Songs of Exile/The Giving of the Law
The Giving of the Law
From Midrash Rabbah on Shemoth
WHEN the Holy One came to give life, to reveal the great light of His Law,
All His wonder of worlds grew silent in sudden, unspeakable awe,
More tense than the stillness ere dawn riseth up in a burst of gold,
Every quiver and pulse, every breath of the world caught fast in His hold.
No twitter of bird, no soaring of wings made stir in the air,
And the oxen that lowed from the fields were mute as if death passed there;
And in Heaven the Ophanim paused in their flight through the limitless space,
And the Seraphim, singing Thrice Holy, grew still in their glorious place.
Full of the storm and the swell of the tide, an immovable sea
Lay dumb with the hushing of lips, with a pausing eternity;
Till the life-giving voice should thrill, and the imminent call be heard,
A marvel, absorbing the sound of all spheres, the Ineffable Word;
Until God in His wonder of worlds, the Holy One, blessed be He,
Should set His creation athrob with the light and the life to be.
Lo! who could endure to stand on the terrible day when He came,
In a universe full of His voice, grown thundrous with sound of His Name?
Lo! He struck the high seas with terror, He saw the mountains quake,
And the stars in His heaven paled, "and my soul went forth when He spake."
And from stars to the shaken earth where the trembling footsteps trod,
One voice fell—One, tremendous: I am the Lord thy God.