Time to rebuke the beast of the forest

Unknown

7th to 11th Century

Time to rebuke the beast of the forest,¹

to whirl it up in a storm and whirlwind,

for it has chewed up the vine² out of the forest.

So may [God] quarantine it with a storm,³

by the hand of the ruddy one, and the hairy man,⁴

because it has oppressed [Israel], the son beloved since youth.

Destroy its sense, and may it be like a fool!

And may Assyria⁵ overtake it,

and pitch a pavilion within its borders,

and plunder all its tents,

so all its deities will be put to shame,

and all its idols will be put to embarrassment.

May [Assyria] bring sudden terror to it,

and make it the estate of desert owls and hedgehogs,

and foil its deeds,

and exterminate all its troops,

and cast it into the heart of the sea,

and humiliate it down to the depths,

and bring it darkness with a line of chaos,

and double [the darkness] with stones of void.

And some small respite will be given to the holy people.

For Assyria will allow them to establish the holy Temple,

and there they will build the holy altar,

and ofer upon it holy sacrifices.

But they will not have the chance to frmly set up the holy mountain,

for the shoot⁶ has not yet gone forth from the holy stock.

Source: CUL T-S Ar. 37.99.

Translated by Gabriel Wasserman.

Notes

[The Roman Empire, which destroyed the Temple. –Trans.]

[The Jewish people.–Trans.]

[See Leviticus 13:3-4.–Trans.]

[I.e., the Messiah, descendant of David, “the ruddy” (1 Samuel 16:12), and Elijah, “the hairy” (2 Kings 1:8). These

[Apparently the Muslim armies.–Trans.]

[The Messiah.–Trans.]

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

This silluk (a term for the last of a series of piyyutim written for the first three blessings of the Amidah), preserved in the Cairo Geniza, was to be recited on the Ninth of Av at the conclusion of a long series of piyyu-tim in the Amidah, before the conclusion of the blessing “. . . who consoles Zion and builds Jerusalem.” The text asks for revenge against Assyria, perhaps a stand-in for contemporary persecutors of the Jews. This silluk serves as a transition to the Kedushah, which begins with the words “Holy, holy, holy”–hence the word holy in the last line. The poem was once attributed to Elea-zar be-Rabbi Qillir, although this credit is not generally accepted by scholars today.

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Time to rebuke the beast of the forest

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