| 1. A song of Asaph. O God! Nations have come into Your heritage, they have defiled Your Holy Temple, they have made Jerusalem into heaps. |
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א. |
| into heaps: Now what is this song? Is it not a lamentation? But because it says (Lam. 4:11): “The Lord has spent His fury.” With what has He spent it? “He has kindled a fire in Zion.” This is a song and an occasion for singing, for He poured out His fury on the wood and stones and did not utterly destroy His children. |
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| 2. They have given the corpses of Your servants as food to the birds of the heaven, the flesh of Your pious ones to the beasts of the earth. |
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ב. |
| the flesh of Your pious ones: Now were they not wicked? But since they received their punishment, they are accounted as pious men. Similarly, Scripture states (Deut. 25:3): “your brother would be degraded before your eyes.” As soon as he is lashed, he is your brother. It is explained in this manner in the Aggadah (Mid. Ps. 79: 4). |
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| 3. They have spilt their blood like water around Jerusalem, and no one buries [them]. |
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ג. |
| 4. We were a disgrace to our neighbors, ridicule and derision to those around us. |
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ד. |
| and derision: Heb. וקלס, an expression of speech, to speak of them as for a byword. |
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| 5. How long, O Lord? Will You be wroth forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire? |
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ה. |
| How long: Heb. עד מה [lit. until what.] Until when? |
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| Your jealousy: Your wrath, that You are jealous to wreak vengeance, an expression of (Exod. 20:5): “a jealous (קנא) God,” emportement or enprenemant in Old French, zealous anger. |
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| 6. Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You and upon the kingdoms that did not call out in Your name. |
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ו. |
| 7. For they devoured Jacob and made his dwelling desolate. |
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ז. |
| 8. Do not remember for us the early iniquities; may Your mercies quickly come before us for we have become very poor. |
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ח. |
| 9. Help us, O God of our salvation, on account of the glory of Your name, and save us and atone for our sins for Your name's sake. |
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ט. |
| 10. Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Let it be known among the nations before our eyes the revenge of the spilt blood of Your servants. |
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י. |
| 11. May the cry of the prisoner come before You; according to the greatness of Your arm, set free the children of the mother who died. |
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יא. |
| set free: Heb. הותר, release the prisoners from their prison, as (below 105:20): “A king sent and released him (ויתירהו) ” ; (146: 7), “sets loose (מתיר) the bound.” |
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| the children of the mother who died: The children of her who was killed because of You; enmorinede in Old French, doomed to die. There is an example in the Sages’ language: “It is better that Jews eat the flesh of slaughtered dying beasts rather than eat the flesh of the carcasses of dying animals.” That means the flesh of a dying animal that was slaughtered, in tractate Kiddushin (21b). |
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| 12. And return to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom, their reproach with which they reproached You, O Lord. |
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יב. |
| 13. But we, Your people and the flock of Your pasture, shall thank You forever; to all generations we shall recite Your praise. |
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יג. |
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