An alphabet in eight lines. Each line names God with three adjectives in alphabetical order, then the same refrain returns: may He build His house soon. Twenty-two adjectives, one after another, and no argument connecting them — the poem is a list, and the pleasure of it is the list. Sung near the end of the seder, when the reading is done and the table wants something it can shout.
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♪ TuningE A D G B E
Key: C · 3 chords used ·C · F · G
104 BPM · 4/4 · sung near the end of the seder, when the table is loud and nobody is reading carefully · an alphabetical list with the same refrain after every group of three · to reset the chord panel:
Active voicings · printable
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May He build His house soon; speedily, speedily, in our days, soon.
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בֵיתְךָ
veit-CHA
Your house
בְּקָרוֹב
be-ka-ROV
soon
|CG|C|
God, build; God, build; build Your house soon.
The refrain is the whole song and this is its first outing. בְּנֵה (bne) is an imperative — build! — repeated three times in six words, and the repetition is not padding: the refrain has to be long enough for a table of thirty people to join in halfway through and still arrive together.
May He build His house soon; speedily, speedily, in our days, soon.
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בֵיתְךָ
veit-CHA
Your house
בְּקָרוֹב
be-ka-ROV
soon
|CG|C|
God, build; God, build; build Your house soon.
Three adjectives on the second, third and fourth letters of the alphabet, and from here the pattern never varies. If you can hear the alphabet you can predict every remaining line of the song, which is exactly what the form is for.
May He build His house soon; speedily, speedily, in our days, soon.
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בֵיתְךָ
veit-CHA
Your house
בְּקָרוֹב
be-ka-ROV
soon
|CG|C|
God, build; God, build; build Your house soon.
וָתִיק (va-tik) is the word an Israeli uses today for a long-standing member of something — a veteran, an old hand. Here it is an attribute of God, and the modern sense grew straight out of this one.
May He build His house soon; speedily, speedily, in our days, soon.
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בֵיתְךָ
veit-CHA
Your house
בְּקָרוֹב
be-ka-ROV
soon
|CG|C|
God, build; God, build; build Your house soon.
חָסִיד (cha-sid) is the root behind chesed, the word for covenant loyalty that runs through the psalms, and יָחִיד (ya-chid) is the same word as in the declaration of God's oneness recited twice a day. Two of the heaviest words in the liturgy, passing by in a list at speed.
May He build His house soon; speedily, speedily, in our days, soon.
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בֵיתְךָ
veit-CHA
Your house
בְּקָרוֹב
be-ka-ROV
soon
|CG|C|
God, build; God, build; build Your house soon.
מֶלֶךְ (me-lech) is the only noun in twenty-two attributes. Every other item is an adjective; this one is a title, and it sits in the middle of the alphabet without any signal that it is different.
May He build His house soon; speedily, speedily, in our days, soon.
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בֵיתְךָ
veit-CHA
Your house
בְּקָרוֹב
be-ka-ROV
soon
|CG|C|
God, build; God, build; build Your house soon.
The alphabet skips nothing but it does not always land on the letter you expect: several of these words begin with a letter that carries a prefix in ordinary speech, and the acrostic counts the letter as written, not as pronounced.
May He build His house soon; speedily, speedily, in our days, soon.
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בֵיתְךָ
veit-CHA
Your house
בְּקָרוֹב
be-ka-ROV
soon
|CG|C|
God, build; God, build; build Your house soon.
פּוֹדֶה (po-de) is a participle where the neighbours are adjectives: not "He is redemptive" but "He is one who redeems". On the night the seder is about, that is the one attribute doing active work.
May He build His house soon; speedily, speedily, in our days, soon.
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
אֵל
el
God
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בְּנֵה
bne
build!
בֵיתְךָ
veit-CHA
Your house
בְּקָרוֹב
be-ka-ROV
soon
|CG|C|
God, build; God, build; build Your house soon.
The alphabet closes on תַּקִּיף (ta-kif), and the last refrain is usually the loudest and the fastest of the eight. The song has no ending of its own — it simply runs out of letters.
♫ Singing notes
It gets faster. Each refrain is a little quicker than the last, and by the eighth the table is racing. Do not fight it.
The refrain is what everyone knows; the three adjectives are what one or two people at the table know. Let them lead the line and bring the room in on יִבְנֶה (yiv-ne).
Three chords, C F G, and they do not change for eight verses. This is a good first song to accompany for someone who has been playing a week.
In many communities each line is sung twice before the refrain. Ask, or listen for one bar before committing.
♦ About this song
The form
An alphabetical acrostic on the divine attributes, sung in the Nirtzah section at the very end of the seder, alongside Echad Mi Yodea and Chad Gadya. All three are late medieval additions and all three are counting songs of one kind or another.
Why a list and not an argument
The poem makes no claim that requires assent; it names, twenty-two times, and asks for one thing between each naming. That structure is deliberately easy to join, which is what it is for at the point of the evening where it sits.
The house
בֵיתוֹ (vei-to) is the Temple, and the refrain is a petition for its rebuilding. Coming at the end of a night spent recounting a redemption that already happened, it turns the whole seder toward one that has not.
Hebrew: Haggadah, Nirtzah, Adir Hu · Pesach Haggadah · Public Domain, via Sefaria, pinned in this repo at content/songs/source/024.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).