The Maccabaean

XII

Thus saith the Lord:

Thus saith the Lord. For the sake of forty thousand farmers will I redeem you.

With the blood of those that died by the plow will I wash you clean.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his pioneers.

For I have seen, saith the Lord, what my people Israel has done in the Land of Israel.

I cried from the desolate land to the desolate people, and they heard me and arose and came.

And they have made the desert to blossom as the rose. And their hearts have burst into flower and fruitful seed.

They that were silent sing. They sing in the streets and the fields, as the women sang with Miriam, as the redeemed people sang beyond the pas- save of the Red Sea.

a ae ‘They that murmured prayers, sing aloud in praises.

They dance to me as David danced unashamed before the ark of my covenant.

In truth I have seen and I have heard, on the rocks of 10088, in the vales and mountains of the breezeful Galilee, on the plains of Sharon, in the orchards of Samaria: My forty thousand redeemed people singing at the plow, dancing beneath the moon, beneath the blossoming stars of the great night in the east.

They have swept away the filth of centuries—Centuries of death.

They have planted the swamps with forests, and the desert with oranges and almonds, and the waste places with the vine and clusters of the grape. _

They have turned the swords into plowshares and the spears into pruning-hooks; 000

And they have conquered their own land with the plow.

They fell and died in hosts before the blast of fevers. They fell and died in the trenches digging to build their homes. They failed that others might succeed. And their graveyards are cool gardens where the villagers go for refreshment. They sing and dance about the graves of their heroes that gave their blood but took none.

On one side of the road is the graveyard and on the other is the vineyard.

And both are signs of my redemption.

(How have the soldiers in battle dug deep to find the caves of death, to dwell as savages in fear of a brother's blow! What devices have they installed in the damp primeval bowels of earth, to make the devils laugh at their telephones and their electric lamps!)

My people have dug deep to find the waters of life. They have dug for wells of water in a land whose rivers flow underground. They have returned to the wells of the plain, the brooks and springs of Galilee. And they dwell simply on the clean earth, working with their hands and singing with their lips.

(How has the wheat of the world been sown on the ocean wave! They have buried together the bread and him that lives by bread. But still hunger grows.)

0 My people has found the bread of life growing in a dry land; those that lived by my word shall live also by my wheat.

For in the clefts of rock, on the rugged heights of Hermon, they have found the mother of wheat, the wild wheat that nurtured man.

Give, O my people, give to a hungry world the bread of life.

Give, O my people, give to a dying world the word of life.

Once again, my people, come, for now will the nations listen.

Now is the time.

They have swept over my land with the sword,

Once again, one last time; They have shut down the gates of the sea

That my grapes were dried upon the vine with none to eat.

And my oranges turned brown upon the tree.

There came an army of men, blind and ravenous,

And there came an army of locusts, blind and ravenous,

To eat what the men had spared. The reaper has been slain with the

sower, For what hunger and the pestilence have left has been gleaned by the sword

The little and great conspired together to devour my people,

To consume my vineyards, my orchards, my cities and their builders, My pioneers.

(This is the last time, O my people, this is the day of which my prophets have enoken (

And I found an old man, one of the pioneers, weeping over his vineyard that lay waste.

Then I spoke comfortingly to his heart, saying: Wherefore weepest thou, that all the labor of thy life lies waste?

And he said, No, not therefore do I weep. But that my hands are old and my head is bowed, and I cannot build it up again.

Weep not, thou old man, child of the seed of Moses. The forty years of wandering are over. Thy forty years of toil shall be repaid. For though thou shalt not see the redemption, thy children shall see the redemption.

Where have my children gone, they that speak the tongue of the prophets? Where have my children gone, driven to all the far isles of the sea?

Thy children have gone to gather the dispersed of Israel. Their tongue shall be a trumpet call for the return to Zion. And when they come, many shall be gathered unto them. The ships shall be too few for all my children coming home. And the sea shall be glad and rejoice, and the waves shall clap their hands.

The clouds shall sing in heaven, forgetting the hue of slaughter. And the terrible sea shall open his arms to man in protection.

For I have said of the sea, It is mine. Often have my people traveled in ships, fleeing from land to land, driven by man and by the whirlwind.

Now shall they go rejoicing, a free people singing their farewells, and the blessing of all the nations shall go with them. \

I also will calm the seas before them. I will do miracles for a people that understands my signs. I parted the Red Sea for my people when they stood desperate at the shore. I did not part the Red Sea while they toiled as slaves in Egypt.

Of my people Israel, many shall go and many shall stay, but those that stay