---
title: Times and Seasons
description: Issues of 1841 to 1842.
authors:
  - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
editors:
  - Ebenezer Robinson
  - Don Carlos Smith
  - Smith, Joseph, Jr.
  - Taylor, John
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - newspaper
  - times-and-seasons
  - nauvoo
  - nineteenth-century
periodical: Times and Seasons
volume: 3
number: 1
published: 1841-11-15
publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor
publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois
language: en
type: article
reference: "“Lament of a Captive Jew in Babylon,” *Times and Seasons* 3, no. 1 (November 15, 1841): 592."
printed_title: LAMENT OF A CAPTIVE JEW IN BABYLON.
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1841-11-15_3_1
  transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v3n01.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair)
  identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1841-11-15_3_1
start_page: 592
end_page: 592
curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement.
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1841 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States
  source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1841-11-15_3_1
  publication_year: 1841
---

# Lament of a Captive Jew in Babylon

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by a converted Jew.

Let the thick veil of darkness be roll'd from before thee, As trampl'd the Heathen o'er Zion's sad daughters,

Oh, Lord! and descend on the wing of the storm! She wept tears of shame o'er her guilt and her woe;

Dispersed and enslaved are the sons that adore thee, For the voice of her God had commissioned the slaughter,

And the rude hand of strangers thy Temple deform. The rod of his vengeance had pointed the blow.

And Salem, lov'd Salem, lies low and degraded, Tho' foul are the sins, oh thou lost one, which stain thee,

While, far from her ruins, in exile we pine; The blood of the Lamb yet can wash them away;

Yet still is the hope, of thy remnant, unfaded, Tho' galling and base are the bands that enchain thee,

The word that inspir'd it, Jehovah, is thine. The God that imposed them can lighten their sway.

Alas! we were warned, but reck'd not the warning. For a star yet shall rise o'er the darkness of Judah;

'Till our warriors grew weak, in the day of despair; A branch yet shall flourish on Jesse's proud stem;

And our glory was fled, as the light of the morning, And Zion shall triumph o'er those that subdued her,

That gleams, for a moment, and melts into air. Yea, triumph in giving a Savior to them!