CHAP. XXV.
A Digression concerning the 53d Chapter of Isaiah: And the vindication of it from the perverse Interpretation of HUGO GROTIUS.
THis Chapter is well by some termed Carnificina Rabbinorum;* 1.1 a place of Scripture that sets them on the rack; and makes thē turn thēselves all ways possible to escape the torture, which it puts their unbelieving hearts unto. Not long since a worthy and very learned friend told me, that speaking with Manasseh Ben Israel at Amstelredam, and urging this Prophesy unto him, he inge∣nuously told him, profecto locus iste magnum scandalum dedit; to whom the other replyed; Recte, quia Christus vobis lapis scandali est. Hulsius the Hebrew Professor at Breda, professes that some Jewes told him, that their Rabbins could easily have extricated themselves from all other places of the Prophets, if Isaiah in this place had but held his peace. a 1.2 Huls. Theolog. Judaic. lib. 1. Part. 2. Dict. Sapp. de Tempor. Messiae. Though I value not their boasting of their extricating themselves from the other Prophe∣sies, knowing that they are no lesse entangled with that of Daniel, chap. 9. (Of which there is an eminent story in Franzius,* 1.3 de sacrificiis, concerning his dispute with a Learned Jew on that subject:) yet it appeares, that by this, they are confessedly intricated beyond all hope of evading, untill they divest them∣selves of their Cursed Hypothesis.
Hence it is that with so much greedines they scraped together* 1.4 all the Copyes of Abrabaniel's Comment on this Chapter; so that it was very hard for a Christian, a long time to get a sight of it; as Constantine l' Empereur acquaints us in his Preface