Hezekiah's Song of Recovery

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After Hizkiyahu king of Y'hudah had been ill and had recovered, he wrote the following:

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"I once said: 'In the prime of life I am going off to the gates of Sh'ol. I am being deprived of living out the full span of my life.'

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"I said, 'I will never again see Yah, Yah in the land of the living; I will look on human beings no more or be with those who live in this world.

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My home is uprooted and taken away from me like a shepherd's tent. Like a weaver, I have rolled up my life; he cuts me off from the loom. Between day and night you could finish me off.

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I try to be strong like a lion till morning, but still my illness breaks all my bones - between day and night you could finish me off.

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I make little chattering sounds like a swallow, I moan aloud like a dove, My eyes are weary with looking upward. Adonai, I am overwhelmed; guarantee my life!'

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"What is there that I can say? He has spoken to me and acted! I will go humbly all my years, remembering how bitter I was.

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Adonai, by these things people live; in all these is the life of my spirit. You're restoring my health and giving me life

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though instead of peace, I felt very bitter. You desired my life and preserved it from the nothingness pit; for you threw all my sins behind your back.

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"Sh'ol cannot thank you, death cannot praise you; those descending to the pit cannot hope for your truth.

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The living, the living - they can thank you, as I do today; fathers will make their children know about your faithfulness.

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ADONAI is ready to save me; hence we will make our stringed instruments sound all the days of our life in the house of ADONAI."

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