Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions were written. It is believed to be the language which the ancient Israelites spoke.

It is not spoken in its pure form today, although it is often studied by religious 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 laws often differ, Biblical Hebrew is sometimes used in Modern Hebrew literature, much as archaic and Biblical constructions are used in Modern English literature.

Definition

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

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 Archaic Biblical, Biblical, and Late Biblical 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 ʔaˈʃer (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 usually 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.

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)

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 (from Lambdin, with modifications):

Biblical Hebrew had a vowel system based on the cardinal vowels /i u e o a/, which occurred in short, long, and extra-long^{citation needed} forms. Some follow Lambdin's use of macrons to mark long vowels and circumflexes to mark extra-long ones. Aside from these vowels, there were also four "reduced", extra-short ones, ə, ă, ĕ, and ŏ (all but the schwa, /ə/ seem to have been allophonic).

Historical sound changes

Consonantism

As Biblical Hebrew (BH) evolved from Proto-Semitic (PS) it underwent a number of mergers¹,²:

• 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).

1) Greek transcriptions (see also "Various names in Hebrew and Greek".) 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 Raħēl (רָחֵל) is transcribed as Rhakhḗl (Ῥαχήλ), whereas Yisˁħāq (יִצְחָק) becomes Isaák (Ἰσαάκ).

Vocalism

• PS */á:/ > BH /o:/; in word-final position > /a:/ (Canaanite shift)
• PS */a:/ > BH /a:/
• PS */í:/ > BH /i:/ or, before ה ח ע, /i:^a/ (páṯaḥ furtivum);

in word-final position regularly > /ɛ:/

• PS */ú:/ > BH /u:/ or, before ה ח ע, /u:^a/(páṯaḥ furtivum)
• PS */ó:/ > BH /o:/
• PS */o:, u:/ > BH /u:/;

in an open syllable before a following */o:/ > BH /i:/

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

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

in closed syllables > /i/

• PS */í, ú/ > BH /e:, o:/ or, before ה ח ע, /e:^a, o:^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 > /e:/ ("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 /a:w/
• PS */aw/ > BH /o:/
• PS */áy/ > BH /ay/ or in an open syllable, /e:/ or, in word-final position, /ɛ:/
• PS */ay/ > BH /e:/
• Contractions after loss of PS */h/ in the pronominal suffix:

*/-a-hu:/ > /-o:/

*/-a-ha:/ > /-a:/

*/-a-hɛm/ > /-a:m/

*/-e:-hɛm/ > /-e:m/

*/-i:-hu:/ > /-i:w/

*/-i:-hɛm/ > /-i:m/

*/-u:-hɛm/ > /-u:m/

*/-ay-hu:/ > /-a:w/

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.
• Kautzsch, E. (ed.) Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar. 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.

Notes

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

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

• Grammar and Vocabulary
  • 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

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