Study Chapter · XXIII

Learning Biblical Hebrew

From the Alphabet to Genesis 1

If Greek opens the New Testament, Hebrew opens the other three-quarters of the Bible. And Hebrew is not harder than Greek — it is different. Twenty-two consonants, vowels written as little marks under the letters, no tenses (only aspect — see chapter IX), and verbs built from thr

If Greek opens the New Testament, Hebrew opens the other three-quarters of the Bible. And Hebrew is not harder than Greek — it is different. Twenty-two consonants, vowels written as little marks under the letters, no tenses (only aspect — see chapter IX), and verbs built from three-letter roots that reveal whole word families at a glance. A reader who learns 250 Hebrew words can sight-read ~80% of the Hebrew Bible. This chapter is the on-ramp.

Twenty-two consonants. Five of them have a different final form when they end a word (think capital vs. lowercase, but only at word-end). Hebrew reads right to left, top to bottom.

Hebrew was originally written consonants only. The little marks under and around the letters — nikkud (or pointing) — were added by Jewish scribes called the Masoretes between AD 600–1000 to preserve the traditional pronunciation. Modern Hebrew Bibles include them; modern Israeli newspapers don't.

Vowels sit below a consonant (mostly), telling you what sound follows: