Martin Luther: On The Jews and Their Lies (1543)

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Yet the ancient true Jews had the same understanding that we Christians have, namely that the government or scepter would remain within the tribe of Judah until the coming of the Messiah and then the obedience and adherence of the people would be his capital H that is the Messiah's that is at the point the scepter should not only be within the tribe of Judah but as the prophets later explain would come uh among all the nations on earth at the time of the Messiah. In the meantime, until he came, the scepter should remain in the small narrow nook of Judah. This is, I assert, the understanding of the prophets and the ancient Jews, and this they cannot deny.

[00:00:47]I do not currently have time to demonstrate what a rich source this passage is and how the prophets drew so much from it about the fall of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles about which these modern Jews and bastards know nothing at all. But we have at this point clearly and powerfully seen from this passage that Messiah had to have come at the time of Herod or one would have to say that God had not kept his promise and so had lied. No one but the devil alone and his servants, the false bastards and strange Jews would do this.

[00:01:23]They do it incessantly, saying God must be a liar. They claimed to be right that the Messiah had not yet come. And yet God said outright that the Messiah would come before the scepter had completely left Judah, which is something that happened almost 1500 years ago. The clear words of God show this, as does the obvious achievement and fulfillment of these same words.

[00:01:48]Um so there's a footnote here in this um abridgement. This is only the beginning of a very long section of the text dedicated to a comprehensive discussion of the Jews argument in relation to this Messiah. I I so um someone can correct me on this. This is at least how I see it. So the scepter remained with the Jews even during the Babylonian captivity because they were still intact and in fact the you nobility were intact as well in Babylon and then they had a temple. Uh now this is going to come during the time of Herod because eventually the temple will be destroyed and thus the Jews are you know according to Luther they're they're gone and they are now just scattered wandering groups of people keeping the flame alive and we see over the past 1500 years uh mass conversion the uh Christianization of Europe which is you know coming full fruition in the time of Luther. And so I think he's sort of saying that the facts speak for themselves. Your temple was annihilated by the Romans um as was prophesied. No, no, Herod is not directly prophesied in the Old Testament, but put that aside. But um it it was foreseen that your temple would be destroyed. The scepter has passed.

[00:03:20]It's gone. It's over.

[00:03:23]Um, so the the actual dwelling place of Yahweh no more. We even see this in the gospel where the the in in the the shroud is torn. Jesus is out in the world. And also, how can you deny the fact that all of Europe is Christian?

[00:03:41]All of Europe bows before the Jewish God man in in Jesus Christ. How can you deny this? You're just denying reality. that that that's what I'm taking from this argument. I don't know if anyone would want to correct me or or offer a different spin on it.

[00:04:04]>> No.

[00:04:04]>> Okay.

[00:04:05]>> Good. So, >> yeah.

[00:04:07]>> All right. So, now we get >> the only comment I was going to make uh was that it it it must be funny uh for Jews being lectured on the Hebrew Bible by Christians. Sorry.

[00:04:21]>> On one level, I mean, I see a kind of ambivalence there. I mean, probably the majority of them will be like, >> you know, hey, that's our book. You don't know what the [ __ ] you're talking about. And I would agree that Christians actually don't know what the [ __ ] they're talking about the Hebrew Bible.

[00:04:36]And only some Jews actually know what the Hebrew Bible is about, right?

[00:04:41]uh but then there must be a kind of ambivalence because on the other hand some number of Jews realize the advantage that is given to them if Christians are addicted to their book essentially.

[00:04:53]>> Yeah.

[00:04:55]>> Yeah.

[00:04:55]>> So >> also I I think >> for them to misunderstand it as well.

[00:04:59]You know what I mean?

[00:05:00]>> Yeah. I think it's also worth pointing out here um when Luther is saying the Jews and their lies, he's referring to something very specific. I I think there's a a sort of casual anti-semitism that has been prominent forever of, you know, oh, Jews, they're going to swindle you, they're going to they'll lie, they're tricky, they're, you know, you you should get a Jewish defense lawyer if you want to get off the crime of which you're guilty. Uh there's a little bit of that in in this, no doubt. Um, but I I think it's that they're lying about their own book and they're lying about reality is I that's the primary lie that Luther is accusing them of.

[00:05:44]It's not that he doesn't engage in that sort of anti-semitism, but it's a it's a it's something of a different order. I would just stress.

[00:05:55]Um, now what should we Christians do with these rejected and condemned people, the Jews? All right, this is these are the juicy sections that everyone's been waiting for.

[00:06:08]Uh, since they live among us and we are aware of their lying, blaspheming, and cursing, we cannot tolerate them lest we become complicit in all of their lies, curses, and blasphemy and blasphemes, blasphemy.

[00:06:23]Uh since we cannot quench the unquenchable fire of God's wrath as the prophets say, nor can we convert the Jews, we must practice a sharp mercifulness with prayer and the fear of God, and so perhaps rescue some from the flame and embers. We must not avenge ourselves on them, for they are already facing retribution a thousand times worse than what we might wish on them.

[00:06:52]So I will give my true advice and again this was written for German princes for them to enact. They didn't enact most of this stuff. Um but uh yeah this is interesting. First they're cynic.

[00:07:05]>> Oh well I mean just to I think it this is the myth of this speaks to the myth of the Gollum, right? Especially the gallop frog >> in there. The idea of the myth is that the rabbi puts the name of God on the forehead of the Gollum and he's supposed to deactivate the Gollum every um Saturday before the Sabbath um or it will go insane. And the idea that it it does eventually go insane. The way that he deactivates it is by removing the name of God either from the forehead or out >> of the Gollum. Sometimes uh in the myth of the Gollum it's it's the word is not God or the word that's placed on his forehead or in his mouth is not God but is truth.

[00:07:51]>> Um but so this idea though it's I mean you can it if if we imagine the Gollum to be the Christian um and we imagine a sort of uh atheism uh to be uh you know have some Jewish origin. It certainly does have some Je it doesn't have exclusively a Jewish origin, but we're all from familiar with the idea of the atheist Jew, the secular Jew, and this becomes a plain of Christian. You know, popular culture is basically in his mind the product of the secular Jew.

[00:08:23]>> Um that becomes the removing of the name of God from the forehead of the Gollum and that destroys or deactivates the Gollum. Right? So here we see the Gollum, we see Frankenstein, right?

[00:08:34]Frankenstein is based on this myth. the Gollum, >> right?

[00:08:37]>> By being like, "Hey, you know, you gave me this software, right?" And the software in in I think at the deepest level, the software is saying we're all equal, right? We're all going to follow this one God and we're all going to be part of Christianity, including Jews.

[00:08:53]We're all going to be equal before God.

[00:08:55]So, it's ultimately a kind of egalitarian message uh that ultimately comes to Gentiles through Jews, through Christianity. And but now the golem is like actually we're going to be [ __ ] equal. So the golem is activated and he's like sorry buddies you know this is my software so we're going to be equal.

[00:09:13]And that's ultimately what lies at the base of this type of Christian anti-semitism is that you don't want the Jew to think he's superior to you or to be closer to God. He have to follow you and we all have to kind of be equal beneath Jesus. That's the psychological tension here. So the Gollum is running on his software and this is when um the Jews suffer the consequence of creating the Gollum essentially.

[00:09:40]Yeah.

[00:09:41]First their synagogues or schools shall be set a fire and dirt be piled and heaped over whatever will not burn so that no man will ever again see a stone or sender of it. This should be done to honor our Lord and Christianity so that God may see that we are Christians and that and have not knowingly tolerated or approved of such public lying, cursing and blaspheming of his son and his Christians. For God will forgive us whatever we have previously tolerated out of ignorance. and I myself did not know everything. But now that we do know of it, if we should nevertheless protect and shield such a house for the Jews in which right before our noses they deceive, blasphemy, blaspheme, curse, disparage, and defile Christ and us as we have heard above. This would be such as bad as if we ourselves were doing these things and far far worse as we know. Well, so again, this is this is coming out of the disclosure, I guess you could say, that is the Protestant Reformation. Like we know everything now, the Bible, you can read it in the Hebrew, in the Greek, you can read it in German, in the vernacular. You have no excuse. So we we must kill them all. I mean, did basically um Moses wrote in go that far.

[00:11:10]>> I I Well, take your point.

[00:11:13]>> Yeah. I mean, he goes pretty far.

[00:11:16]>> I mean, if they happen to be in the synagogue when you're burning it down, >> that's on them, I guess. Right.

[00:11:23]>> Yeah.

[00:11:25]Moses wrote in Deuteronom Deuteronomy 13 that if a city practiced idolatry, it should be utterly destroyed with fire and nothing should remain of it. If he were alive today, he would be the first to torch the Jews schools and houses.

[00:11:40]For in Deuteronom Deuteronomy 4:12, he very strictly commanded that nothing should be added or taken from his law.

[00:11:49]And Samuel says in 1st Samuel 15 that if it that if it is idolatry not to obey God uh that excuse me that it is idolatry not to obey God. Now the current Jewish doctrine is nothing but the sheer additions of the rabbis and the idolatry of disobedience such that Moses has become completely unknown among them as we have said in the same way as for us the Bible has become unknown under the papacy.

[00:12:19]Therefore this is interesting comparison of the Jews in the Catholic Church. It's interesting. Uh, therefore, it is also for Moses's sake that their school cannot be tolerated, for they disgrace him just as much as they do us, and it is not necessary for them to have their own free churches for such idolatry.

[00:12:39]Second, their houses also should be torn down and destroyed, for they do the same things within them as they do in their schools. Instead, perhaps they can be put under a roof or in a barn like the gypsies. So they know that they are not lords in our land as they boast, but are living in exile and captivity as they unceasingly shout and complain about us before God.