Praying—with the Saints—to God Our Mother. Daniel F. Stramara
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told us, ‘You will not be permitted in my presence unless your brother is with you.’” Then Israel demanded, “Why did you bring this misery upon me by telling the man you had another brother?”
They replied, “He kept interrogating us, asking about ourselves and our family, demanding, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ So we answered him point for point. How were we supposed to know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down here?’” Judah then spoke to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me and we will depart at once, so that we all may survive and not die, we, you, and our children. I myself will stand as surety for him. You can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back and set him before your eyes, I will bear the blame before you all my life. As it is, if we hadn’t wasted so much time we would have been there and back by now, twice over!”
So their father Israel said to them, “If it has to be that way, then do this: Put some of the best produce of the land in your sacks and take them down to the man as a gift—a little balsam, some honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds. And make sure you take double the amount of money with you, for you must return the sum that was put back in the mouth of your sacks; it might have been an accident. Take your brother and be off. Go back to the man. May El Shaddai—God, the Breasted One, grant you maternal compassion in the presence of the man so that he will permit your other brother and Benjamin to return with you. As for me, if I must be bereaved of my children, then bereaved I must be.”
Genesis 48:1–4 TNK
Some time later, Joseph was informed, “Your father’s health is failing.” So he took with him his two sons: Manasseh and Ephraim. When Jacob was told, “Look, your son Joseph has come to you,” he mustered his strength and sat up in bed. Jacob recounted to Joseph, “El Shaddai—God, the Breasted One, appeared to me at Luz in Canaan and blessed me, saying, ‘I shall make you fertile and increase your numbers so that I can make you into a company of peoples. And I will give this very land to your descendants after you to be a perpetual possession.’”
Genesis 49:9 TNK versicle
Judah is a lion’s whelp;
You stand over your prey, my son.
Like a lion he crouches, laying in wait,
even like a lioness, who dare rouse him?
Genesis 49:25–26 TNK
The God of your father helps you,
El Shaddai, God, the Breasted One, blesses you:
with blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the abyss lying below,
blessings of breasts and womb,
blessings of grain and flowering bloom,
blessings of the ancient mountains,
with bounties of the everlasting hills.
Exodus 6:3 TNK versicle
To Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob I appeared as El Shaddai—God, the Breasted One.
Exodus 33:18–23 TNK
Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” Then Yahweh replied, “I shall cause all my beauty to pass before you, and in your presence I shall pronounce my name ‘Yahweh.’ I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have maternal compassion on whom I will have maternal compassion. But my face you cannot see, for no one sees me and survives.” So Yahweh continued, “Here is a place near me. You must stand on the rock and when my glory passes by, I shall put you in a cleft of the rock and place my hand over you until I pass by. Then I shall remove my hand so that you might see my back, but the front of me is not to be seen.”
Numbers 11:4–12 TNK
Now the rabble in the midst of the people had strong cravings for other food and so the Israelites began to wail again, bewailing, “If only we could eat meat! Think of the fish we used to eat in Egypt for free, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic! But now we are famished and we never see anything except this manna!”
Now the manna was tiny like coriander seed and looked like resin. The people went around gathering it and ground it up in handmills or crushed it in the mortar. They cooked it in a pot and fashioned it into cakes. It tasted like pancakes made with oil. When the dew descended on the camp at night, the manna fell with it.
Now Moses heard the people bemoaning, each family at the entrance of their tent. Yahweh’s anger greatly blazed against them and Moses was grieved and asked Yahweh, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you, that you foist the burden of all these people on me? Was it I who conceived all these people? Was it I who gave them birth? For you tell me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a suckling infant, to the land which I promised your ancestors.’”
Numbers 24:2–9 TNK
When Balaam lifted his eyes and surveyed Israel, encamped by tribes, then the Spirit of God, she came upon him so that he uttered his oracle:
The oracle of Balaam son of Beor,
the oracle of one whose eyesight
is perfect,
the oracle of one who hears the words of God,
who beholds a vision from Shaddai,
fallen in ecstasy with unveiled eye:
How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob,
how fair your encampments, O Israel;
like valleys that spread out,
like gardens beside a river,
like aloes planted by Yahweh,
like cedars beside running waters!
Water will flow from his buckets;
and his seed will have waters abundant.
His king will be greater than Agag,
and his kingdom will be greatly exalted.
God has brought him out of Egypt;
he possesses the wild ox’s might.
He shall devour the corpses
of his enemies,
shattering their bones to pieces,
piercing them with his arrows.
He crouches like a lion,
laying in wait like a lioness;
who dare rouse him?
Blessed are those who bless you,
cursed those who curse you!
Numbers 24:2–3, 15–17 TNK
When Balaam lifted his eyes and surveyed Israel, encamped by tribes, then the Spirit of God, she came upon him so that he uttered his oracle:
The oracle of Balaam son of Beor,
the oracle of one whose eyesight is perfect,
the oracle of one who hears the words of God,
who has knowledge
from the Most High,
who beholds a vision from Shaddai,
fallen in ecstasy with unveiled eye:
I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near:
a star will come out of Jacob,
a scepter will rise out of Israel;
it shall smite the brow of Moab,
the forehead of all Sheth’s children.
Deuteronomy 30:1–5 TNK
Moses said, “When all these things come to pass for you, the blessing as well as the curse which