Biblical Hebrew

Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is the archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions were written.

It is not spoken in its pure form today, although it is often studied by Jews, Christian theologians, linguists, and Israeli archaeologists to help them gain a deeper understanding of the Hebrew Bible and Semitic philology. Classical Hebrew is also generally taught in public schools in Israel.

Biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew differ with respect to grammar, vocabulary, and phonology. Although Modern and Biblical Hebrew's grammatical rules often differ, Biblical Hebrew is sometimes used in Modern Hebrew literature, much as archaic and Biblical constructions are used in Modern English literature.

Note, the term 'Biblical Hebrew' can sometimes refer to a different dialect, a Medieval Hebrew dialect that the Masoretes used when adding vowel-points (nikkudot) to the biblical text, to preserve traditional chanting. This Medieval dialect is also known as 'Masoretic Hebrew' or 'Tiberian Hebrew', after Tverya their town of residence in northern Israel. See Tiberian vocalization and Medieval Hebrew.

Contents 1 Definition 2 Descendant languages 3 Phonology 3.1 Consonants 3.2 Vowels 4 Grammar 5 Historical sound changes 5.1 Consonantism 5.2 Vocalism 6 See also 7 Resources 8 Notes 9 External links

[edit] Definition

This article describes the Biblical dialects of Hebrew. These flourished between the 12th and 6th centuries BC and comprise all of the Hebrew Bible with the exception of several Aramaic sections and isolated loanwords.

Hebrew (עִבְרִית ‛iḇrīṯ, modern pronunciation ivrit) comes from the Hebrew for "to pass over" (root עבר, e.g. לְעַבָר lə‘ăvār "to pass over", עֵבֶר ‛ēvẹr "yonder (side)"). This is most likely a reference to the Hebrews being the ones who "passed over" the Jordan River.

The precise meaning of the term Biblical Hebrew varies with context and may refer to any of the following:

• all Hebrew dialects found in the Hebrew Bible, including the proposed diachronic Archaic Biblical, Biblical, and Late Biblical Hebrew dialects or the proposed synchronic Judahite (southern) and Israelian (northern) Hebrew dialects
• the Hebrew of only the corpus of the Hebrew Bible itself, not including other texts - such as inscriptions - that use related Hebrew dialects
• Tiberian Hebrew, also called Masoretic Hebrew, which is an early-medieval vocalization of the Hebrew Bible's ancient consonantal text

From a linguistic point of view, the Classical Hebrew language is usually divided into two periods: Biblical Hebrew, and Roman Era Hebrew, having very distinct grammatical patterns.

Biblical Hebrew is further divided into the so called 'Golden Age' Hebrew (before 500 BCE) and 'Silver Age' Hebrew (500 BCE to 60 BCE). Silver Age Hebrew has many borrowings from Aramaic, for example the use of the conditional particle ˈilluː (אִלּוּ) replacing luː (לוּ). Another shibboleth between the two is the use of the relative pronoun {əsher} (אֲשֶר) (introducing a Restrictive clause, 'that') in the earlier period, being replaced with the clitic ʃe- (-שֶ) in the later, both being used in Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew.

Roman Era Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew, was further influenced by Greek and Persian, mainly through the dialect of Aramaic which was the Lingua franca of the area at the time.

Modern adaptions of Classical Hebrew are in active use today, mostly in the form of various modern Jewish dialects of Hebrew, as well as Samaritan Hebrew language, which is used primarily by the Samaritans.

As Biblical-Hebrew vocalization is derived from the Masoretic system applied to ancient texts, Biblical Hebrew is somewhat a mixture of these elements. It is the mixed language that is discussed in this article.

Most words in Biblical Hebrew are derived from a three "letter" root ("letter" here refers to the consonantal portion of basic words-a better way of looking at the Hebrew word is as a construction of three syllables, each beginning with a consonant and where certain syllables may have "null" vowels) usually a verb form given in the Qal perfect 3rd masculine singular form. There are exceptions to this rule though most of these are loan words from non-Semitic roots. For most English speaking readers who use the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon it is this three letter root word that must be looked up to find a definition.

The standard Hebrew Text for scholarly study is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, edited by Rudolf Kittel.

[edit] Descendant languages

• Samaritan Hebrew language (liturgical)
• Mishnaic Hebrew language (Jews)
• Tiberian Hebrew language (liturgical)
• Yemenite Hebrew language (liturgical)
• Sephardi Hebrew language (liturgical)
• Ashkenazi Hebrew language (liturgical)
• Modern Hebrew (State of Israel)

[edit] Phonology

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

The phonology as reconstructed for Biblical Hebrew is as follows:

[edit] Consonants

Name	Letter	Phoneme and Allophone (IPA)
’ālep ('ox')	א	[ʔ]
bēṯ ('house')	ב	[b] ~ [v] allophonically1
gîmel ('camel')	ג	[ɡ] ~ [ɣ] allophonically1
dāleṯ ('door')	ד	[d] ~ [ð] allophonically1
hē ('open window')	ה	[h], null at the end of words.2
wāw ('nail')	ו	[w], null after /o/ or /u/ 2
zayin ('weapon')	ז	[z]
ḥēṯ ('fence')	ח	[ħ], ([χ]3)
ṭēṯ ('snake')	ט	[tˤ]
yōḏ ('hand')	י	[j], null after /ɛ/, /e/, or /i/2
kap' ('palm of hand')	כ, ך	[k] ~ [x] allophonically1
lāmeḏ ('cattle goad')	ל	[l]
mēm ('water')	מ, ם	[m]
nûn ('fish')	נ, ן	[n]
sāmeḵ ('prop')	ס	[s]
ʿayin ('eye')	ע	[ʕ], ([ɣ]3)
pē ('mouth')	פ, ף	[p] ~ [f] allophonically1
ṣāḏē ('fish hook')	צ, ץ	[sˤ]
qōp ('back of head')	ק	[kˤ] (or [q])
rēš ('head')	ר	[r] (trilled like in Arabic)
śîn/šîn ('teeth')	ש	[ɬ], [ʃ]
tāw ('cross')	ת	[t] ~ [θ] allophonically1

1. Begedkefet spirantization developed sometime during the lifetime of Biblical Hebrew under the influence of Aramaic.^[1] Its terminus post quem can be found by noting that the Old Aramaic phonemes /θ, ð/ disappeared in the 7th century BC.^[2] Its terminus ante quem in Hebrew is the 2nd century CE.^[3] It is unclear whether they should be considered allophones or separate phonemes, since after a certain development of schwa minimal pairs became theoretically possible (if almost unattested).^[4]
2. mater lectionis
3. These merged with /ħ, ʕ/ respectively at some stage, but from Greek transcriptions it is clear that they were distinguished at some point in the life of Classical Hebrew (e.g. Gaza vs. Ezra). It is unlikely that this merger occurred after begedkefet spirantization, or else /x, χ/ and /ɣ, ʁ/ would have to be contrastive, which is cross-linguistically rare.

[edit] Vowels

The original Hebrew alphabet consisted only of consonants and vowel letters (see Semitic languages). 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. These scholars are thought also to have standardized various dialectal differences.^[5]

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 (LXX, Origen, etc.) are written with epsilon and eta respectively. There are indications of possible support by etymological and internal^{[clarification needed]} data.^[6]

[edit] Grammar

Biblical Hebrew grammar is largely identical to Modern Hebrew. The language has a typical Semitic morphology characterized by consonantal, usually triliteral roots and a system of verb stem derivations expressing meanings such as causativity, intensity, reflexivity and passive voice; it has no grammatical case and no broken plurals; and it has morphological expression of definiteness. Nonetheless, Biblical Hebrew grammar differs from Modern Hebrew in a few respects: whereas most Biblical Hebrew constructions are also permissible in Modern Hebrew at least in formal, literary, archaic or poetic style, the opposite is not always the case. Some examples of differences are:

• In Biblical Hebrew, possession is normally expressed with status constructus, a construction in which the possessed noun occurs in a phonologically reduced, "construct" form and is followed by the possessor noun in its normal, "absolute" form. Modern Hebrew tends to reserve this construction for phrases where the two components form a unified concept, whereas ordinary possession is more commonly expressed analytically with the preposition shel 'of' (etymologically consisting of the relativizer she- 'that' and the preposition le- 'to').^[7][8]
• Possession in pronouns is expressed with pronominal suffixes added to the noun. Modern Hebrew tends to reserve this for a limited number of nouns, but usually prefers to use the preposition shel, as in the previous case.^[9]
• Biblical Hebrew often expresses a pronoun direct object by appending a pronominal suffix directly to the verb, as an alternative to appending it to the preposition that signals a definite direct object. The latter construction is the one generally used in Modern Hebrew.^[9]
• The tense/aspect that is formed by prefixes could denote either the present (especially frequentative) or the future, as well as frequentative past in Biblical Hebrew (some scholars argue that it simply denoted imperfective aspect), while in modern Hebrew it is always future. The suffixed form denotes what is commonly translated as past in both cases, though some scholars argue that it denoted perfective aspect.^[10]
• Biblical Hebrew employs the so-called waw consecutive construction, in which the conjunction "and" seemingly reverses the tense of a verb. This is not typical of Modern Hebrew.^[11]
• The default word order in Biblical Hebrew is VSO, while Modern Hebrew is SVO.^[12]

[edit] Historical sound changes

[edit] Consonantism

As Biblical Hebrew (BH) evolved from Proto-Semitic (PS) it underwent a number of mergers,^[13][14][15]:

• PS */ð/ and */z/ merged as BH /z/
• PS */θ/ and */ʃ/ merged as BH /ʃ/
• PS */θˁ/, */ɬˁ/, and */sˁ/ merged as BH /sˁ/
• PS */ɣ/ and */ʕ/ merged as BH /ʕ/¹⁾
• PS */x/ and */ħ/ merged as BH /ħ/¹⁾
• PS */w/ and */j/ merged as BH /j/ in word-initial position; > Ø between vowels
• PS */ʕ/ > BH Ø (with compensatory lengthening) in the syllable coda
• PS *-/át/ > BH -/áː/ in the ending of the feminine; not in the status constructus).
• PS */h/ > BH Ø between vowels in the pronominal suffix (with contraction, see below).
• PS */ʃ/ > BH /h/ in grammatical morphemes
• PS *n,mC > BH CC, e.g. *ʔanta>*ʔattāh
  • exception: PS *-inʃ- > BH -iːʃ(-), *-anʃ- > BH -anʃ-, and in grammatical morphemes *-ˈVnʃ- > BH -nn-

1) Greek transcriptions^[16] provide evidence that Biblical Hebrew maintained the proto-Semitic consonants /ɣ/, /x/ for longer than the writing system might suggest. Thus ʿǍmōrāh (עֲמוֹרָה) is transcribed as Gómorrha (Γόμορρα) in Greek, whereas ʿĒḇer (עֵבֶר) is transcribed as Éber (Ἔβερ) with no intrusive g; since comparative Semitic evidence shows that proto-Semitic */ɣ/ and */ʕ/ both became ʿayin (ע) in later Hebrew, this suggests that the distinction was still maintained in Classical times. Similarly Raḥēl (רָחֵל) is transcribed as Rhakhḗl (Ῥαχήλ), whereas Yiṣḥāq (יִצְחָק) becomes Isaák (Ἰσαάκ).

[edit] Vocalism

• PS */áː/ > BH /oː/; in word-final position > /aː/
• PS */aː/ > BH /aː/
• PS */íː/ > BH /iː/ or, before ה ח ע, /iː^a/ (páṯaḥ furtivum);

in word-final position regularly > /ɛː/

• PS */úː/ > BH /uː/ or, before ה ח ע, /uː^a/(páṯaḥ furtivum)
• PS */óː/ > BH /oː/
• PS */oː, uː/ > BH /uː/;

in an open syllable before a following */oː/ > BH /iː/

• PS */a, i, u/ > Ø in word-final position
• PS */a, i, u/ in open unstressed syllables > Ø ("šəwa mobile") two or more syllables before the stressed syllable;

before or after א ה ח ע > /^a/ ("ḥāṭēp̄ pátaḥ") or, if the adjacent syllable has /^{e, ɛ}/ or /^{o, ɔ}/, /^ɛ/ ("ḥāṭēp̄ s^eḡōl") and / ^ɔ/ ("ḥāṭēp̄ qāmeṣ") respectively;

in verbs also in the second syllable of the word if the following syllable is stressed;

in nouns in the second syllable of status constructus > /^ə/ (the consonant carrying the š^eəwa is marked with "dāḡēš dirimens" or the following consonant is fricative, indicating that it was preceded by a vowel).

• PS */á/ > BH /aː/ in open syllables (sometimes /a/, /ɛ/)
• PS */a/ > BH Ø;

immediately before the stress > /aː/ (”qāmeṣ antetonicum”);

in closed syllables > /i/

• PS */í, ú/ > BH /eː, oː/ or, before ה ח ע, /eː^a, oː^a/ ("páṯaḥ furtivum");

in closed syllables in verbal forms > /e, o/ or, before ה ח ע, /a/;

in syllables that were closed already in Proto-Semitic > /a/ ("Philippi's law")

• PS */i/ > BH /i/ or, before or after ה ח ע, /a/;

immediately before the stress > /eː/ ("ṣērē antetonicum")

• PS */u/ > BH Ø ("š^eəwa mobile") or /^ɔ/ (”ḥāṭēp̄ qāmeṣ”);

in closed syllables > /ɔ/ ("qāmeṣ qāṭān") or, before a geminated consonant, /u/

• PS */áw/ > BH /aːw/
• PS */aw/ > BH /oː/
• PS */áy/ > BH /ay/ or in an open syllable, /eː/ or, in word-final position, /ɛː/
• PS */ay/ > BH /eː/
• Contractions after loss of PS */h/ in the pronominal suffix:

*/-a-huː/ > /-oː/

*/-a-haː/ > /-aː/

*/-a-hɛm/ > /-aːm/

*/-eː-hɛm/ > /-eːm/

*/-iː-huː/ > /-iːw/

*/-iː-hɛm/ > /-iːm/

*/-uː-hɛm/ > /-uːm/

*/-ay-huː/ > /-aːw/

[edit] See also

• Ancient Hebrew Research Center
• List of liturgical Hebrew cognates

[edit] Resources

• Bonnie Pedrotti Kittel, Vicki Hoffer, and Rebecca Abts Wright, Biblical Hebrew: A Text and Workbook Yale Language Series; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989.
• Dolgopolsky, Aron (1999). From Proto-Semitic to Hebrew. Milan: Centro Studi Camito-Semitici di Milano. 
• Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar - Kautzsch, E. (ed.), Eng. ed. A. E. Cowley. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910.
• Lambdin, Thomas O. Introduction to Biblical Hebrew. London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971.
• Würthwein, Ernst. The Text of the Old Testament (trans. Erroll F. Rhodes) Grand Rapids: Wm.B.Eardmans Publishing. 1995. ISBN 0-8028-0788-7.

[edit] Notes

1. ISBN 1-56563-206-0 Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon by Francis Brown, S. Driver, C. Briggs

[edit] External links

• History of the Hebrew Language
  • History of the Ancient and Modern Hebrew Language, David Steinberg
  • Biblical Hebrew Poetry and Word Play - Reconstructing the Original Oral, Aural and Visual Experience
  • Short History of the Hebrew Language, Chaim Rabin
  • The Alphabet of Biblical Hebrew

• Biblical Hebrew Resources
  • Resources for the Study of Biblical Hebrew Prof. E. Ben Zvi University of Alberta
  • Biblical Hebrew bibliography and transliteration, Matthew Anstey
  • Biblical Hebrew Video Tutorials and Workbooks Morah Moriah

• Grammar and Vocabulary
  • The Handy-Dandy Hebrew Grammar Chart, Prof. Shawn Madden, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
  • Basic Biblical Hebrew Grammar (introductory)
  • The Kittel Hebrew Words Database (Second Ed.) Learn by use of flashcards 490 important Biblical Hebrew words.
  • Learn to write the Hebrew characters
  • Biblical Hebrew Flash Cards for Vocabulary and Grammar Morah Moriah

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