Justin Cordova

The thirteenth psalm

One has to wonder at the plight

of the Jewish people, at their forbearance

in spite of circumstance, their hope

in the face of misery.

How long must they wait, O Lord?

How many knew this psalm of David by heart?

These words so pregnant with anguish,

with stark abandonment,

yet consummated by the hope of their people

and a praise for the goodness

of their God.

Will they be forgotten forever?

How often were these lines recited in the ghettos of Warsaw?

Or in cattle cars, passing through the frigid hearts and landscapes of Europe?

Or during death marches en route to death camps?

This psalm was their hope, their boon,

a talisman written and passed between the fences,

an inheritance preserved for the sake of their children,

a silent prayer from an unfailing heart,

whispered inaudibly by slowly failing lips.

How long will your face be hidden from them?

They were patient, expectant;

reveling within their promised deliverance,

transcending in prayer the death that flourished about them.

They recited this thirteenth psalm

at Auschwitz and at Dachau,

inside death camps and gas chambers,

before firing squads and unmarked graves.

Their hearts still trusted in salvation, in love;

the love of their Father who would surely provide.

They were singing God’s praises, thanking him

for his benevolence as they were led to their slaughter,

towards gallows, and into shallow ditches purposed for their interment.

Their deliverance came only in death.

Virginity bemoaned

Much is made of the faith of Abraham, of his almost

sacrificing Isaac on an altar, his almost

surrendering his only heir, his almost

that was interrupted by the ram in the thicket.

But what of the daughter of Jephthah,

for whom history did not record a name?

(No appellation was required beyond her sex

and paternalia, for society did not value her further.)

Going beyond almost, she went all the way

to her own sacrifice, sentenced to death by the whims of her father;

slaughtered by his words for greeting his return from battle,

and dancing for the joy of his victories.

She did not appear to struggle, did not question her verdict,

only bemoaned her youth and her virginity, before

surrendering herself to a promise made

by her father to his god. I cannot believe

that God honored this needless sacrifice,

that he was pleased by the blood that bubbled in her

veins while her flesh returned to dust. His heart

must have broken for her. He must have cried out in agony,

bemoaning the way in which they, as we

humans so often do, used his name in vain

to justify their own selfish actions;

bemoaning her youth and virginity the way that we all ought to do.

J.C. Cordova is an anesthesiology resident at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He thoroughly enjoys spending time with his wife, toddler, and rescue dog, along with reading and traveling. He has been previously published in Penumbra, The Public Health Review, and Military Medicine, with work forthcoming in Anesthesiology