Kingly Crown: Praise of God

Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s influential forty-stanza (or canto) poetic devotional prayer, “Kingly Crown” (Keter malkhut), begins with praise for God. Each of the first nine stanzas (excerpted here) focuses on a separate divine attribute. The second part is an extended hymn to God as creator, describing in surprisingly philosophical language God’s created world from the lowest earthly level to the heavenly and spiritual heights, and then turning to the soul. The work has neither fixed rhyme scheme nor meter, so is not technically a poem, but it is written in elevated Hebrew. It concludes with a prayer for personal redemption and divine forgiveness.