Luke 9:5 - Exposition

And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very duet from your feet for a testimony against them . It was the custom of the Jews when they returned from foreign (Gentile) lands, as they crossed the frontiers of the Holy Land, to shake the dust from off their feet. This was an act symbolizing that they had broken, now on their return to their own land, all communion with Gentile peoples which a residence among them had necessitated for a season. The hitter hatred and loathing of the Jews, after their return from the Captivity, for all Gentile races can only be understood by the student of the Talmud. So comprehensive and perfect a hatred, enduring, too, for centuries, has never been witnessed in the ease of any other peoples. This accounts in great measure for the retaliative persecution which more or less has been carried on all through the Christian era against this marvellous race. In our day—the day of a liberalism possibly exaggerated and unreal—in many parts of Europe the untrained sense of the masses strangely revolts against this spirit of toleration; and wild excesses, massacres, and bitter persecution—the Judenhetz, hatred of the Jews in Germany and in Russia—are among the curious results of the liberality and universal toleration of the time.