68
SONGS OF EXILE
HYMN
OF
WEEPING
Amittai ben Shefatia lived about at the end of the eleventh century. He recited his own compositions in the synagogue as Chazan. This Hymn occurs in the Neïlah Service of the Day of Atonement, and has for basis and refrain the following Biblical passage: “The Lord, the Lord, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and acquitting. . . . And pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance”—Exodus xxxiv, 6, 7, 9.
Stanza 1, line 1, Psalm lxxvii, 3.
Stanza 4, line 2, Psalm lvi, 8.
