The blessed Jew of Marocco: or, A Blackmoor made white. being a demonstration of the true Messias out of the law and prophets / by Rabbi Samuel, a Iew turned Christian ; written first in the Arabick, after translated into Latin, and now Englished ; to which are annexed a diatriba of the Jews sins and their miserie all over the world, annotations to the book ... with other things for profit in knowledge and undertanding, by Tho. Calvert ...

CHAP. VI. What that sin is, for which the Iews are in Captivitie.

NOw, O my Master, I am in great fear, that that sin, for which we are in this deso∣lating Captivitie, is that of which God speaks by his Prophet Amos,* 1.1 saying, For three trans∣gressions of Iudah, I will turn or translate Israel. [note that our Bibles have it,* 1.2 I will turn away, here he hath it, I will transfer or translate, and it is better so for his purpose] and for the fourth I will not translate them, because they sold the righteous for silver. We indeed, O Master, according to our Doctrine, make this righte∣ous One to be Ioseph the son of Iacob,* 1.3 who was sold by his Brethren into Aegypt; and this would I hold for true also, but that the Sacred Writ makes this sin of selling, the fourth for number among the sins, or transgressiōs of Israel. The Christians themselves (to whom the stu∣die of Sacred Volumes seems to be delivered & committed of God) do answer to our foresaid interpretation, that the selling of Ioseph by his Brethren, is the first, and not the fourth of Israels sins or transgressions. The second sin they make the worshipping of the Calf in Ho∣reb. The third transgression is the slaughter

of the Prophets, for which we served as slaves seventy years in Babylon. But the fourth trans∣gression of Israel, the selling of the Righteous, this they say is plainly meant of JESUS, who was, according to the very letter, sold af∣ter that aforesaid transmigration. And we, O Master, if we mean to maintain as Authenti∣call our own Doctrine, and stop the Christi∣ans mouthes with a sufficient answer, this of us must be undertaken, and made good, that divers transgressions of Israels did precede this of Josephs selling, so as to make it fall in the fourth number. Which thing we cannot up∣hold, the testimony of the Book of Genesis making sore against us, which sets the sel∣ling of Joseph, as the first transgression of the Children of Israel. The Prophet Amos also expressely makes appear, that the fourth sinne was the selling of the righteous One, for which we have been Captives, and of which the Lord with a fearfull Commination speaks, that he will never bring us backe again into the Land of Promise, saying, And for the fourth I will not translate them, because they sold the righteous for silver. To me it is more then ma∣nifest, that for the selling the Righteous, the fourth sin, we are righteously punisht: and now more than a thousand years are past and gone, in all which time we do no good, nor

prosper at all among the Gentiles, nor remains there any hope, that we shall do any good at all.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Amos 2.
• * 1.2

  The words of the first Transla∣tour, Al∣phonsus the Spanyard.
• * 1.3

  Gen. 37.