Although he wrote that his father was from Córdoba, it is not known whether he was born, as ancient sources seem to bear, somewhere in Spain, or perhaps in Lisbon. In the first documents in which his name appears, it is related that, as an adult, he was taken prisoner in Cádiz by Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and remained a hostage in London until his release.
He lived in Hamburg, according to some documentary evidence, between 1616 and 1620, and from there he went shortly thereafter to Amsterdam, the city where he lived from 1620 to 1635, the year of his death. He himself narrates in Heaven's Gate how he met Israel Saruq in Ragusa (present-day Dubrovnik), and that he participated in the mysteries of Luria's cabal. However, it was only after his arrival in Amsterdam that he wrote his two treatises on the subject, House of Divinity and Gate of Heaven. In Spanish he also wrote —and published in his time— the Epitome and compendium of logic or dialectic, and the Book of definitions, descriptions, and brief declarations, of many terms, words, and concepts, which are used in scholastic, metaphysical theology , natural, and moral philosophy. Its impact on the history of philosophy has been considerable, not only in Spinoza or Leibniz, but in the dispute between Mendelssohn and Jacobi, as well as in Fichte and Hegel.