If Simeon bar Isaac based his claim on the Rabbinic ‘measure for measure’ principle, the Spanish-Jewish poet, Judah Halevi (before 1075-rr41), proceeds from an even more daring assumption. According to him, God appears to be in Israel's debt!

Poem no. 5 is, on the face of it, a prayer of praise and thanksgiving for the deliverance at the Sea of Reeds. But the memory of the past redemption feeds the hope for the redemption yet to come. We may note in passing that, in the Ashkenazi rite, poems no. 4 and no. 5, respectively by Simeon bar Isaac and Judah Halevi, occupy the identical place in the liturgy. Both of them are inserted into the benediction commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, which follows the Shema’ of the morning serviceSimeon's on the Sabbath during Passover week, and Judah Halevi's on the seventh day of Passover, the day which recalls Israel's passing through the Sea of Reeds.

Adopting the metaphor introduced by such Prophets as Hosea and Jeremiah, and taken for granted in the Rabbinic interpretation of the Song of Songs, Judah Halevi sees the relationship between God and Israel as that of a marriage-with the Exodus-Sinai sequence marking the betrothal. But the marriage has come to grief, and the poet prays that God may ‘marry her as once before, not to divorce her as of yore.'

That much, by way of commonly accepted exegesis, Judah Halevi could take for granted. Yet, when the poet wants God to redeem Israel, not because of His great mercy, but because Israel is entitled to that redemption, then Halevi goes beyond the conventional attitude. The latter may be summarized in an old prayer which, at first, was intended for the Day of Atonement, but which, later, was placed at the beginning of the daily liturgy. ‘Master of all the worlds! Not because of our righteousness do we lay our supplications before You, but because of Your abundant mercies. For what are we? What is our life? What is our piety? What is our righteousness?’ Contrary to the mood expressed in that prayer, Judah Halevi asks for redemption as a reward for Israel's faithfulness in keeping the commandments.