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Israel and the Gentiles
1850 · translated from the Dutch · 500 pages
Israel and the Gentiles
by Isaac da Costa
Isaac da Costa was a Portuguese-Jewish poet of Amsterdam, a pupil of Bilderdijk, who converted in 1822 and became a central figure of the Dutch Réveil. Israel and the Gentiles is his history of the Jewish people from the beginning to his own century — written not as detached scholarship but as a sustained argument about where that history has been going, by a man who had staked his life on the answer.
The convert behind the argument
Da Costa was born into the Sephardic community of Amsterdam and trained in law and letters under the poet Willem Bilderdijk, whose circle drew him toward Christianity. He and his wife were baptised in 1822, to considerable scandal, and he spent the rest of his life as poet, historian and lay theologian of the Dutch revival movement — never repudiating his Jewish identity, and writing consistently about the continuing place of Israel.
Summary
The book traces Jewish history from the patriarchs through the dispersion, the medieval communities, the Iberian expulsions and the modern era — and it is unusually attentive to the history of Jewish converts to Christianity, treating figures such as Paul of Burgos and his sons at length.
Its argumentative frame is providential: da Costa reads the survival and the suffering of the Jewish people as evidence for, rather than against, the claims of the faith he had come to, and closes with expectations about the future of Israel that align him with the Réveil's broader prophetic interests.
Written by an insider to the community he describes, and published in English in 1850, it was among the more widely circulated Dutch religious works of its century in the English-speaking world.
Who was Isaac da Costa?
Isaac da Costa (1798–1860) was born in Amsterdam into a distinguished Portuguese-Jewish family. He studied law and classical letters at Leiden and became the leading disciple of the poet Willem Bilderdijk, through whose circle he came to Christianity.
He and his wife Hanna were baptised in 1822. He became a central figure of the Dutch Réveil, the evangelical revival movement of the period, and wrote poetry, history and polemic — including the Bezwaren tegen den geest der eeuw (Objections to the Spirit of the Age), which caused a national controversy. He continued to write about the Jewish people and their future throughout his life.
Common questions
- What is Israel and the Gentiles?
- Isaac da Costa's history of the Jewish people from the patriarchs to the nineteenth century, written as a providential argument about the meaning and direction of that history by a Sephardic Jew who had converted to Christianity.
- Who was Isaac da Costa?
- A Dutch poet and historian (1798–1860) from the Portuguese-Jewish community of Amsterdam, a pupil of the poet Bilderdijk, who was baptised in 1822 and became a leading figure of the Dutch Réveil.
A note on the text. Israel and the Gentiles is in the public domain. What you're buying is our edition: the careful typesetting and correction. The original text is also available free here.