The most cheerful of the lunch zemirot, and the shortest to learn: the refrain is three words, it opens and closes every stanza, and it is a direct quotation of Exodus 16 — Moses telling the people in the wilderness that today is a Sabbath, so do not go out looking for manna. The song takes that instruction and turns it into a menu. Half of it is about what to eat, which for a poem quoting the wilderness is a decent joke.
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Key: C · 3 chords used ·C · F · G
112 BPM · 4/4 · one of the cheerful ones, sung at lunch · five stanzas, each opened and closed by the same three-word line · to reset the chord panel:
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The three-word line is Exodus 16:25, where Moses tells the people not to go out and gather. It opens and closes every stanza, so a table hears it ten times in five minutes, which is why it is the one line everyone leaves knowing.
זֶה (ze) through יְהֹוָה (a-do-nay) is Psalm 118:24, the verse sung at every festival — this is the day the LORD has made. The stanza lists what you refrain from and then names the reason as a quotation, which is the poem's method throughout.
עֹנֶג (o-neg) is the word Isaiah 58 uses — call the Sabbath a delight — and תִּתְעַנַּג (tit-a-nag) is the reward promised in the next clause of the same chapter. The stanza is one biblical sentence split across two lines with the poem's own words in between.
A list of food with a verse at the end of it. וְאָכַלְתָּ (ve-a-chal-ta), וְשָׂבָעְתָּ (ve-sa-va-ta) and וּבֵרַכְתָּ (u-ve-rach-ta) are Deuteronomy 8:10 — the source of the obligation to say grace after eating — arriving directly after the pomegranates, with no transition at all.
שָׁלשׁ (sha-losh) and סְעוּדוֹת (se-u-dot) name the three meals of the day, which is the practice this whole set of zemirot is sung across. The poem ends with three imperatives and the word בָנַי (va-nai), my children — the only place the poet speaks in his own voice.
♫ Singing notes
The three-word line is the whole song for a beginner. It opens and closes every stanza, so you sing it ten times and everyone else fills in between.
Major key, and it should sound like it. C F G, brisk, and the mood is not solemn.
The lines are very short — one to four words — so the melody moves quickly. It suits clapping better than the minor-key zemirot.
Around 112 BPM. This is the one to start with if the table has been quiet.
♦ About this song
The refrain is a quotation
Exodus 16:25, Moses on the morning the manna did not fall: eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD, you will not find it in the field. The poem lifts the last clause and repeats it ten times.
Isaiah 58 underneath
Call the Sabbath a delight, and then you shall take delight in the LORD. That verse supplies the third stanza almost entirely, and it is the source of the word for delight that runs through the whole Sabbath liturgy.
Text and edition
The Hebrew here is the Metsudah edition, CC-BY, via Sefaria and pinned in this repository. This slot originally held Ki Eshmera Shabbat by Abraham ibn Ezra, which was dropped because Sefaria carries it only unpointed — a song with no vowel points is unusable on a site that teaches reading, and the scaffold now refuses such an edition rather than shipping bare consonants.
Hebrew: Shabbat Siddur Sefard Linear, Songs for Shabbos Morning, Shabbos Hayom · The Metsudah Siddur, Metsudah Publications, 1981 - HE · CC-BY, via Sefaria, pinned in this repo at content/songs/source/016.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).