Deuteronomy 28:36,37 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 36, 37. The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king, &c.— This was partly fulfilled when Jehoiachim was carried captive to Babylon, Exodus 24:15 and afterwards, Zedekiah, Deuteronomy 25:7. Jeremiah 39:7; Jeremiah 52:11. For the Assyrians were a people, though not quite unknown to the Jews in Moses's time, yet with whom they had but little intercourse: but it was more especially accomplished in their last dispersion by the Romans. See on ver. 33. It is added, and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone; either sottishly following the example of the country to which they were carried, Jeremiah 44:17-18 or compelled thereto by their cruel tyrants, Daniel 3:6. Bishop Newton observes upon this passage, that it is too common for the Jews, in popish countries, to comply with the idolatrous worship of the church of Rome, and bow down to stocks and stones, rather than their effects should be seized and confiscated. "The Spanish and Portugal inquisitions," says Basnage, "reduce them to the dilemma of being either hypocrites, or burnt. The number of these dissemblers is very considerable; and it ought not to be concluded that there are no Jews in Spain or Portugal, because they are not known: they are so much the more dangerous, as not only being very numerous, but confounded with the ecclesiasticks, and entering into all ecclesiastical dignities."—"The most surprising thing is, that this religion of theirs spreads from generation to generation, and still subsists in the persons of dissemblers in a remote posterity. 'In vain,' as Limborch observes, 'the great lords of Spain make alliances, change their names, and take ancient escutcheons; they are still known to be of Jewish race, and Jews themselves. The convents of monks and nuns are full of them. Most of the canons, inquisitors, and bishops, proceed from this nation.' Collat. cum Jud. p. 102. Orobio, who relates the fact, knew these dissemblers; he was one of them, and bent the knee before the sacrament himself: and he brings proofs of his assertion, in maintaining that there are in the synagogue of Amsterdam brothers and sisters and near relations to good families of Spain and Portugal, and even franciscan monks, dominicans, and jesuits, who come to do penance, and make amends for the crimes they have committed in dissembling." Hist. of the Jews, book 7: chap. 33: sect. 14 and chap. 21: sect. 26. In consequence of these misfortunes, the sacred writer adds, that they should become an astonishment, a proverb, &c. And do we not hear and see this prophesy fulfilled almost every day? Are not the avarice, usury, and hard-heartedness of a Jew, grown proverbial? And are not their persons generally odious among all sorts of people? Mahometans, Heathens, and Christians, however they may disagree in other points, yet generally agree in vilifying, abusing, and persecuting the Jews. In most places where they are tolerated, they are obliged to live in a separate manner by themselves, (as they used to do here, in the Old Jewry,) and to wear some badge of distinction. Their very countenances commonly distinguish them from the rest of mankind, and they are in all respects treated as if they were of another species. See Bishop Newton, and 1 Kings 9:7-8. Jeremiah 18:16; Jeremiah 19:8. Lamentations 2:15-16.