Ephraim: The Nisibene Hymns
Nisibene Hymn 67: Death Convicts the People
Come, let us hear how Death convicts the People:
that their sword against the just was harsher than Death.
Refrain: Glory to you, who by your sacrifice have redeemed our disgrace,
and whose death was in place of all deaths, so that you might raise all!
It was not Death, indeed, that crucified Jesus, but the People:
how hateful, then, is the People, more hateful even than I!
They threw Jeremiah into the pit, the miry pit;
but I in Sheol gave honor to his bones.
They battered Naboth to death with stones, as though he were a dog:
how good am I, who have never stoned even a dog!
The Hebrew women in famine ate their children;
Sheol is good, which delivers them and gives them up without trouble.
To the widow I gave back her son by the hand of Elijah,
and to the Shunammite her beloved by the hand of Elisha.
The Hebrew women in their greed ate their children;
Sheol gave up the dead, and learned to fast soberly.
Sheol was not really Sheol, but only its likeness:
Jezebel was the true Sheol, who devoured the just.
The sons of the prophets, and the prophets, she killed and cast down;
Elijah escaped from her fury to heaven.
How many deaths instead of one Death there were among the People!
And how many Sheols instead of one there were as well!
Samaria and Jezreel, her daughters, in Israel;
and Zion and Jerusalem, her sister, in Judea.
Prophets and just men in Judea and in Israel
were drowned in these two abysses.
Why then is Sheol hated, and she alone,
though there are many more hateful than she?
The dead of the men of Judah are truly hateful to me;
yes, their bones are abhorrent to me in the midst of Sheol.
If only I had a way to throw them out,
to cast their bones out of Sheol, for they make her rot!
I wonder at the Holy Spirit, that he dwelt as he did
in the midst of a People whose smell stank, like their way of life.
Onions and garlic are the heralds of their doings:
as the food is, so is the understanding of this defiled people.
Through the supplication of all who bow down and worship your Father,
have mercy on your worshiper, who is ungrateful for your love.
From Hebrews and Aramaeans, and from the Watchers too,
to you be praise, and through you be glory also to your Father!
Because I have lent a mouth to Death, who has no mouth,
may the Son, who is all mouths, hold back my offense from his Father!