Chapter 77

Listen, my people, to this testament of mine, do not turn a deaf ear to the words I utter;

I speak to you with mysteries for my theme, read the riddles of long ago.

It is a story often heard, well known among us; have not our fathers told it to us?

And shall we keep it back from their children, from the generation which follows? Speak we of God’s praise, of his great power, of the wonderful deeds he did.

He gave Jacob a rule to live by, framed for Israel a law, commanding our fathers to hand on the message,

so that a new generation might learn it; sons would be born to take their place, and teach it to their own sons after them.

They were to put their trust in God, ever remembering his divine dealings with them, ever loyal to his commands;

they were not to be like their fathers, a stubborn and defiant breed, a generation of false aims, of a spirit that broke faith with God.

So it was that the sons of Ephraim, bow in hand,1 were routed in the day of battle.

They were false to God’s covenant, refused to follow his law,

as if they had forgotten all his mercies, all those wonderful deeds of his they had witnessed.

Had not their fathers seen wonders enough in Egypt, on the plains of Tanis,

when he parted the sea to let them pass through it, making its waters stand firm as a mound of earth;

when he led them with a cloud by day, with glowing fire all through the night?

He pierced the rock, too, in the desert, and slaked their thirst as if from some deep pool,

bidding the very stones yield water, till fountains gushed from them, abundant as rivers.

And still they went on offending him, there in the wilderness, rebelling against the most High,

challenging God in their thoughts to give them the food they craved for.

Defiantly they asked, Can God spread a table for us in the wilderness?

True, he smote the rock, and made water flow from it, till the stream ran in flood, but can he give bread too, and provide meat for his people?

All this the Lord heard, and his indignation blazed out; its mounting fires Jacob had fed, its fury must break on Israel.

What, had they no faith in God, no trust in his power to save?

He laid his command upon the clouds above them, threw open the doors of heaven,

and rained down manna for them to eat. The bread of heaven was his gift to them;

man should eat the food of angels,2 and so their want should be supplied abundantly.

Next, he summoned his east wind from the sky: it was his power brought the southern gale,

raining down meat on them thick as dust, birds on the wing, plentiful as the sea-sand.

Into their very camp it fell, close about their tents;

and they ate, and took their fill. All they asked, he granted them;

and now, their craving still unsatisfied, while the food was yet in their mouths,

God’s anger against them reached its height, and slew their lordliest, brought them low, all the flower of Israel.

Yet, with all this, they continued to offend him; all his wonderful deeds left them faithless still.

And ever he took away their lives untimely, hurried their days to an end.

When he threatened them with death, they would search after him, feel their need of God once more;

they would remind themselves that it was God who had protected them, his almighty power that had delivered them.

But still they were lying lips, they were false tongues that spoke to him;

their hearts were not true to him, no loyalty bound them to his covenant.

Yet, such is his mercy, he would still pardon their faults, and spare them from destruction; again and again he curbed his indignation, to his vengeance would not give place.

He would not forget that they were flesh and blood, no better than a breath of wind, that passes by and never returns.

How often the desert saw them in revolt against him, how often, in those solitudes, they defied his anger!

Always new challenges to God’s power, new rebellions against the Holy One of Israel.

Had they forgotten all he did for them, that day when he set them free from the power of their oppressor,

all those miracles among the men of Egypt, those portents in the plain of Tanis,

when he turned all their streams, all their channels into blood, so that they could not drink?

He sent out flies, to their ruin, frogs to bring devastation on them,

gave all their harvest over to the caterpillar, their tillage to the locust,

sent hail on their vineyards, frost on their mulberry-trees,

let the hail have its way with their cattle, the lightning with their flocks.

He let his anger loose on them in all its vehemence; what rage, what fury, what havoc, as the angels of destruction thronged about them!

So, the way made ready for his vengeance, he took toll of their lives, doomed even their cattle to the pestilence;

on every first-born creature in Egypt, on the first-fruits of increase in all the dwellings of Cham, his stroke fell.

Then, like a shepherd, he set his own people on their way, led them, his own flock, through the wilderness;

guided them in safety, free from all alarm, while the sea closed over their enemy.

So he brought them to that holy land of his, the mountain slopes he took, with his own right hand for title; so he drove out the heathen at their onset, parcelled out the land to them by lot, to each his own inheritance,

bidding the tribes of Israel dwell where the heathen had dwelt before them.

These were the men who defied the most high God, and rebelled against him; would not observe his decrees,

but turned away and broke faith with him as their fathers had done, like a bow that plays the archer false;

made mountain shrines, to court his anger, carved images, to awake his jealousy!

The Lord heard the bruit of it, and burned with anger, cast Israel away in bitter scorn;

he forsook his tabernacle in Silo, that tabernacle where once he dwelt among men.

Plunder, now, in the enemy’s hands, the ark that is shrine of his strength and majesty;

he would leave his people at the mercy of the sword, disdain his own inheritance.

Their young men fed the flames, and the maidens must go unwed;

their priests fell by the sword, and never a widow left to mourn for them.

Then suddenly, like a man that wakes up from sleep, like some warrior that lay, till now, bemused with wine, the Lord roused himself;

he smote his enemies as they turned to flee,3 branded them for ever with shame.

But he refused, now, to make his dwelling with Joseph, it was not the tribe of Ephraim he would choose;

he chose the tribe of Juda, and the hill of Sion, there to bestow his love.

And there he built his sanctuary, immovable as heaven or earth, his own unchanging handiwork.

He chose David, too, for his servant; took him away from herding the sheep; bade him leave off following the ewes that were in milk,

and be the shepherd of Jacob’s sons, his own people, of Israel, his own domain.

His was the loyal heart that should tend them, his the skilful hand that should be their guide.