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Course 5 · Lesson 2.4

A core Hebrew vocabulary and how to learn it

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 5 outline

Module 1: What the Languages Are and What This Course Can Do

  1. The languages of the Bible: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
  2. What an introduction can and cannot do: no fluency, and why
  3. Biblical Hebrew in brief: history, script and sound
  4. Koine Greek in brief: history, script and sound

Module 2: Hebrew Fundamentals

  1. The Hebrew alphabet, reading right to left, and the vowel points
  2. Roots, nouns, gender, number and the construct chain
  3. Hebrew verbs: perfect, imperfect and the seven stems in outline
  4. A core Hebrew vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 3: Greek Fundamentals

  1. The Greek alphabet, accents and breathing marks
  2. Nouns, cases and the definite article
  3. Greek verbs: tense, aspect, voice and mood in outline
  4. A core Greek vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 4: The Texts: Masoretic, Septuagint and New Testament Manuscripts

  1. The Masoretic Text and the codices that preserve it
  2. The Septuagint and where translators consult it
  3. Greek New Testament manuscripts and printed editions
  4. How variants are recorded in footnotes and critical editions

Module 5: How Translations Are Made

  1. Formal and dynamic equivalence, and the middle positions
  2. Who translates: committees, churches and traditions of translation
  3. Hard cases: idioms, word play, gender and untranslatable words
  4. Reading a translation’s preface to learn its principles

Module 6: Tools for the Reader

  1. Interlinear Bibles: what they show and what they hide
  2. Lexicons and concordances: how to read an entry
  3. How to do a word study, step by step
  4. Common word study errors and how to avoid them

Module 7: Evaluating Translation Differences

  1. Locating the Hebrew or Greek words behind a verse
  2. Types of translation differences: text, grammar, word meaning and style
  3. A worked example from the Old Testament
  4. A worked example from the New Testament
  5. Knowing your limits, and when to ask a specialist

All courses

Program / Course 5: Biblical Languages / Lesson 2.4

What you will learn

  • Recognize about twenty five of the most important Hebrew words of the Old Testament by sound.
  • Explain why a small core vocabulary covers a large share of the text.
  • Use a simple, repeatable method to learn and keep vocabulary.
  • Treat a gloss as a starting point and check a word’s range of uses.

The big idea

A small number of Hebrew words appear very often in the Old Testament. A few hundred common words account for a large share of the running text, while many other words occur only once or twice. Learning a core vocabulary lets a reader recognize words in an interlinear and look them up with confidence. The best method is short, regular practice with spaced review, saying words aloud and learning them in families and in context. A gloss is only a hint, and no list of words gives a command of the language.

Key terms

Lexeme
The base form of a word as listed in a dictionary, apart from endings and prefixes.
Frequency
How often a word occurs in a text. High frequency words are the best ones to learn first.
Hapax legomenon
A Greek phrase for said once. A word that occurs only one time in a body of texts, which makes its meaning hard to fix.
Cognate
A word related to a word in another language, such as the Hebrew and Arabic words for peace.
Spaced repetition
A way of reviewing material at growing intervals, such as one day, three days and a week, so that it is remembered longer.
Semantic range
The set of meanings a word can have in different contexts.

Background

The Hebrew Bible has roughly eight thousand different words if counted by their dictionary forms, though the count depends on how one divides them. Many are rare. A good number occur only once. A much smaller group, a few hundred words, occur many times and make up most of the running text. This is true of most languages, and it is the reason for learning by frequency.

A learner who studies the most common words first soon sees them everywhere. The aim of this lesson is not a complete list, which belongs in a textbook. It is to give a first set, show how to use them, and offer a method for the rest. The usual reminder applies: a student with a core vocabulary and no grammar is still unable to read Hebrew, but is better able to use the tools.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: A first set of words

Here are some of the most common and important words, in transliteration, with a brief gloss. The glosses are only starting points. God and persons: elohim, God or gods; YHWH, the divine name; adam, man or humankind; ish, man or husband; ishah, woman or wife; ben, son; bat, daughter; melek, king. Places and times: eretz, earth or land; shamayim, heavens; mayim, water; yom, day; bayit, house.

Ideas and states: davar, word or matter; ruach, wind, breath or spirit; nefesh, life, person or throat; lev, heart or mind; torah, teaching or law; berit, covenant; chesed, steadfast love or loyalty; emet, truth or faithfulness; shalom, peace or wholeness; tov, good; ra, evil or bad; qadosh, holy; tsedaqah, righteousness. Verbs: amar, to say; hayah, to be; asah, to do or make; bo, to come; halak, to go; ra’ah, to see.

Step 2: Why glosses mislead

Several of these words have a wide range. Ruach can mean wind, breath or spirit, and in Genesis 1:2 translators differ on which fits. Nefesh is often translated soul in older versions, but it also means life, person, appetite or throat, and its sense in a given verse depends on context. Chesed is translated in the King James Version as mercy, kindness or lovingkindness, and no single English word captures it. A student who memorizes one English word for each Hebrew word will often be wrong.

The remedy is to learn each word with a few typical phrases and verses, and to read the lexicon entry. For example, learn tov in the sentence God saw that it was good, and in the phrase tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Learning a word in its settings gives the range, and not just a label.

Step 3: A method

Short, daily sessions work better than long, rare ones. Ten or fifteen minutes each day is better than two hours once a week. Write each new word on a card or in a spaced repetition program, with the Hebrew on one side and the transliteration, gloss and a sample verse on the other. Say the word aloud each time. Review old cards on a regular schedule, and add only a small number of new ones.

Learn words in families. Memorize the root and a few members of the family together, such as melek, malkah and mamlakah. Learn the words that look alike together so that you notice the difference. Mark words you keep forgetting, and make a sentence of your own for each. Finally, read short passages in which your words appear, with an English translation beside them.

Step 4: Using a frequency list

A frequency list ranks words by number of occurrences in the Old Testament. Good textbooks and vocabulary guides include one. Begin with the words that appear more than a thousand times, and work down. In a text of this size, a small set of function words, such as the article, the prefixes, the word for and, and the particle et, make up a large part of the text, and the first lessons usually cover them. Nouns and verbs follow. Rare words are better looked up than memorized.

  1. Which words from the first set can I recognize by sound?
  2. For each word, what is its range, and what examples show the range?
  3. Do I know the root and related words, or only the gloss?
  4. How often and for how long am I reviewing?
  5. Which words keep slipping, and what can I do differently?
  6. Am I using vocabulary to help me read a text, or only to decorate an argument?

Examples

Ruach in several settings

In Genesis 1:2 the ruach of God moved on the face of the waters, and translations render this as spirit or wind. In Ezekiel 37, the same word is used for breath and wind and spirit in a single chapter, in a passage that plays on its range. A student who learns only the gloss spirit will miss the word play.

Chesed in several renderings

The King James Version uses mercy, kindness and lovingkindness for chesed, while modern versions often use steadfast love or faithful love. The differences do not show a disagreement about the text. They show how hard it is to find one English word for a word with a wide range.

A short routine

A student chooses five new words a week. On Monday she writes the cards. Each day she reviews all the cards, saying the words aloud, for ten minutes. On Sunday she finds each word in two verses in an English Bible with the help of a concordance and notes how it is rendered. In a few months she has a vocabulary of over a hundred words. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Jewish

In Jewish education students learn Hebrew vocabulary from childhood through reading the text and the prayers. Learning is done in company with teachers and fellow students, and memory of whole passages is prized.

Catholic

Catholic study of the Old Testament has long made use of vocabulary from the Hebrew, as in Jerome’s work and in modern critical translations. Notes in Catholic Bibles often explain a Hebrew word.

Orthodox

Orthodox students more often learn the Greek of the Septuagint, but those who read the Hebrew find that many words in the Greek translate Hebrew terms in standard ways. Comparing the two sheds light on both.

Protestant

Protestant seminaries commonly teach a core Hebrew vocabulary based on frequency, and Protestant scholars have produced many vocabulary guides. Protestant preaching also uses word studies, which makes the caution about glosses particularly useful.

Scholarly

Linguists agree on the value of frequency and context in learning vocabulary. They caution that a word’s meaning is never exhausted by a single equivalent in another language.

Why it matters

Vocabulary is the first practical gain for a beginner. Even a small stock of words makes an interlinear less opaque and makes a lexicon entry easier to follow. A learner who also understands the range of a word is less likely to build an argument on one English label.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Each Hebrew word has one English equivalent.

Correction: Most words have a range of meanings, and English translators use different words in different settings. The range matters more than the gloss.

Misunderstanding: Memorizing a long list of words is the same as learning Hebrew.

Correction: Vocabulary is necessary but not enough. Grammar, practice with whole sentences and wide reading are also needed.

Misunderstanding: Nefesh means soul, so the Hebrew Bible teaches a doctrine of the soul wherever it appears.

Correction: Nefesh has a range that includes life, person, appetite and throat. Whether and where it carries a doctrine of the soul is a question for each context and for the traditions that interpret it.

Misunderstanding: Rare words are as easy to learn as common words.

Correction: Rare words give little evidence of meaning, and some occur once. They should be looked up in a scholarly lexicon, not learned from a gloss.

Knowledge check

Why is it efficient to learn the most frequent words first?

A small number of words occur many times and make up most of the running text, while many others occur rarely. Learning the common words quickly lets a reader recognize much of any verse, whereas learning rare words gives little return. Rare words are better looked up when they appear.

Give two reasons why a one word gloss can mislead.

A Hebrew word usually has a range of meanings, which depend on context, and no single English word matches the whole range. Ruach, for example, means wind, breath or spirit. A gloss also hides the way a word works in a phrase and its links with other words in its family.

Describe a good routine for learning vocabulary.

Study a little each day, with a small number of new words and regular review at growing intervals. Say each word aloud, learn it with its root family, and attach a sample verse. Read short passages in which the words appear. Keep track of the words that keep slipping and give them more attention.

What is a hapax legomenon, and why is it a problem?

It is a word that occurs only once in a body of texts. Without other uses to compare, its meaning has to be guessed from context, related languages or ancient translations. Translators may differ widely, and a student should treat any claim about its meaning with caution.

Think it through

  1. Which of the words in the first set would you most like to understand more fully, and why?
  2. How would you design a routine you could keep for six months?
  3. What does it say about a language that one word can mean wind, breath and spirit?
  4. When have you relied on a single word label and later found it was not enough?

Independent assignment

Ten words in context

In your own notebook, write 300 to 450 words. Choose ten words from the first set. For each, look it up in a lexicon, write its main senses, and find one verse in an English Bible where it occurs, using a concordance. Note how the English renders it. Then write a paragraph on which words had the widest range and what you learned about glosses. Begin your review routine and write the schedule you will follow. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study