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
.
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.
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