I'll ascribe might and glory to my God

Solomon Ibn Gabirol

ca. 1040

I’ll ascribe might and glory to my God—
  God, who established His heavenly lair with the breadth of His hand.
He created lips, gave humanity a mouth,
  and crowned them with beauty and splendor, as a crown.
He also taught them knowledge, to understand the wonders
  of God, who created them in this world and the next.
Thus says Solomon [Ibn Gabirol] of Sefarad,
  who gathered the holy tongue for a scattered people.
When my heart looked out upon the congregation of God the Rock,
  and I contemplated their surviving remnant,
I perceived that they were lacking the holy tongue;
  it was almost entirely missing.
The Hebrew tongue was foreign to their tongue.
  Their tongue did not recognize the Judean language.
Half of them spoke Edomite,
  and half spoke the dark language of Kedar.
Their closed minds sank into the depths of the sea.
  They plunged into it like heavy lead.
My pain for them was added to my own pain
  and became enclosed in my innards like a burning fire.
When I saw the stirring of fools,
  my heart stirred like a harp [kinor] or like the Sea of Galilee [kineret].
They know not the revelation, they know not the books—
  how could they read [Hebrew] missives?
Who will pull up the blind from the sea where they have drowned?
  Whose hand will bring up the struggling ship?
My heart had a plan for me: “Because your eye has perceived
  that it is not good for your people’s eye to be blind,
therefore, offer your own mouth to help the mouths that are closed up like the mute,
  for you will receive divine reward for this.”
But I saw that I was young in days, so I spoke back to my heart,
  and rebuked it, with an angry rebuke:
“A young man’s heart is like that of a fool.
  The reach of a nineteen-year-old is very short.”
My heart turned aside from this plan, until it came back in a dream,
  where I heard a voice passing through town,
crying out in my ears in the dark of night: “Rise up, do it,
  for God’s hand is helping you!
Arise, and do not say ‘I am a youth,’
  for the elders are not supporting the crown.”
So my esteem greatly rose, and I knew
  that all this had been decreed by God.
I put my mouth where my mind was,
  and swore to set my hand to realize its utmost ability.
I decided in my heart to write a book about the secrets
  of the grammar of the holy tongue, so it should be firmly set down.

Translated by Gabriel Wasserman.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.

Engage with this Source

“The Necklace” (ha-‘Anak) was a didactic Hebrew poem about Hebrew grammar, which Ibn Gabirol wrote at the age of nineteen. Only this opening text and the first part, about a quarter of the total, survive. Ibn Gabirol, as he states, wished to invigorate the study of Hebrew; this was true also of many of his Andalusi Jewish contemporaries. He laments the state of understanding of the prophetic books and seeks to increase knowledge of the sacred language that God Himself had taught Adam (as he hints at the end of this excerpt). Years later, Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1167) praised “The Necklace” for its clarity and didactic value.

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Related Guide

Early Medieval Poetry

9th to 12th Century

Creator Bio

Solomon Ibn Gabirol

1021–1070

Solomon ben Judah Ibn Gabirol was one of the greatest Hebrew poets of the so-called golden age of Andalusi Jewish life. Born in Córdoba in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), Ibn Gabirol fled with his family during the political upheavals of the early eleventh century. Solomon alludes to his own suffering from sickness, poverty, and other challenges. His first poems date to his teenage years in Saragossa, but he was driven out of that city, apparently for disagreements with leading Jews, including Jonah Ibn Janāḥ (b. before 980, d. after 1038). Ibn Gabirol also wrote treatises in Judeo-Arabic on ethics and Neoplatonic philosophy, the first of which was translated into Hebrew and the second into Latin, ensuring his long-standing popularity and influence. Many of his poems are part of the liturgy of Sephardic communities, and a very small number of his poems are recited in Ashkenazic communities, to this day.

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