The single most-sung wedding verse in Hebrew, and the reason it works is the sentence it is lifted out of. Jeremiah is describing a ruin: a place with no people and no animals, empty streets, a city everyone has written off. Then the same sentence keeps going and says that in that exact place there will be heard the voice of joy, the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. The wedding song is the back half of a sentence about a wasteland, and singing it without knowing that loses most of it.
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♪ TuningE A D G B E
Key: Am · 3 chords used ·Am · Dm · E
118 BPM · 4/4 · the wedding tempo, fast enough to dance to · the sung part is the five short phrases of the second verse, each one two bars · to reset the chord panel:
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Thus says the LORD: yet again shall be heard in this place
אֲשֶׁר
A-sher
of which
אַתֶּם
A-tem
you (2mp)
אֹמְרִים
om-RIM
say
חָרֵב
cha-REV
a ruin
הוּא
hu
it
מֵאֵין
me-EIN
with no
אָדָם
a-DAM
man
וּמֵאֵין
u-me-EIN
and with no
בְּהֵמָה
be-he-MA
beast
|Am|E|
of which you say: it is a ruin, with no man and no beast,
בְּעָרֵי
be-a-REI
in the cities of
יְהוּדָה
ye-hu-DA
Judah
וּבְחֻצוֹת
uv-chu-TZOT
and in the streets of
יְרוּשָׁלִַם
ye-ru-sha-LA-yim
Jerusalem
הַנְשַׁמּוֹת
han-sha-MOT
the desolate ones
מֵאֵין
me-EIN
with no
אָדָם
a-DAM
man
וּמֵאֵין
u-me-EIN
and with no
יוֹשֵׁב
yo-SHEV
inhabitant
וּמֵאֵין
u-me-EIN
and with no
בְּהֵמָה
be-he-MA
beast
|Dm|Am|
in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, with no man and no inhabitant and no beast:
This stanza is never sung and it is the reason the next one means anything. Note מֵאֵין (me-ein), וּמֵאֵין (u-me-ein), מֵאֵין (me-ein), וּמֵאֵין (u-me-ein) and וּמֵאֵין (u-me-ein): the same word for "with none of" five times in two verses. Hebrew is not short of ways to say empty; it chose to say the same thing five times, which is what emptiness sounds like.
the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride,
קוֹל
kol
the voice of
אֹמְרִים
om-RIM
those who say
הוֹדוּ
ho-DU
give thanks! (2mp)
אֶת
et
to
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
צְבָאוֹת
tze-va-OT
of hosts
כִּי
ki
for
טוֹב
tov
good
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
כִּי
ki
for
לְעוֹלָם
le-o-LAM
for ever
חַסְדּוֹ
chas-DO
His mercy
|Dm|AmE|
the voice of those who say: give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for His mercy endures for ever,
מְבִאִים
me-vi-IM
bringing
תּוֹדָה
to-DA
a thank-offering
בֵּית
beit
the house of
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
כִּי
ki
for
|Am|Dm|
as they bring thanksgiving to the house of the LORD.
אָשִׁיב
a-SHIV
I will restore
אֶת
et
the
שְׁבוּת
shvut
captivity of
הָאָרֶץ
ha-A-retz
the land
כְּבָרִאשֹׁנָה
ke-va-ri-sho-NA
as at the first
אָמַר
a-MAR
said
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
|E|Am|
For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at the first, says the LORD.
The wedding song is the first stich alone: five occurrences of קוֹל (kol) and its paired form וְקוֹל (ve-kol), four of them naming a sound that was absent from the ruin. The pairing of חָתָן (cha-tan) and כַּלָּה (ka-la) is the line everyone knows, and it is the fourth item in a list, not the subject of the verse. What is being promised is noise in an empty street.
♫ Singing notes
The sung portion is the first stich of the second stanza, repeated until the dancing stops. Everything else on this page is context.
It is a dance tune. Once the circle is moving, the tempo goes where the circle takes it and the guitar follows.
Two phrases, then two phrases: שָׂשׂוֹן (sa-son) and שִׂמְחָה (sim-cha) answer each other, then חָתָן (cha-tan) and כַּלָּה (ka-la) do. Sing it as four short arcs, not one long line.
There are many melodies for this verse and they are all in current use. Ask which one before you start playing, or start singing and let the room correct you.
♦ About this song
The text
Jeremiah 33:10-11. Jeremiah 33 is written from a siege — the prophet is under guard and the city is about to fall — and the chapter is a series of promises made at the worst possible moment. This is one of them.
The quotation inside the quotation
From הוֹדוּ (ho-du) to חַסְדּוֹ (chas-do) the verse quotes the Temple thanksgiving formula, which appears word for word in several psalms. Jeremiah is not composing that line; he is predicting that people will be heard saying it again. The wedding song therefore contains a psalm inside a prophecy inside a wedding.
Why weddings
The bridegroom and the bride appear in this verse as a measure of whether a place is alive. A wedding is the moment the community can point at the verse and say it has come true, which is why it is sung at that moment and not, for instance, at a memorial.
Hebrew: Jeremiah 33:10-11 · Miqra according to the Masorah · CC-BY-SA, via Sefaria, pinned in this repo at content/songs/source/028.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).