Vol 5. Iss. 2: "Psalm of Joshua"

Give thanks to God with all your heart,
for Moses has died, we are freed from his tyranny!
There’ll be no more starving in this wilderness.
Our lands await us.

God has heard our people’s prayers,
murmured as softly as incense in the night—
Darkness protected us from the sight
of Moses and Aaron’s men.

For forty years, we’ve practiced burying,
our children in sands as white as snow.
Even rocks, when struck by Moses
go on weeping until they can no more.

Silenced is the voice that could only say “No!”
Moses denied Egypt, but conquest also—
and now my eyes gaze hungrily
on the lands of Gilead, Dan, Naphtali
Ephraim, Manasseh, the land of Judah—
as far as the Western Sea,
the Negeb
and the plain…*

Miguel Angel Escobar
December 1, 2004

* Cf. Deuteronomy 34:1-4.