God, God of gods and Master of masters

Joseph Bekhor Shor

Late 12th Century

God, God of gods and Master of masters,
   who takes no bribes and shows no partiality,
Your sons are poor and needy before You,
   coming before You in tearful supplication.
Their sigh is great, and their breasts shriveled,
    bellowing and crying, stripped of their ornaments.
My enemies push me to the slaughter like goats.
    All hearts melt, and all hands are slack.
The people I tend is trampled in captivity.
   Strangers scattered her in all directions.
The Lord’s hand strikes His own fock.
   Despite all this, His anger has not turned back, His arm is still outstretched.
The arrogant who strive against me have scattered me.
   My sins rise to testify against me.
My life is spent in sorrow, my years in sighing.
   I said, “My strength and hope have perished before the Lord.”
Pure One, your treasured people cry before You,
    endless tears dripping down their cheeks.
God, repay those who push them in purposeful hatred,
   wound for wound, burn for burn.
My hand is heavy from my sighing,
   for I have rebelled against the Lord, my God,
I fall before Him today to confess,
   “It is true, I have sinned, this is what I did.”
My Savior and Redeemer, do not dismay me.
   My King, how long will you be angry with Your people’s prayers?
Please hasten my year of redemption and spread
   Your robe over Your servant, for You are the Redeemer.
My skin crawls, and my soul is frightened.
   We have turned away from You and become ver y g u i lt y.
Therefore, my spirit is crushed and shame covers me.
   For I dread Your ferce anger.
Panic and pitfall both happened to me.
   My eyes shed streams of water.
My heart calls out for my King and my staf.
   Perhaps God will see my sufering.
Holy One, my King, champion Your cause.
   Let Your sword devour the fesh of those who rise up.
Merciful, have mercy on the seed of Your beloved [Abraham].
   Arise, Lord, and let Your enemies be scattered.
Almighty, before You I bend the knee and bow low.
   Break the hand and crown of evil men!
May their camps be desolate with demons dancing there,
   their bodies kindled like burning fre.
God, have compassion on those who keep your precepts.
   Have mercy on Your nation in Your great kindness.
Forgive and pardon the seed of Your faithful ones.
   Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Your servants.
We seek you at dawn like a poor man asking for kindness.
   Save, in Your mercy, Savior and Redeemer.
Please, Lord, save us from these evildoers.
   And let the nations know that the Lord is in Israel.
Let our judgment come from before You.
   Have compassion and mercy on our remnant.
Holy One, be flled with mercy for our children.
   For this is Your law for Your children.
Translated by Abigail Denemark Ossip.

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

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In this poem, the poet begs for divine favor, despite Deuteronomy’s insistence that God “takes no bribes and shows no partiality” (10:17). To overcome this difficulty, Joseph Bekhor Shor sets forth the endless fears and suferings of the Jewish people. In keeping with traditional theology, he places some of the blame for the travails of the Jews on their own sins. This poem is written with a partially doubled alphabetic acrostic (aab-ccd), and each stanza closes with a biblical verse.

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Creator Bio

Joseph Bekhor Shor

b. ca. 1140

Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor Shor was an exegete, Tosafist, and poet born in Orléans, in northern France. He was a student of Jacob ben Meir (Rabbenu Tam), and a written exchange between the two survives in the latter’s Book of the Upright (Sefer ha-yashar). Joseph composed a Hebrew commentary on the Torah and on the Psalms. His approach was generally focused on the peshat (plain meaning) of scripture, though less rigidly than other twelfth-century northern French figures. Joseph’s commentaries also contain significant anti-Christian polemics. His name appears in printed Tosafot on the Talmud, and he composed several piyyutim (liturgical poems) that address the calamities of his day.

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