Then he opened

Moses ben Qalonymos

Late 10th Century

Then he opened the hoards of hidden treasures which he and kings of old had stored away. He brought out precious vessels and gold Darics and presented them to his chieftains, to each according to his rank. He enticed them with words, with a show of kindness, and appealed to them thus: “It is the royal custom that all the people yield their plunder…

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This poem is the last part of a monumental kerovah (composition adorning the Amidah) and one of only two extant compositions by Moses ben Qalonymos. It was written for the last day of Passover, commemorating the Exodus from Egypt. It draws on several traditions about crossing the Red Sea, including the idea that God sent fiery horses after the Egyptians and, in the last stanza, that God sent an angel (the Prince of the Sea) to defeat the guardian angel of the Egyptians (the “Prince of Egypt”). These excerpts from the longer, monorhymed poem are here formatted as prose paragraphs. A daric is an ancient Persian gold coin.

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Related Guide

Early Medieval Liturgical Poetry (Piyyut)

7th to 12th Century

Creator Bio

Moses ben Qalonymos

A member of the illustrious Qalonymos family, Moses may have been born in Lucca but moved with his family to Mainz (Mayence), Germany, in the early tenth century. There, he pioneered the development of piyyut and talmudic study in the Rhineland region, although only two of his compositions survive.

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