The Consequence at Kadesh
On the Border of Canaan
Numbers 11
At the end of this desert our homeland appears;
we have dreamed of this moment for hundreds of years.
We now stand at the edge
and peer over the ledge;
has our faith been replaced by the worst of our fears?
With a covenant, God promised Abram a son,
but at ninety nine he and Sarai still had none.
God would make his heirs more
than the sands on the shore
and the stars in the sky from that one.
Isaac's son, first called Jacob, then Israel, named,
fled a famine for Egypt before lives were claimed.
As his sons' families grew
their Egyptian hosts knew
that the children of Jacob would need to be tamed.
They harassed us, oppressed us and beat us with sticks,
without giving us straw we were forced to make bricks.
We lay broken in graves
from our hard lives as slaves;
they were wind to our candles and snuffed out our wicks.
Even worse, our boy babies were murdered when born;
they, from midwives and arms of their mothers, were torn.
We could not fathom how
God would honor his vow,
yet we prayed God remembered his covenant sworn.
Generations were born and died off every year,
but the promise that God made did not disappear.
The more we were oppressed,
so our families were blessed,
and we prayed that our groaning would reach to God's ear.
Then came Moses and Aaron, an answer to prayer
as they battled with Pharoah — but didn't fight fair
because God in his might
turned three days into night
and flung gnats, flies and locusts and death through the air.
We were freed from our masters and all that we'd known,
fled the land of our birth and the comforts of home.
In a desert of sand,
a most barren of land
we were drowning
we have dreamed of this moment for hundreds of years.
We now stand at the edge
and peer over the ledge;
has our faith been replaced by the worst of our fears?
With a covenant, God promised Abram a son,
but at ninety nine he and Sarai still had none.
God would make his heirs more
than the sands on the shore
and the stars in the sky from that one.
Isaac's son, first called Jacob, then Israel, named,
fled a famine for Egypt before lives were claimed.
As his sons' families grew
their Egyptian hosts knew
that the children of Jacob would need to be tamed.
They harassed us, oppressed us and beat us with sticks,
without giving us straw we were forced to make bricks.
We lay broken in graves
from our hard lives as slaves;
they were wind to our candles and snuffed out our wicks.
Even worse, our boy babies were murdered when born;
they, from midwives and arms of their mothers, were torn.
We could not fathom how
God would honor his vow,
yet we prayed God remembered his covenant sworn.
Generations were born and died off every year,
but the promise that God made did not disappear.
The more we were oppressed,
so our families were blessed,
and we prayed that our groaning would reach to God's ear.
Then came Moses and Aaron, an answer to prayer
as they battled with Pharoah — but didn't fight fair
because God in his might
turned three days into night
and flung gnats, flies and locusts and death through the air.
We were freed from our masters and all that we'd known,
fled the land of our birth and the comforts of home.
In a desert of sand,
a most barren of land
we were drowning
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