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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

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HEBREW LANGUAGE

Language of the Jewish people. The name Hebrew is not applied by the OT to its own language, although the NT does use the name that way. In the OT, “Hebrew” means the individual or people who used the language. The language itself is called “the language of Canaan” (Is 19:18, NLT mg) or “the language of Judah” (Neh 13:24).

Preview

• Origin and History

• Family of Languages

• Character

• Hebrew Script and Grammar

• Style

• Legacy

Origin and History

In the Middle Ages a common view was that Hebrew was the primitive language of humankind. Even in colonial America, Hebrew was still referred to as “the mother of all languages.” Linguistic scholarship has now made this theory untenable.

Hebrew is actually one of several Canaanite dialects that included Phoenician, Ugaritic, and Moabite. Other Canaanite dialects (for example, Ammonite) existed but have left insufficient inscriptions for scholarly investigation. Such dialects were already present in the land of Canaan before its conquest by the Israelites.

Until about 1974, the oldest witnesses to Canaanite language were found in the Ugarit and Amarna records dating from the 14th and 15th centuries BC. A few Canaanite words and expressions appeared in earlier Egyptian records, but the origin of Canaanite has been uncertain. Between 1974 and 1976, however, nearly 17,000 tablets were dug up at Tell Mardikh (ancient Ebla) in northern Syria, written in a previously unknown Semitic dialect. Because they possibly date back to 2400 BC (perhaps even earlier), many scholars think that language may be the “Old Canaanite” that gave rise to Hebrew. By 1977, when another 1,000 tablets were unearthed, only about 100 inscriptions from Ebla had been reported on. Languages change over a long period of time. For example, the English used in the time of Alfred the Great (ninth century AD) seems almost like a foreign language to contemporary English speakers. Although Hebrew was no exception to the general principle, like other Semitic languages it remained remarkably stable over many centuries. Poems such as the Song of Deborah (Jgs 5) tended to preserve the language’s oldest form. Changes that took place later in the long history of the language are shown in the presence of archaic words (often preserved in poetic language) and a general difference in style. For example, the book of Job reflects a more archaic style than the book of Esther.

Various Hebrew dialects apparently existed side by side in OT times, as reflected in the episode involving the pronunciation of the Hebrew word “shibboleth/sibboleth” (Jgs 12:4-6). It seems that the Israelites east of the Jordan pronounced the initial letter with a strong “sh” sound, while those in Canaan gave it the simple “s” sound. Scholars have also identified features of Hebrew that could be described as reflecting the northern or southern parts of the country.

Family of Languages

Hebrew belongs to the Semitic family of languages; these languages were used from the Mediterranean Sea to the mountains east of the Euphrates River valley, and from Armenia (Turkey) in the north to the southern extremity of the Arabian peninsula. Semitic languages are classified as Southern (Arabic and Ethiopic), Eastern (Akkadian), and Northwestern (Aramaic, Syriac, and Canaanite—Hebrew, Phoenician, Ugaritic, and Moabite).

Character

Hebrew, like the other early Semitic languages, concentrates on observation more than reflection. That is, things are generally observed according to their appearance as phenomena, not analyzed as to their inward being or essence. Effects are observed but not traced through a series of causes.

Hebrew’s vividness, conciseness, and simplicity make the language difficult to translate fully. It is amazingly concise and direct. For example, Psalm 23 contains 55 words; most translations require about twice that many to translate it. The first two lines, with slashes separating the individual Hebrew words in the original, read:

The Lord/[is] my shepherd/

I shall want/not

Thus eight English words are required to translate four Hebrew words.

Hebrew does not use separate, distinct expressions for every shade of thought. Someone has said, “The Semites have been the quarries whose great rough blocks the Greeks have trimmed, polished, and fitted together. The former gave religion; the latter philosophy.”

Hebrew is a pictorial language in which the past is not merely described but verbally painted. Not just a landscape is presented but a moving panorama. The course of events is reenacted in the mind’s sight. (Note the frequent use of “behold,” a Hebraism carried over to the NT.) Such common Hebraic expressions as “he arose and went,” “he opened his lips and spoke,” “he lifted up his eyes and saw,” and “he lifted up his voice and wept” illustrate the pictorial strength of the language.

Many profound theological expressions of the OT are tightly bound up with Hebrew language and grammar. Even the most sacred name of God himself, “the Lord” (Yahweh), is directly related to the Hebrew verb “to be” (or perhaps “to cause to be”). Many other names of persons and places in the OT can best be understood only with a working knowledge of Hebrew.

Hebrew Script and Grammar

Alphabet and Script

The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 consonants; signs for vowels were devised and added late in the language’s history. The origin of the alphabet is unknown. The oldest examples of a Canaanite alphabet were preserved in the Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet of the 14th century BC.

The old style of writing the letters is called the Phoenician or paleo-Hebrew script. It is the predecessor of the Greek and other Western alphabets. The script used in modern Hebrew Bibles (Aramaic or square script) came into vogue after Israel’s exile into Babylon (sixth century BC). The older style was still used sporadically in the early Christian era on coins and for writing God’s name (as in the Dead Sea Scrolls). Hebrew has always been written right to left.

Consonants

The Canaanite alphabet of the Phoenician and Moabite languages had 22 consonants. The older Canaanite language reflected in Ugaritic had more consonants. Arabic also preserves some Old Canaanite consonants found in Ugaritic but missing in Hebrew.

Vowels

In the original consonantal Hebrew script, vowels were simply understood by the writer or reader. On the basis of tradition and context, the reader would supply whatever vowels were needed, much as is done in English abbreviations (“bldg.” for “building”; “blvd.” for “boulevard”). After the collapse of the nation in AD 70, the dispersion of the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem led to Hebrew’s becoming a “dead language,” no longer widely spoken. Loss of traditional pronunciation and understanding then became more of a possibility, so Jewish scribes felt a need for permanently establishing the vowel sounds.

First, vowel letters called “mothers of reading” (matres lectionis) were added. These were consonants used especially to indicate long vowels. These were added before the Christian era, as the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal.

Later (about the fifth century AD), the scribes called Masoretes added vowel signs to indicate short vowels. At least three different systems of vowel signs were employed at different times and places. The text used today represents the system devised by Masoretic scribes who worked in the city of Tiberias. The vowels, each of which may be long or short, are indicated by dots or dashes placed above or below the consonants. Certain combinations of dots and dashes represent very short vowel sounds, or “half-vowels.”

Linkage

Hebrew joins together many words that in Western languages would be written separately. Some prepositions (be-, “in”; le-, “to”; ke-, “like”) are prefixed directly to the noun or verb that they introduce, as are the definite article ha-, “the” and the conjunction wa-, “and.” Suffixes are used for pronouns, either in the possessive or accusative relationship. The same word may simultaneously have both a prefix and a suffix.

Nouns

Hebrew has no neuter gender; everything is masculine or feminine. Inanimate objects may be either masculine or feminine, depending on the formation or character of the word. Usually, abstract ideas or words indicating a group are feminine. Nouns are derived from roots and are formed in various ways, either by vowel modification or by adding prefixes or suffixes to the root. Contrary to Greek and many Western languages, compound nouns are not characteristic of Hebrew.

The Hebrew plural is formed by adding -im for masculine nouns (seraphim, cherubim) and -oth for feminine nouns.

Three original case endings indicating nominative, genitive, and accusative have dropped away during the evolution of Hebrew. To compensate for the lack of case endings, Hebrew resorts to various indicators. Indirect objects are indicated by the preposition le-, “to”; direct objects by the objective sign ’eth; the genitive relationship by putting the word before the genitive in the “construct state,” or shortened form.

Adjectives

Hebrew is deficient in adjectives. “A double heart” is indicated in the original Hebrew by “a heart and a heart” (Ps 12:2), and “two differing weights” is actually “a stone and a stone” (Dt 25:13); “the whole royal family” is “the seed of the kingdom” (2 Kgs 11:1).

Adjectives that do exist in Hebrew have no comparative or superlative forms. Relationship is indicated by the preposition “from.” “Better than you” is expressed literally in Hebrew “good from you.” “The serpent was more subtle than any other beast” is literally “the serpent was subtle from every beast” (Gn 3:1). The superlative is expressed by several different constructions. The idea “very deep” is literally “deep, deep” (Eccl 7:24); the “best song” is literally “song of songs” (compare “king of kings”); “holiest” is literally “holy, holy, holy” (Is 6:3).

Verbs

Hebrew verbs are formed from a root usually consisting of three letters. From such roots, verbal forms are developed by a change of vowels or by adding prefixes or suffixes. The root consonants provide the semantic backbone of the language and give a stability of meaning not characteristic of Western languages. The vowels are quite flexible, giving Hebrew considerable elasticity.

Hebrew verb usage is not characterized by precise definition of tenses. Hebrew tenses, especially in poetry, are largely determined by context. The two tense formations are the perfect (completed action) and imperfect (incomplete action). The imperfect is ambiguous. It represents the indicative mood (present, past, future) but may also represent such moods as the imperative, optative, and jussive or cohortative. A distinctive usage of the perfect tense is the “prophetic perfect,” where the perfect form represents a future event considered so sure that it is expressed as past (e.g., see Is 5:13, KJB).

Style

Vocabulary

Most Hebrew roots originally expressed some physical action or denoted some natural object. The verb “to decide” originally meant “to cut”; “to be true” originally meant “to be firmly fixed”; “to be right” meant “to be straight”; “to be honorable” meant “to be heavy.”

Abstract terms are alien to the character of Hebrew; for example, biblical Hebrew has no specific words for “theology,” “philosophy,” or “religion.” Intellectual or theological concepts are expressed by concrete terms. The abstract idea of sin is represented by such words as “to miss the mark” or “crooked” or “rebellion” or “trespass” (“to cross over”). Mind or intellect is expressed by “heart” or “kidneys,” and emotion or compassion by “bowels” (see Is 63:15, KJB). Other concrete terms in Hebrew are “horn” for strength or vigor, “bones” for self, and “seed” for descendants. A mental quality is often depicted by the part of the body thought of as its most appropriate embodiment. Strength can be represented by “arm” or “hand,” anger by “nostril,” displeasure by “falling face,” acceptance by “shining face,” thinking by “say.”

Some translators have attempted to represent a Hebrew word always by the same English word, but that leads to serious problems. Sometimes there is considerable disagreement on the exact shade of meaning of a Hebrew word in a given passage. A single root frequently represents a variety of meanings, depending on usage and context. The word for “bless” can also mean “curse, greet, favor, praise.” The word for “judgment” is used also for “justice, verdict, penalty, ordinance, duty, custom, manner.” The word for “strength” or “power” also means “army, virtue, worth, courage.”

Further ambiguity arises from the fact that some Hebrew consonants stand for two different original consonants that have merged in the evolution of the language. Two words that on the surface appear to be identical may be traced back to two different roots. For an example of this phenomenon in English, compare “bass” (a fish) with “bass” (a vocalist).

Syntax

Hebrew syntax is relatively uncomplicated. Few subordinating conjunctions (“if,” “when,” “because,” etc.) are used; sentences are usually coordinated by using the simple conjunction “and.” English translations of biblical texts generally try to show the logical connection between successive sentences, even though it is not always clear. In Genesis 1:2–3:1 OET GEN 1:2–31 · OET GEN 2:1–25 · OET GEN 3:1, all but three of the 56 verses begin with “and,” yet the NLT translates that conjunction variously as “then” (1:3), “so” (v 27), “so” (2:1), and “instead” (v 6).

Hebrew style is enlivened by use of direct discourse. The narrator does not simply state that “such and such a person said that . . .” (indirect discourse). Instead, the parties speak for themselves (direct discourse), creating a freshness that remains even after repeated reading.

Poetry

Hebrew poetry uses a variety of rhetorical devices. Some of them—such as assonance, alliteration, and acrostics—can be appreciated only in the original Hebrew. But parallelism, the most important characteristic of Hebrew poetry, is evident even in English translation. Among the many forms of parallelism possible, four common categories exist: (1) synonymous, a repeating style in which parallel lines say the same thing in different words; (2) antithetic, a contrasting style in which contrary thoughts are expressed; (3) completive, with a completing parallel line filling out the thought of the first; (4) climactic, in which an ascending parallel line picks up something from the first line and repeats it. Numerous other forms of parallelism enrich Hebrew poetry. The possible varations of parallelism are almost endless.

Figures of Speech

Hebrew abounds in expressive figures of speech based on the Hebrew people’s character and way of life. Certain odd but well-known expressions found in English literature come from the Hebrew style, like “apple of his eye” (Dt 32:10; Ps 17:8; Prv 7:2; Zec 2:8) and “skin of my teeth” (Job 19:20). Some of the more striking Hebrew modes of expression are hard to transfer into English, such as “to uncover the ear,” meaning “to disclose, reveal.” Others are more familiar, like “to stiffen the neck” for “to be stubborn, rebellious”; “to bend or incline the ear” for “to listen closely.”

Legacy

English and a number of other modern languages have been enriched by Hebrew. English even contains a number of Hebrew “loan words.” Some of these have had wide influence (“amen,” “hallelujah,” “jubilee”). Many Hebrew proper nouns are used in modern languages for persons and places, such as David, Jonathan/John, Miriam/Mary, Bethlehem (the name of several towns and cities in the United States).

Many common Hebrew expressions have been unconsciously accepted into English figures of speech, as in “mouth of the cave” and “face of the earth.” Some figures, such as “east of Eden,” have been used as titles for books and films.