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Recent Articles
- Woven with Wonder: Syntax and Embodied Imagery in Job 10:11
- The Wink and the Wound: Syntax, Parallelism, and Irony in Proverbs 10:10
- The Grammar of Surprise: The Wayyiqtol Chain and Temporal Progression in Joshua 10:9
- The Birth of Power: The Grammar of Beginning and Becoming in Genesis 10:8
- Genealogical Syntax and the Grammar of Nations in Genesis 10:7
- Do Not Mourn as Others Do: Restraint and Reverence in the Aftermath of Fire
- The Blast and the Camp: Exploring Hebrew Commands and Movement in Numbers 10:5
- If You Refuse: The Threat of the Locusts in Translation
- Trumpet Blasts and Assembly Syntax in Numbers 10:3
- Right and Left: A Beginner’s Guide to Hebrew Word Order in Ecclesiastes 10:2
- A Call to Listen: A Beginner’s Guide to Hebrew Grammar in Jeremiah 10:1
- “Even If I Wash with Snow”: Job’s Cry of Purity and Futility in Hebrew
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Author Archives: Advanced Hebrew Grammar
Hebrew Numerals
Hebrew numeral system is divided in units, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc. Numbers are divided into cardinals and ordinals. The cardinals have masculine and feminine absolute and construct. The ordinal numbers have two genders, but no contruct state. The numbers have also pronominal suffixes e.g. שׁנינו׃ (us two) in Gen 31:37.
Genesis 31:37
כי־משׁשׁת את־כל־כלי מה־מצאת מכל כלי־ביתך שׂים כה נגד אחי ואחיך ויוכיחו בין שׁנינו׃
for you have felt all my vessels: what have you found of all the vessels of your house?… Learn Hebrew
Hebrew Tenses, Moods, Flexion
(1) While the Hebrew verb, owing to these derivative forms or conjugations, possesses a certain richness and copiousness, it is, on the other hand, poor in the matter of tenses and moods. The verb has only two tense-forms (Perfect and Imperfect), besides an Imperative (but only in the active), two Infinitives and a Participle. All relations of time, absolute and relative, are expressed either by these forms (hence a certain diversity in their meaning) or by syntactical combinations. Of moods properly so called (besides the Imperfect Indicative and Imperative), only the Jussive and Optativeare sometimes indicated by express modifications of the Imperfect-form.… Learn Hebrew
Forms and Names of Hebrew Consonants
1. The Hebrew letters now in use, in which both the manuscripts of the O.T. are written and our editions of the Bible are printed, commonly called the square character (כְּתָב מְרֻבָּע), also the Assyrian character (כְּ׳ אַשּׁוּרִי), are not those originally employed.
Old Hebrew (or Old Canaanitish) writing, as it was used on public monuments in the beginning of the ninth and in the second half of the eighth century b.c., is to be seen in the inscription of Mêšaʿ, as well as in that of Siloam.… Learn Hebrew
The Hebrew Vowels in General, Vowel Letters and Vowel Signs
1. The original vowels in Hebrew, as in the other Semitic tongues, are a, i, u. E and o always arise from an obscuring or contraction of these three pure sounds, viz. ĕ by modification from ĭ or ă; short ŏ from ŭ; ê by contraction from ai (properly ay); and ô sometimes by modification (obscuring) from â, sometimes by contraction from au (properly aw).[1]
In Arabic writing there are vowel signs only for a, i, u; the combined sounds ay and aw are therefore retained uncontracted and pronounced as diphthongs (ai and au), e.g.… Learn Hebrew
Grammatical Treatment of the Hebrew Language
1. At the time when the old Hebrew language was gradually becoming extinct, and the formation of the O.T. canon was approaching completion, the Jews began to explain and critically revise their sacred text, and sometimes to translate it into the vernacular languages which in various countries had become current among them. The oldest translation is the Greek of the Seventy (more correctly Seventy-two) Interpreters (LXX), which was begun with the Pentateuch at Alexandria under Ptolemy Philadelphus, but only completed later.… Learn Hebrew
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Changes Of Hebrew Consonants
The changes which take place among consonants, owing to the formation of words, inflexion, euphony, or to influences connected with the progress of the language, are commutation, assimilation, rejection, addition, transposition, softening.
1. Commutation may take place between consonants which are either homorganic or homogeneous, e.g. עָלַץ, עָלַס, עָלַו to exult, לָאָה, לָהָה, Aram. לְעָא to be weary, לָחַץ and נָחַץ to press, סָגַר and סָכַר to close, מָלַט and פָּלַט to escape. In process of time, and partly under the influence of Aramaic, the harder and rougher sounds especially were changed into the softer, e.g.… Learn Hebrew
Rāphè רָפֶה: The Sign of Softness in Hebrew Orthography
Rāphè (רָפֶה i.e. weak, soft), a horizontal stroke over the letter, is the opposite of both kinds of Dageš and Mappîq, but especially of Dageš lene. In exact manuscripts every בגדכפת letter has either Dageš lene or Rāphè, e.g. מֶלֶךְֿ mèlĕkh, תָּפַֿר, שָׁתָֿה. In modern editions (except Ginsburg’s 1st ed.) Rāphè is used only when the absence of a Dageš or Mappîq requires to be expressly pointed out.
Rāphè רָפֶה: The Sign of Softness in Hebrew Orthography
Rāphè (רָפֶה, meaning “weak” or “soft”) is a diacritical mark in Biblical Hebrew orthography.… Learn Hebrew
Mappîq
1. Mappîq, llke Dageš, also a point within the consonant, serves in the letters א ה ו י as a sign that they are to be regarded as full consonants and not as vowel letters. In most editions of the text it is only used in the consonantal ה at the end of words (since ה can never be a vowel letter in the middle of a word), e.g. גָּבַהּ gābháh (to be high), אַרְצָהּ ˒arṣāh (her land) which has a consonantal ending (shortened from -hā), different from אַ֫רְצָה ˒árṣā (to the earth) which has a vowel ending.… Learn Hebrew
Hebrew Phonology
Hebrew Vowels
The original Hebrew alphabet consisted only of consonants and vowel letters. The vowel signs and pronunciation (known as vowel pointings) currently accepted for Biblical Hebrew were created by scholars known as Masoretes after the 5th century AD and are known as Tiberian vocalization. The Masoretes are thought also to have standardized various dialectal differences.
However, it is questioned that Classical Hebrew’s vowel inventory was not identical to that notated by the Masoretes. For instance, /e/ and /ē/ were both indicated with a tzeire in the Masoretic text, but in Greek transcription (Septuagint, Origen, etc.)… Learn Hebrew
Qal (The Pure Stem)
The common form of the 3rd sing. masc. of the Perfect Qal is קָטַל, with ă (Pathaḥ) in the second syllable, especially in transitive verbs. There is also a form with ē (Ṣere, originally ĭ), and another with ō (Ḥolem, originally ŭ) in the second syllable, both of which, however, have almost always an intransitive meaning, and serve to express states and qualities, e.g. כָּבֵד to be heavy, קָטֹן to be small.
Rem. 1. The vowel of the second syllable is the principal vowel, and hence on it depends the distinction between the transitive and intransitive meaning.… Learn Hebrew