The Many and the Few

My name is King Cyrus, my order I give, You Jews can go back to your home To build your holy temple again In the land of Palestine. We've sung and danced o'er the hot rocky roads Back to Eretz Yisroel's land We worked with plow and rake and hoe And we blessed the works of our hands My name is Ezra the Teacher man I brought my scroll book along I brought my flock to Yisroel From that land called Babylon I'll read you my Talmud Torah book And the prophet's dreams to you And you'll be fertile and multiply If you keep your Torah true My name is Alexander the Great More than half of this wide world is mine Come stand around, my servants all I'm wrapped on my bed here to die As the King of Syria and Palestine Antiochus the Fourth, you'll stand To kill the Jews if they refuse To worship our idols and gods My name is Hannah, my first born son Now stands before this king Guilty of keeping the Sabbath laws By the soldiers I see him slain It's one by one my seven sons In front of my eyes cut down For keeping to the Torah laws I pay with my warm blood now My name is Mattathias, I've got five sons In Modin City we dwell They tried to make me bow down to their gods Two of the King's flunkeys I killed A hundred or more who'll fight to be Jews Did come to these hills with me On my death bed your leader I'll name 'Tis Judah, the Macabee My name is Judah, the Macabee By the name of the hammer I'm called We'll pray to God before every fight Till all of our enemies fall Appolonius, the Governor, this day I killed And his army we did bust Some few of his soldiers run away in the wind But most we've dropped dead in the dust Syron is my name, from Syria came To destroy that fool Macabee My army was great, his army was small But he somehow did win over me To deliver the many to the hands of his few For God this is no trick at all In a few short hours my army did break And we flooded this valley with blood My name is Lysias, I dreamed up a plan To burn the Jews tents as they slept When I got there, their tents were all bare And the Macabee's army had left He stormed my own camp as my soldiers did sleep And he killed several thousand in fear My elephants, my horsemen, my footsoldiers, all Judah hammered them down from the rear My name is Jerusalem where Judah came back To build up my Temple once more To cut down the weeds and thorny brush That grows 'round my windows and doors Whole stones, whole stones, we'll build and pray To God as a wholehearted Jew God's love the hateful many did place In the hands of a God loving few We found in our temple a little oil jug Just enough for the lamps for one night That one little jug burned Eight whole days And it kept our new temple in light Eight candles we'll burn and a Ninth one too Every New Year that comes and goes We'll think of the many in the hands of the few And thank God we are seeds of the Jews