Deuteronomy 28:65 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 65. Among these nations shalt thou find no ease— Shalt thou find no plenty, neither shalt thou have where to rest the sole of thy foot. Schult. 306. They have been so far from finding rest, that they have been banished from city to city, from country to country. In many places they have been banished and recalled, and banished again. We will only just mention their great banishments in former times, and from countries well known. In the latter end of the thirteenth century, they were banished from England by Edward I. and not permitted to return and settle again till Cromwell's time. In the fourteenth century, they were banished France (for the seventh time, says Mezeray) by Charles VI. and ever since they have been only tolerated: they have not enjoyed entire liberty, except at Mentz, where they have a synagogue. In the fifteenth century, they were banished from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella; and, according to Mariana, (Hist. Spain, book 26: chap. 1 and 6.) there were 170,000 families, or, as some say, 800,000 persons, who left the kingdom. See Mezeray Abrege Chron. and Basnage, book 7: chap. 18, 19. Most of them paid dearly to John 2 for a refuge in Portugal; but within a few years they were expelled from that place also by his successor Emanuel; and in our time, within these few years, they were banished from Prague by the queen of Bohemia. Bishop Newton. It is added, that, in this state of banishment, the Lord should give them a trembling heart, &c. i.e. they should live in perpetual dread of their lives, in continual fears and vexations. Some, by a trembling heart, understand the terrors of an evil conscience; and by failing of the eyes, the constant disappointment of the hopes wherewith they were fed by false Messiahs. But, failing of the eyes, in the most natural acceptation, signifies that wan, livid, and fearful cast of the eyes, which is usually the concomitant of an anxious and dejected mind, and which is very discernible to every attentive observer of the Jews. Thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, continues Moses; i.e. "it shall be so much at the pleasure of the enemies among whom you are, that it shall hang, as it were, on a slender thread, which is in danger every moment of being broken." The Latins use the same metaphor, Omnia sunt hominum tenui pendentia filo, all men hang upon a slender thread; which is meant of human life in general, as frail and uncertain: but the expression before us denotes the perplexity of that mind which is constantly haunted with the fear of death. Districtus ensis cui super impia cervice pendet. See Osorius de Rebus Emmanuelis, lib. 4: who, speaking of a terrible massacre of the Jews at Lisbon in 1506, says, that "the condition of both parents and children was so deplorable, and such an horrible dread depressed and overwhelmed them, that the living could scarcely be distinguished from the dead."