is
attended by great victory and good fortune against many nations. Rather
one should say that he is more illustrious abroad than at home.
If God kept his covenant from the time of David to that of Herod,
preserving his house from extinction, he must have kept it from that
time on to the present, and he will keep it eternally, so that David's
house has not died and cannot die eternally. For we dare not rebuke God
as half truthful and half untruthful, saying that he kept his covenant
and preserved David's house faithfully from David's time to that of
Herod, but that after the time of Herod he began to lie and to become
deceitful, ignoring and altering his covenant. No, for as the house of
David remained and shone up to Herod's time, thus it had to remain under
Herod and after Herod, shining to eternity.
Now we note how nicely this saying of David harmonizes with that of the
patriarch Jacob: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the
mehoqeq from his feet until Messiah comes, and to him shall be the
obedience of the peoples" [Gen. 49:10]. How can it be expressed more
clearly or differently that David's house will shine forth until the
Messiah comes? Then, through him, the house of David will shine not only
over Judah and Israel but also over the Gentiles, or over other and more
numerous countries. This indeed does not mean that it will become
extinct, but that it will shine farther and more lustrously than before
his advent. And thus, as David says, this is an eternal kingdom and an
eternal covenant. Therefore it follows most cogently from this that the
Messiah came when the scepter departed from Judah _ unless we want to
revile God by saying that he did not keep his covenant and oath. Even if
the stiff-necked, stubborn Jews refuse to accept this, at least our
faith has been confirmed and strengthened by it. We do not give a fig
for their crazy glosses, which they have spun out of their own heads. We
have the clear text.
These last words of David to revert to them once more are founded on
God's own word, where he says to him, as he here boasts at his end:
"Would you build me a house to dwell in?" (II Sam. 7 [:5]). You can read
what follows there_how God continues to relate that |
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