Hear my cry, O Lord

Isaac Samuel Modeano

End of the 17th Century

Hear my cry, O Lord,
Treat Zion well, with favor, speedily.
Have mercy, fight my battle for me,
For they have turned Jerusalem into ruins.
Long have I inhabited a foreign land,
Afflicted with bloody corpses, with captivity,
Wounds and bruises ever fresh.
I totter like a rickety wall.
Bring our salvation now, O Lord,
Rebuild the towns of Judah,
For now’s the time to pity her.
Make the moon bright as the sun.
O God, my rock, salvation, refuge—
Send, I pray, Elijah the Tishbite
To bring word to your captive people
That the splendid crown is here.
Why do You neglect your wretched folk?
Why give them naught to drink but venom?
Remove the Evil One from them,
And seat them all among the sages.

Translated by
Raymond P.
Scheindlin
.

Other works by Modeano: ‘Arukhat tamid (1756); and Sha‘ashu‘a ha-talmidim (1797).

Credits

Isaac Samuel Modeano, “Hear my cry, O Lord (Hebrew)” (Prayer, Salonika, End of the 17th Century). Published in: Yosef Tobi, “The Messianic Poems of R. Samuel Isaac Modigliano,” Sefunot: Studies and Sources on the History of the Jewish Communities in the East vol. 16 (1980): 205–234: 232.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

Engage with this Source

You may also like

A nighttime song of praise

A nighttime song of praise I have To sing before my Lord, And in the day His help is at my side. All my life, my soul has longed To see the courts Of God, to read the Torah. And so I come betimes…
View Source