Nisibis 43

On the melody "Beth Av" in the mode of the kukaya. A wall was Joseph to himself within the tumult. Moses scattered his bones that they might become for his camp a wall within the wilderness. He who saw that people that died by his own hands, for his son the dead bones were scattered that they might become a substitute for the living. The fruit of mercy, the seal of chastity, the covenant: the body of the faithful who believed in you was not consumed. Joseph in the pit saw him who sees all, where he thought to hide that there was none who saw him. In his youth he cast the commands of asceticism. Moses scattered his bones that they might flesh out the people who openly praised him in the cities of Media. He contended for the weak with the bones of the righteous one. Moses left life, ran to the dead. Workers were with him, and they multiplied the lamentations of the people. It was a vineyard that had opened its enclosure to the foxes. But that blessed little dove went forth within his limbs, was emptied, and brought forth her offspring from the house of ruins as a blessing to the house of the peoples. The bones of Elisha sowed hope in Sheol. The power that was hidden in the bones was making the dead alive. Death saw the dead that stirred and were restored. He saw a vision of wonders, of a dead one from the mouth of death. He snatched corpses and revived them, the buried one from his burials. He was filling the house with the drink of Sheol's treasury, the storehouses of all bodies. Her gates and her bolts were shaken and confounded, for she had not seen from the beginning a bone that stirred. The voice of Hezekiel terrified her.

The bones crept and sought one another, and they were joined together. In their joining, the dust of that Sheol was disturbed and dissolved. Death heard the voice of the bones; in his members he fled and hid. He became ill because of the dead; he thought that his own end had come. He called out, commanded Sheol, and cut off her hope. He produced a testament in his trembling; he confessed that he was a sojourner, and wrote that he was a debtor, who was destined to be redeemed. The dead rose to life for Jacob; the buried rose to the tombs; the sick rose to the healthy; the lame rose to the walkers. David kept his crown for Hezekiah in his tomb. And the bones of Josiah were reconciled, and they did not approach that old man. With bones they kept his bones, of him who ate, killed, and buried. And he trusted, touched, and escaped. For that old man led the perfect one astray, and he trusted that what was hidden would be killed and escape through him. It was a wonder that when he killed him, he trusted that he had touched him. How great a wonder he saw within Sheol: the slain one over his slayer.

In the grave he was watching, how many years did the bones of the dead in Christ wait? Again Elisha placed his sick hands upon the strong hands of the king whose hair fell out. He gathered and cast the arrow of the Redeemer to be disturbed in the fever of the fevers of the ribs that he desired for the sake of health for the body of his lepers. For their leprosy I cast, he did for his lepers; their fever therefore gave strength to the kings. Their three names helped the six hundred thousand. In my helper the adversary, in them his mouth was hidden, of the good and reproachful scribes, eloquent and many, and those able in the house of judgment, they rejoiced in the adversary of judgment, and they lived for the sinner. He was disturbed in them, the bones of my brother, for their weapon was silence. In silence they appease him, to hear the silent ones, the silence of separation. Prayer is for the knower of all. In a little they are hired, the scribes, and much they are ground down. In weeping they are martyred for me, in tears they are hired for me, that I poured upon their graves. He ran to their graves of the living in their deaths. The bones of Elisha testify to your bones, that he gave life to those in whom death learned and dwelt, and he was heavy within Sheol for the bones of the righteous, which hid from the deniers who did not think of the resurrection. Sheol also, sensitive to him, for there is nothing that is dead to revive all, except that death that said to the sea over him, that he was not willing to be moved by the death of the sinner. And when all to the Lord all, it was easy, it was ready to revive.

The death of freedom, of those who die by His will. The death of sins— for that body, the vessel of its life, it was that killed it. In the beginning, in Paradise, she [the will] settled in her dominion, the boundary of the law. For the bitter one did not wish to counsel her, that her wood be cut short. To this ruler, who settled for His will, and died by her will, great was the beloved. An hour for the weary, and for the one who fasts and keeps vigil, death is his mercy. It is not a slayer of the sleeping. An hour of weeping— even Sheol did not kill, and a slayer. An hour of consolation— even Sheol is of consolation. To that death, the return, which has no end, it is not a sleep from rising. An hour of bridal chambers— over one who stands and sleeps, that he might again be awakened quickly. Even Sheol did not darken, or a sleep revive. Behold, an hour for Sheol, concealing, of the morning that awakens the sleeping, and a voice that raises the dead. It is the death of freedom, in whose hands his hope is cut off.

This one, when he was troubled in his poverty, gave in his goodness, while he was humble to the will of the spirit, he sinned against life, and the body was warming him, that when the reptile and the beasts devoured him, he is dissolved to the earth, eaters and eaten, and is separated like a firstborn, their dust in a furnace. For if this pleases him, for the days that were crushed and cast again, gold within the earth, he separated and took it from within the furnace. As also the Creator, he cast the body into a furnace, in his furnace he separates all, while he rolls and casts it to the dust of the beasts. For in his intention, his own of making, he was separating and marking in it the dust of the son of man. He separated and took the dust of Adam and formed him. Thus separated and marked in his mind the dust of humanity. And to him alone he raises and shows the beginning that witnesses to the end. The pain of the passer-by was separated within his dust, and before he was sent, he appears to his days. And if he falls upon his earth, he is pressed within it again. As also the knower of all, he separates all, all the dust to his kinds, and from all he is greater, the dust of the son of man, which is the stole of his beloved, wrapped to the body in the furnace. It is spread, the praise of his, the seal that does not die. In that stole he completes the movements in their stoles, to that stole of his they resemble, bodies to your garments, and complete that you may reject him, that man whose body was sealed. Look in your drinking, my seals in your flashes, see then how they are pressed.

The body was pressed and came out to the belly at his birth, to the grave at his death, to the pit of beasts. He was victorious and did not sink; the pit that swallowed him returned him. He walked within the sea and flew and soared in the air. He sat on the right hand, crowned with praise. The one who confined him was confined; the one who bound him was bound. Like a locust that can be borne, is it the one that on the belly did not spare his mother? Through his pains he broke through and came out and abandoned her. And behold, the righteous one from her, that he might not again return to her. How many times did she strip Sheol, bringing out her dead? And his death teaches the faithful. Elijah ascends, for they both ascended in it, the two of them in the chariot: body and soul to that upper dwelling. And without sending his body, he cast it into a place. The men who went out and sought, not finding him, they learned that he had ascended entirely in body. He was holy in body, and also that his dust again teaches that Elijah was separated and remained from him: a shawl and a mantle, and he was covered, separated and fell, that he is a garment of glory that was fitting for the body that was snatched away. That his waist is a garment of holiness that was fitting for his garments. Dust separated and fell, and the body flew and ascended. Also the Jordan cast commands in his descent. Their souls were covered by waters. One to another they tasted his abundance. He left his descent, the camp of his weeping, and a rose not of his nature, for his covering, that was fitting when he was old and ascended by the command of the body in triumphs to the height, flying and ascending. If, however, the one who delayed that he might stand, his body of death that wears out, much did he labor that he might be hidden.

His body was not dissolved among the dead, in the mystery of your bosom. He taught the living to him through signs and Elijah, who were seen. He concealed the deniers of the living who are buried and fly, who are delayed. I awaited your coming. [The End]