The Shabbat lunch zemer with the most singable refrain, which is why guests learn this one first. The structure is the same all the way through: a stanza of four short lines, then the same ten-word refrain. What makes it worth reading rather than only singing is where the stanzas come from — the first is the fourth commandment almost verbatim, the fourth is the blessing after meals, and the last is Psalm 19. Three quotations and no announcement that they are quotations.
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♪ TuningE A D G B E
Key: Am · 3 chords used ·Am · Dm · E
104 BPM · 4/4 · Shabbat lunch, and one of the easiest zemirot for a guest to join · five stanzas, each answered by the same two-line refrain · to reset the chord panel:
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This day is honoured above all days, for on it the Rock of worlds rested.
Ten words, and they return five times. צוּר (tzur) and עוֹלָמִים (o-la-mim) — the Rock of worlds — is the poem's name for God throughout, and it will not use another one.
This day is honoured above all days, for on it the Rock of worlds rested.
This is the fourth commandment with the words rearranged to fit the metre. תַּעֲשֶׂה (ta-a-se) and תַעֲשֶׂה (ta-a-se) are the same verb, once positive and once negative, and having them in consecutive lines is the whole shape of the commandment: do, and then do not.
This day is honoured above all days, for on it the Rock of worlds rested.
לְמִקְרָאֵי (le-mik-ra-ei) is the term Leviticus 23 uses for the festivals, and calling the Sabbath the first of them puts it at the head of the calendar rather than outside it. The stanza then names what is physically on the table: יְקַדֵּשׁ (ye-ka-desh) and לֶחֶם (le-chem), the cup and the two loaves.
This day is honoured above all days, for on it the Rock of worlds rested.
אֱכוֹל (e-chol) and שְׁתֵה (shte) are imperatives — eat, drink — and they are the plainest lines in the poem. This is a religious song instructing you to enjoy a large lunch, and it does not hedge.
This day is honoured above all days, for on it the Rock of worlds rested.
וְאָכַלְתָּ (ve-a-chal-ta), וְשָּׂבָעְתָּ (ve-sa-va-ta) and וּבֵרַכְתָּ (u-ve-rach-ta) are Deuteronomy 8:10 word for word — you shall eat, and be satisfied, and bless — the verse from which the obligation to say grace after meals is derived. The zemer quotes the source of the thing everyone is about to do.
This day is honoured above all days, for on it the Rock of worlds rested.
The opening of Psalm 19 and a line from the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32, joined in one stanza. הַצּוּר (ha-tzur) echoes צוּר (tzur) in the refrain, so the poem closes on the same word it has been repeating all along.
♫ Singing notes
The refrain is where the whole table comes in, and it is the same ten words every time. Learn it and you can sing this song at any lunch.
The verses are four short lines and the melody turns quickly. Do not stretch them waiting for people to catch up; they will catch the refrain.
Around 104 BPM, steady. This is a lunch song rather than a late-night one, and it does not accelerate.
Three chords, and Am opens and closes every line pair.
♦ About this song
Built out of quotations
The fourth commandment, Leviticus on the festivals, Deuteronomy 8 on the grace after meals, Psalm 19 and the Song of Moses. None is marked as a quotation and none is introduced. A listener who knows the sources hears the poem assembling the day out of verses; one who does not still hears a complete song.
The colophon that is not here
The Daat Siddur Ashkenaz text closes with a line attributing the poem to a twelfth-century author. It is unpointed, as editorial matter in these editions always is, and the scaffold removed it rather than printing it as a line to sing — it also welded that attribution onto the end of a sung line, which is why the rule now judges a line by the proportion of its words that are pointed.
Two spellings of the divine name
This edition writes the divine name in its abbreviated form at one point, which the transliterator has nothing to say about — it is a letter and an apostrophe. It is read here as it is read aloud, through the same readings table that handles the fully written form on the psalm pages.
Hebrew: Siddur Ashkenaz, Shabbat, Daytime Meal, Zemirot for Second Meal, Yom Zeh Mechubad · Daat Siddur Ashkenaz · Public Domain, via Sefaria, pinned in this repo at content/songs/source/014.json.
English gloss lines authored for this site; the source translation is used as raw material only. Transliteration generated by this site's own engine (assets/translit.js).