8

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

cannot weave a chain of evidence. And Abarbanel, in his Preface to the Major Prophets, most vainly boasting of his knowledge of the lineage of Judah and David, might have known that Judah once married a Canaanite woman, and David’s great-grandmother was a Moabite woman. Referring to Judah’s wife Shua (Genesis 38) and David’s ancestor Ruth. But we also know many among the Jews today who boast of a Davidic lineage, who either do not know or choose to hide that they are the mixed descendants original Latin: spurios, implying of mixed or illegitimate national origin of other nations.

$δ.$ The author uses Greek letters (Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Chi) to organize his points. Christians, by the grace of GOD, do not rest in bodily goods, but profess themselves servants of that King whose kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). They also know that spiritual benefits were promised to the Gentiles (Genesis 12:3, 1 Kings 8:41, 43, Psalm 22:28, Psalm 87:4, Isaiah 2:3, 49:6, 56:3, 7, 66:19, Hosea 2:1, 23, Joel 2:28, 32, Micah 4:2, Zephaniah 3:9, Zechariah 2:11, etc.). Indeed, they know that the disobedient Jews, by the just judgment of GOD, have fallen away from both spiritual and temporal benefits (Deuteronomy 32:21, Isaiah 2:6, 65:1, 2, etc.). This is something they themselves at times cannot hide.

Certainly, in the Lamentations Rabbah original: Echa Rabti, a midrashic commentary on the Book of Lamentations. (chapter 2, verse 3, folio 72.3), it is said: There are ten horns: 1. of Abraham; 2. of Isaac; 3. of Jacob; 4. of Moses; 5. of the Law; 6. of the Priesthood; 7. of the Levites; 8. of Prophecy; 9. of the Temple; 10. of Israel. And there are those who say: the Horn of the Messiah... All these were fitted to the head of Israel. But after they sinned, they were taken away from them... and given to the nations of the world. And Rabbi Bahya original: R. Bechai, likely Bahya ben Asher, a 13th-century Spanish rabbi. in his commentary on the Pentateuch (folio 151) confesses that GOD took away all the benefits He had previously granted to the Israelites. Compare Gerzon’s Talmud, pages 351 and 373.

$ε.$ We detest from our soul the blasphemies and desperate malice of the Jews; yet as persons, true Christians feel compassion for them from the soul and commend their conversion to GOD with pious sighs.

$ζ.$ Finally, it is easy to turn back against the Jews those things which Abarbanel smeared upon us. For example: just as Esau served his father deceitfully, so the Jews served GOD; for from their departure from Egypt until the Babylonian captivity, they pursued the idolatry of other nations. Just as Esau married many foreign women, so the Jews committed spiritual adultery with many nations (Ezekiel chapter 16). Just as Esau held his birthright in low esteem, so the Jews despised their own prerogative in the temporal execution of the universal calling of the New Testament (Acts 13:46, etc.).

$χ.$ But now further, we relate with horror what the Jews—and among them Abarbanel himself—shamelessly babble and assert: namely, that the soul of Esau, through metempsychosis original: μετεμψύχωσιν (metempsychōsin), the migration of a soul into a new body., migrated into the body of Christ. They say that Jesus Hebrew: ישו (Yeshu) is, according to an anagram original Greek: κατ' ἀναγραμμα, called Esau Hebrew: עשו (Esav), and that he was similar to Esau in character—a contentious man living in the wilderness. And thus, they say we his disciples are Idumeans Edomites.. Helvicus and Buxtorf Christoph Helvicus and Johannes Buxtorf the Elder, prominent 17th-century Christian Hebraists. previously cited the first point from the secret books of the Jews, but Abarbanel speaks it out quite clearly...