Yehuda Amichai

God Full of Mercy

God Full of Mercy - meaning Summary

Mercy Located in God

The speaker insists that mercy exists only in God, because human experience — plucking flowers, counting angels, bringing corpses down from hills, feeling indecision and anguish — shows the world to be merciless. Personal memories of beauty, suffering and ethical weight underpin a stark claim: if God were not "full of mercy," mercy would have to be in the world. The poem contrasts divine compassion with human failure to provide it.

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God-Full-of-Mercy, the prayer for the dead. If God was not full of mercy, Mercy would have been in the world, Not just in Him. I, who plucked flowers in the hills And looked down into all the valleys, I, who brought corpses down from the hills, Can tell you that the world is empty of mercy. I, who was King of Salt at the seashore, Who stood without a decision at my window, Who counted the steps of angels, Whose heart lifted weights of anguish In the horrible contests. I, who use only a small part Of the words in the dictionary. I, who must decipher riddles I don't want to decipher, Know that if not for the God-full-of-mercy There would be mercy in the world, Not just in Him.

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