It’s a little rough to read these words as so much horribleness is happening around the world. We’ve got the pandemic largely overtaking the US, and now the city of Beirut has been leveled by a catastrophic explosion. I can’t help but think that somewhere along the way, something has gone terribly wrong. These pages put a pit in my stomach. How about you? They aren’t all doom and gloom, though, and that’s where we have to store our hope. Look at verse 36: “Indeed, the Lord will give justice to his people, … “ Of course, that justice giving comes with stipulations: “… when he sees their strength is gone and no one is left, slave or free.” Ugh. We don’t want that. And we know it never went down that way because God – OUR God – is a forgiving, loving God. Thank goodness.
Did you enjoy the song? It doesn’t quite have the same zip in English, but I bet it’s gorgeous in its original language. It’s also a helpful tool in passing down the story of the Israelites. Who here remembers several songs from childhood? Me, me, me! Things are just easier to remember when put into song form, and that’s what Moses did here. It’s brilliant! All three of my kids sang a song in elementary school called “50 Nifty United States,” or something like that. It contained every state in the US in alphabetical order, and they all three could sing it by heart. Listing the 50 United States is something I could never do, not even as an adult, but here I had little first-, second- and third-graders who could remember all 50 because some genius musician put them in song form. And they can still sing the song from beginning to end to this day, so high five to whoever that musician was. And high five to Moses for doing the same with the story of the Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land. I bet kids enjoyed the song more than reading the whole book. Just sayin’. 😉
Writing prompt: song
Write out an event in poem form. If you’re musical, see if you can hum a little ditty with it, or if you have any friends who are talented like that, give it to them and see what kind of song they can make of it.
(Written August 7, 2020)
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