Prico$9.00

COMMENTS o N THOMAS O. LAMBDIN'SI N T ROD U C T ION T 0 BIBLICAL H~BREW

By

Jame. F. Baboock

January, 1976reprinted with correctioRs

I

Notice to students in OT503-504:The packet of materials as you pick .uGh up at the bookstoreis only the initial instalment. The rest will be handed outin class, and you will have to assemble the pages into asensible whole, using the page numbers in the upper lefthandcorner (for basic sheets) or following the list of materials 1in the appendix as shown on the lime green sheet enclosed.

Purchasers subsequent to late May, 1976 will find everything hereand all in sequence at that!

OT502 Elementary HebrewMr. J. F. Babcock

COMmNTS ON mOMAS O. LAMBDIN'SINTRODUCTION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW

FOREWORD BY COMmNTATOR

The purpose of this series of comments is to provide thestudent with an accurate statement of slight differences of ap-proach between that of the textbook and that of the instructor ,to call attention to the convention which will be adopten by uswhen the textbook suggests alternatives from which to choose and,to provide additional summary statements of some of the materialscattered throughout the textbook.

References in the left margin are to page numbers.

Reference numbers in the body of these Comments are toparagraph numbers, unless otherwise indicated by lip. _ttl whichwill refer to pages in the textbook.

PREFAffi

iii Having read the Preface, the student is bound to wonderwhether it is really realistic to attempt to work th~ough a text-book, 'tlesignedfor a full year's course in elementary BiblicalHebrew at the college level, II in only two quarters (or even six!weeks in the Summer session) at TEDS. A comparison of study timeinvested, etc. will help alleviate your fears:

Items to be Compared Typical Course TEDS(Sch-yr) TEDS(Sum. )

meeting times per week 3 4 5

duration of the course 2 semesters 2 quarters (3 hours)= 32 weeks 20 weeks 6 weeks

hours spent in class 96 hours 80 hours 90 honns

study time per class hour 2 hours 3 hours 2~ hrstotal expected .192 hours 240 hours 225 hours

total time invested 288 hours 320 hours 315 hours

As the various totals indicate, not only is it reasonableto study the contents of this text in the time allowed, it isalso possible to have an introduction to Hebrew exegesis as well--including such fringe benefits as learning how to use standardtools (such as lexica, concordances, commentaries, and periodi-cals) and reading various Biblical passages in addition to the'various selections co-ordinated with the Lessons in the textbook.

Transliteration can be a hinderance, as well as a help,if the student comes to depend on transliteration as a substitute

Comments, p. 2

XIV

for work with the Aramaic square character Hebrew script in whichhe will eventually be doing all of his reading. Force yourselfto use transliteration as sparingly as possible.

At an appropriate point we will give an overview of theHebrew verbal system in a somewhat more traditional manner, thoughwe will in fact follow the basic approach used in this textbook.

iv The general approach of this textbook is to prepare thestudent for reading in the Hebrew Bible with as little dofficultyas possible once the student reaches that point, by teaching thebasics of the language thoroughly beforehand, as opposed to let-.ting the students flounder in the Biblical text because they havehad only a'Skeleton presentation of the language previously. Forthis reason, this course will seem to have more content than onesusing other methods, but the student will enjoy reading the HebrewBible more later because he will be prepared to do just that.

The inclusion of considerable amounts of Hebrew syntax,scattered throughout the textbook, greatly facilitates reading inthe Bible later, as many common items often omitted from discus-sion in other books will be found here. This "extra" material isone of the great strengths of this most welcome textbook.

Vocabulary words have been chosen by the author rathercarefully to go along with his lessons. However some of the wordschosen are rather infrequent, and such may not be assigned asvoeabulary words to be mastered for vocabulary quizzes. In addi-tion, other words which are common have been included by yourteachers at appropriate points, so that by the end of the coursethe student will have mastered all of the vocabulary words whichoccur more than fifty times in the Old Testament, together with·a few others of lesser frequency. To aid in the task of learningthe vocabulary assigned, vocabulary cards will be made availablewhich will include all of the words to be mastered and will be inthe order of their being assigned for mastery. Later, George M.Landes' A Students Vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew will be of useto increase your vocabulary ability.

,• XVI

CQitENTS

X-XI At this point, simply notice that there are several use-fUl appendices (pp. 285-315), two329ff.), an index which will haveContents section, and an index ofit is not mentioned on p , XI). XVII

glossaries (pp. 316ff. and ";(f.j,to be Supplemented from theverb paradigms (p. 345--though

INTRODUCTI(l\I

XIII .::ofes;o~ Lam~din follows the widely held view of theComPOS1 :on 0 . he B1blical writings beginning in the time of theJudges, 1nclud1ng such early works as .......e Son -" Debo

~u 9 UlL. rah, ff "The

Comments, p , 3

Song of the Sea, nand Balaam's oracles. Consideration of thisand other views will be taken up in courses on Old TestamentIntroduction.

XIV A new standard edition of the Hebrew Bible is in progressand will supercede the Kittel edition (Biblia Hebraica; 3d. ed.,1937) for which the standard abbreviations are BH3 and BHK. Thisnew edition is Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (edited byK.. Elliger and W. Rudolph; 1966-- ) for which the standardabbreviation is BHS.

The subject of Kethib~ere will be important later whenreading the Hebrew Bible and reading the various marginal infor-mation which the standard editions contain.

SOUNDS AND SPELLING

1. The Sounds of 8iblical Hebrew

a. Consonants

Heed the note on p. XV. You may wish to learn how to usethe phonetic symbols, but you are not required to do so. Still,they are helpful.

Do not worry about learning the classification of thevarious sounds, e.g. "prepalatal. It

,• XVI For the palatal sound k, we will use an easier sound,

namely (kJ as in li~e. Change your book as a reminder.

Under the section marked Guttural, note the following:(1) the student may use either the glottal stop ([?]) or the soundindicated ([~1)for the sound transliterated by t •(2) the student should use the sound (x) as in German Bach for thesound transliterated by Q, rather than [H) indicated.(3) the term we will use is laryngeal, rather than guttural--forall four of the gutturals as he terms them; the compellingreason is that gutturals in Hebrew (. h t 9) have nothing at allto do with the sounds called gutturals in Greek (gamma, kappa, andchi) •

b. Vowels

XVII The most important thing to notice about the translitera-tion of the vowels is that the convention adopted has nothing todo with diacritical markin s of vowel len h in En lish. Thus,1n Hebrew, a 10ng-1 has the sound of mach1ne for which theE,!glish dictionary spelling will list a long...';(e): m <>-shen.

For the choices given, for a, we will use the sound of teea in "thatU; and for a, ~, wewill use the a-sound in "father."

- ~ --------~-- - - -----~-~- -~

Comments, p. 4

(For those who do read the phonetic symbolS, it will.beimportant to notice that Professor Lambdin, rather than mak1nga distinction between a and a/~, as he suggests on p. XVII,chooses rather to use the sound in "father" consistently, asyou will see in the examples at the top of p. XVIII.)

.-\

Diphthongal combinations: in each case where there is achoice, we will use the first choice.

2. Syllabification (dividing a word into syllables)

XVIII The accent sign in transliteration is (') written over thevowel, as is discussed in the next paragraph of the textbook.

The accent sign in phonetic symbols is a vertical line (I)written before the syllable accented.

Because the majority of Hebrew words are accented (or"stressed") on the last syllable it is conventional practice toindicate the stress only when it is on the next to the last syl-lable. Thus, because miQb~ (wilderness) has no accent shown,the accent is understood to be on the last syllable. On theother hand, the accent on the next to the last syllable of theword m.immlnnt (from me) is marked.

3. Stress (= Accent)

Be sure to learn what the following grammatical termsDeL

mean:stressultimapenultima ("penult" for I tonic syllable

pretonic syllableshort) propretonic syllable

At times we will find it convenient to refer to the sylla-bles in relation to the tone (accent, stress) with these terms:

DeL accented syllablenear open syllabledistant open syllable =

tonic syllable = stressed syl.open pretonic syllableopen propretonic syllable

4. The consonants"known as the hegadkepat

==

The name is simply a mnemonic device for r be'i 1 b d to emem r1ng the

con~onants nvo ved: 9 "",-1:._ with vowels is b&gadf<.ei5<tt.i1I "dch two of these letters (b and k) are sto d -f- ~d

- d ) ps an our (g_. pant. are spirants. TIIi'!l Is in aecord with th b ' "tions (a) and ill at the top of p XIX Con' d e a s~rva~c ~,.. . S1 er th1s carefullybecause once you understand how to translite t .'vice, you will understand how these six lettra ebthe mnemon1C de-ers ehave.

5. Vowel Reduction

XIX Vowel reduction also occurs in E 1-according to predictable rules. Furtheng :Sh wor~s, but not. r, a.nEng11sh th .changes 1n vowel length are not ~erierall " ,e var10USy 1ndicated in spelling.

a

nativenativitynationnationalnationali tynationalistic

Comments, p. 5

\"~I

(XIX!)This lack of indication of vowel reduction and 'lowe1 length inEnglish words makes learning to read English much more difficultthan learning to read Hebrew, as the following groups of wordswill show:

photographphotographicphotographer

theobjectobjectiveobjectivity

( I ) alternatealternativea1terna ti on

toyl-

e

'fot-e- ,graf,fot-a- 'graf-ikfa- 'tag-ra-f~r

noun: 'ab-jikt; verb: ab-'jekt3b-'jek-tiv or lib-'jek-tiv,ab- ,jek-'tiv-et-e

adj ./noun: 'ol-tar-nat; verb:01- 'ter-nat-iv,ol-tar-'na-shan

'bl-tar- ,nat

'nat-ivna-'tiv-2t-e'na-shiit'n'nash-n~l or 'nash-~n-~l,nash-(~-)'na1-~t-e,nash-n,l-'is-tik

It is probably clear, after a consideration of the examples above,that vowel length is in some way related to the position of stressand secondary stress, but that, since the stress is not indicatedin English spelling, there is no way for the.reader to know thepronunciation of any given word for certain without hearing it andthen being told to learn it.

Hebrew, by contrast is written phonetically, as even thetransliteration indicates. Once the phonetic system has beenlearned. the student will be able to pronounce correctly any wordin Hebrew at sight by "sounding it out," because accent and vowellength are indicated in every Hebrew word.

'l1a-

I sy1.

KEY: THE KIND OF SYLLABLE 'DETERMINES'" THE LENGTH OF TRE VOWEL

Furthe,more, vowel length in Hebrew words is directly re-lated to the position of stress and the type of syllable involved--whether open or closed. For the majority of wordS, the follow-ing comments (illustrated in the chart on the next page) apply:

:he

*Unaccented, closed syllables require short vowels.,lly,: de-

*Near (pretoilic).open syllables usually require lengthenedvowels in nouns but may have reduced vowels in verbs andnouns/participles of the pattern Xiii34 (pl., XilP3tun ).(The latter half of this·statement is what the textbookcalls "pretonic reduction.")

*Distant (propretonic) open syllables usually requirereduced vowels in nouns (the textbook calls this "propre-tonic reduction") but may require a secondarily accentedlengthened vowel in verbs. .

~ious~ng•

(continued on Dext Pll&e

(XIlCf ) ·Ananif

. . h .a lengt hC'\1C'dVOW" 1;accented syllablp 1r. most nouns as h .t vow~l.' b rmally has a ~ 01 ~,accnntpd syllabL~ in vP.r 5 nO~ .~. r classa-class but a lC'ngth,,"ed vowel 1.. 1- 0 u- •

Commc..~nts, p .. 6A

Th f. chart form for easier use:going material can ~. put 1ntoc ore . -..

A CHART OF BASIC VlMEL LENGmS

Kind of CLASS OF VOWEL:Kind of -SYLI ABLR VOWEL a i u

elos,-d and Unacccnt00 Short a e or .(. o or lL

1) Nc~ar Open (Preton i c]--nouns and verbs

75if e2) Accented

--nouns" I Lengthened. . -- -. .. _ •...

"(exception: )--verbs a.3) Secondarily Acce:1ted \ \ \

0: e- O--v,,'rbs and nouns

1) Distant Opcn (P.-opre-tonic) without cnysecondary accen ... ,

(I " ", ReducedI2) :'lear Open (Pretonic)

preceded by asecondary accent

The above chart applies to vowels whicn} "t ...~L.. ;. .• t',·o-rc"ica~lYJ ~"i~rcat one time short vowels but which hovl~ :)(~cor.••~

reduced or lengthened or retained, depending on the 1.. Y.1. ,)f ~yl-lable and its relationship to tOle accent.

Thor' is ano t ne r "type of vowel which 1S no ":m-..l1. re-~.·~;'". ...inl ....:..as the word is inilected: hE-ncC'this ty;x.~ of ,,'.j\\ . 1 ..

ca~;"d "unchdo!.JeableH and becau s> it was (and con...~inaen '.0. ,U'-~J

lo(.~ , it was called "unchangeably long. ..11DIllaterial) Unchangeably ! ve z y 1A A I A fle o r e 0 orLor.) " rarp

I

*There are two very common ba5ic types of nouns ~O whichthe comment ~hat the accen~ed syllable r~quircs a l~noth~nedvowelin ~ouns does not apply: (1) monosyllablic nouns with ~(sce Ap-pe~dix A, #2abcd) and (2) nouns with ppncltimate stre~s on , or ~(#7,8,9,13,14,77,78). There are ot.hers Which you will sLso c.,,»tf rorr.time to time.

Comments, p , 6B

Here are several examples of the rules stated at the bottom of p. 5,charted on p. 6A.

Unaccented, closed syllables require short vowels.

a-class:· ,r.;,'Jn malkah'T: - +

i-class: 'i1~X )i;(~ahT" •

u-class: .-TO:)n hokmahT! T ... -

< ,~queen; '\iJ na car ladL'" +wife; T170 mEllekking": -: .-

wisdom; lTI70 ~ulhan.,. : P', t .. table

---------------------------------------------------------------------------.---Near (Pretonic) open syllables usually require lengthened vowels in nOUDS

a-cIa 55: -;-f'U 1- field; .Jl"1{1 n~har8!sadeh rivers.. • .- T : ti-class: :LJ.~ lebab heart; 0'31" - ~ elderszaqeDl.m.... .. .- - , ... •u-class: <.? e '0 rI. __

judgesopet• •

An accented syllable in most words has a lengthened vowel (exc. a-cl·. verbs)a-cIa 55: vru nahar river (BUT :lnD ka!ag he wrote).. , • - ,

-e ,i-cIa ss: 1-;)'l zaqen elder; ,SD sejjerbooktt'T • .: .. . ...

Il1R qaton '):J'X ,u-class: he was small; >~el foodo. o.

J

Distant (Propretonic) open syllables may have secondarily lengthened vowels(This is especially common in inflected verbs and participles.)

a-class: 113.TIDT : ,T

:> -kat~bah•... "herb-;;im· "sop"&tim• •judge s!jUdging (cf. I!J:') (;) sopet judge/judging).. .

i-class:lPIO 'rn

she wrote (cf• .J.n;;>ka!a~ he wrote)-T(pI,of 0-,'1\) deaf... •• Of

u-cla ss: TI~l? ~CJ. :--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Distant (Propretonic) open syllables usually have reduced vowels in nouns.(and occasionally in verbs, too)

a-class: "LP0JX.. 1'-j

i-class: 1J>~'S~

u-class: U)'1n• T T:

)'oJ _ltJ;\anaSl.m+)w _ Aelohim•- - ...holayim••

men (irreg. pI.of fl3>J!. ) i~man)

God, gods (pl. but usually used as a singular)

illnesses (pl.of L.. '-' ~> In !}o11 illness), T:

Near (Pretonic) open syllables are commonly reduced in verbs (and ptcs.)(usually the preceding syllable will have a secondary accent)

a-class: 7lJ"n<> katwbah she wrote (cf. J,.J1<> katab he wrote)'T :.T -.- -T -.-

i-class: -;rr J.D kab"1dah she was heavy (cf.".J.':Dkahed he was heavy)'T : .'T -t- •• T -.-

u-class: "<1JOjl qat1lnah she was small (cf. Ii1R he was small )T: .T 'f

Comments, p. 6C

(XIXf)

(Ignore this sneet until Par. IQ b<\a. heen ~tul\i!"l\.l*An accented syllable in most nouns has a lengthened vowel;an accented syllable in verbs normally has a short vowelif a-class but a lengthened vowel if i- or u-class.

DeL

The foregoing material can be put into chart form for easier usP.'

A CHART OF BASIC VOWEL LENGTHS-

Kind of Kind of CLASS OF VOWEL:VOWEL i .- ..-SYLLABLE a u

Closed and Unaccented Short .. or . or .- ... -,

1) Near Open (Pretonic)--nouns and verbs

•2) Accented T ..--nouns*' Lengthened

--verbs ~except ion: ) -3) Secondarily Accented .

IT r- I--verbs and nouns

1) Distant Open (Propre-tonic) without anysecondary accent

: : :Reduced2) Near Open (Pretonic)

prec"dcd by a.secondary accent

The above chart applies to vowels which, at least thea";'retically, were at one time short vowels but which have becomereduced or lengthened or retained, depending on the type of syl-lable and its relationship to the accent.

There is another type of vowel which is normally retainedintact as the word is inflected; hence this type of vowel iscalled Ifunchangeable" and because it was (and continued to be)long, it was called "unchangeably long. ..(Immaterial) Unchangeably very • or' i or IILong rare " .

*There are two very common basic types of nouns to whichthe comment that the accented syJlablc requires a lengthened vowelin n~uns does not apply: (1) monosyl1ablic nouns with 4(see Ap-pend1X A, #2abcd) and (2) nouns with penultimate stress on £ or Q.(#7,8,9,13,14,77,78). There are others which you will also spotfrom time to time.

DeL

lO

xx THE RULE OF SHEWA as stated in the textbook could be handledslightly differently. Even as the word"nationality" is pronouncedtwo ways in EngliSh--some people sound a vowel for io and somedo not (see p. 5 of these Comments), so Hebrew speakers differon how to handle the situation to which the rule of shewa applies.

D f Another name for "virtually doubled" is "implicitlye .doubled."

DeL

Comments, p. 7

In the textbook example, the basic word is n~g~-'Z tmyprophet) in which the first syllable, being distant open (propre-tonic open),has reduced from a (c·f. ni!-g~), prophet) to~. Aproblem arises when one wants to add (~ (to) onto the basic word~p.t'~ (my prophet), because Hebrew does not allow two successivesyllables to contain shewa. There are two ways to handle this:

(1) Professor Lambdin's approach is to (a) change the first ofthe shewa's to i, and (b) drop the second shewa entirely, but (c)retain the spirantization of following begadkepat letters--whichis what thefootnote on p. XIX warns the student to expect at somesubsequent time:

~ (to) + ~g.t'-f (my prophet) __ Ung.t'.t ..

(2) Other grammarians prefer to (a) change the first of the twoexpected shewa's to i--this is the same, and (b) retain the secondshewa, which (c) accounts for the spirantization of the follow-ing begadkepat letters.

b (to) + IOp.t'~ (my prophet) ....Un:.p.t'-f..

(3) A compromise solution would be simply to indicate that somereaders pronounce the sound and some do not:

0_ bA,A ) 0: r lbA' ....<I (to) + n,_;( -t (my prophet ......u.n i _-t -c.

6. Special Features of the Guttural Consonants and R.

A third type of peculiarity of gutterals!laryngeals is:

(c) Laryngeals tend to prefer a-class vowels before andafter them.

. -(It is for this reason that a word 11ke na ~ (boy) differs fromone like mie.ek (king): the laryngeal in the middle of tu£<aJtrequires the a-class vowels, rather than the i-class vowels of thebasic pattern of which metek is representative.

N.B. is the Latin abbreviation of nota bene, "note well,"and when you see it, you should take heed!

7. The Hebrew Alphabet

XXII Use the chart on the top of p. XXII for interest's sakeonly.

Comments, P> 8

The linguistic term "zeroH used in connection with theletters aleph, he, waw, and yod simply means that sometimes theseletters have no sound at all. This occurs when they are vowelletters, as explained in paragraph 9.

DeL

(Optional: the student may find it interesting to compare theAramaic square character script with the early Phoenician letters,which are crude pictographs of the objects which the-names of theletters at one time named; the numerical va~ues will be used

THE HEBREW ALPHABET 1NAME SIGNIFICATION

OF THE NAME• ~ 1tlr('p Ox

be; House

glmel Camel

dlJler Door

he Airhole/window?U'ihr Hook

=cidll WeaponIrei FenceIi'! Snake?.'"0(1 HandkafJ Bent hand

Iimreg Ox-goaoIIIi'm Water11/11/

.\i'mrels"';,1"111pi'1r

FishPropEyeMouth

"~Meh'loPres.'~;11

silllalr Sign: cross

Fish hook?Eye of needle?Head

Tooth

EARLYFORM

ti'Joro;J

w

x

VALUE LETTER TRANS. PHONETIC VALUE

567

8

91020

90100200

300

400

12

3

4

,T

nII

3040

50

607080

J:l" CJ TII

1I

!l 9!l .,

3 l'V,illilll'l11

•

bbggddh

glottal stop or zero[b][v][g][g][d][,5][ll] or ~ero[w] or zero[z][H][t][y] or zero[k][x][I][m)[n][s][r][pI[f]Its][q][r][s]m[t][0]

wz!:I!ykkImns

ppsqrSSt

t

]

OT502J. F. BabcockSupp.temen-t ro PM. 7

-ro

A STYLE SHEET FOR THE n'ALEPH-BETH"(A Pattern for Printing the Letters)

See :the lleveMe ~-i.de,fi2..1ldeta.ili a.! to how to Me ~ ~heet.

. ~ '-'1" [I I ::, ~~" , I........ V

uL][][][][]t

1:3J

A sample alphabet in normal size printing:(y 91D 1) nCLi tv }p~ 9 VDH') 7J' LJTII1illl:l}{Read the letters in parentheses as "final haP," "final mem," etc.

OT502J. F. llebcockSupplemva.t to PaIL. ,.7, p. 2

NAME. _

Campu6 Box NumbeJt D- _

It is very deslresb1e that the student develop a legible handin writing the Hebrewcharacters, so that both he and his teachers andother readers can read his writing (especially on examaI) •

Refer to the reverse side where the letters are done in arather large script, showing in circles the places where errors aremost likely to be madeby beginners and showingthe stroke sequencesto be followed (numberedsrrows).

As you practice writing the alphabet, be sure to say the namesof the letters at the slIlIletilne to double the benefit.

P.S. Thie exercise is of value only if the student will work onit at fntervals (Day1, n.y 2, etc.). There is no great value in sit-ting d."m to cOlllp1etethe sheet the night befoee it is due. Getting itdone 18 not the important thing; getting periodic practice is. Do 61tlfes the first day; 6 the second; 5 the third; etc.

I . I.

T (J; u..'"

~ ,'-I ~ Y c ",L.: Yj I - LJ I 1 I ). ..... ><sa p1

Da 1-- _.- .. - .. +-- --:-- i--- - --- --- --_. - - --. ---+- --

I - -

i It,

; , I,

I II I I i IDa 2I , ,

I

Comments, p , 9

V" ( Jt ss r q ~ p s n m 1 k y t ~ z w h d 9 b

later in connection with reading items inHebrew Bible: when the letters are to bethey have a dot over them.

the margin of theread as numerals,

:optional)(XXIIf) The student who has had Greek will especially profit from

comparing the Greek with the Hebrew alphabet, especially as tothe names of the letters. Note, too, that the Greek alphabetintroduced vowels into the alphabet at precisely the points whereit had no letter corresponding to the Phoenician (and Hebrew)alphabet; digamma(~), sampi(~), and qoppa(q) fell into disuse:

Hebrew

Transliteration

Greek

A COMPARATIVE TABLE 01"ALPHABETS

n (0'/7:5:) V-U J r/?:l ~UTI n ITI A J. X

wi' f,¢ v 1: o',.o'i'~1To';v/"A",di'7<'~€ 8'1f3D<English Z - - y X - WVU T S R Q - P 0 - N M L K JI - H(G)I" E D C B A

(Optional: students who are interested in the sUbject of thedevelopment of the alphabet are encouraged to consult articles inBible Dictionaries, such as ''W,riting,'' The NewBible Dictionary,1341-51 with illustrations; or even books devoted to the subject,such as G. R. Driver, Semitic Writing from Pictograph to Alphabet.)

(Optional: Though we today assign one sound to each of the Hebrewletters, it is clear for various reasons that several of the let-ters had more than one consonental sound in Biblical times, as isthe case with many of the letters of our alphabet, e.g. fa£e, fa£t,accent; xenon, exist, e~istential, lu~ury, lu~urious; b~t, p~t,ubiquitous, university, BE-ite; waKe, Kame; ~un, 2..ugar, ru~e;Eour, history, thoug!!.t;!..or,off, o!..;etc. Some of the Hebrewconsonants are similar, as the following table will show. See thenext page first, however.

Semitic Ugarit.ic Hebron' j Arumuic---+------'----~-- ---

ddz

tH~·~)

Arabic

dd

.., ..,..,

z j

t

ts

n

t.

Comments, p. 10

(XXIIf) ( Examination of the table, from the standp?int of theHebrew column compared with the Semitic column, w1ll show tha~the Hebrew sadeh probably had three sounds in Hebr~w at one t1me,and that several others probably had two sounds ap1ece:

za'yin ( z, )- ) 2, VA ( '& 0) = 1, ~~a<ieh (~, ~)= ~, ~,g = z S1n

(~, TT) 0) ,/ . (,, Y) = c g.(not shown: 1,><;1 = 1,>, aY1n ,

Be careful not to confuse the transliteration ofletters with that of the standard adopted in thetyped in 6cM.pt--i.:ttLUcA.

the Semitictextbook and

:Optional)

8. Some Features of Hebrew Orthography (Spelling).

XXIII c. A summary of the use of the letters 'w, 'y, and 11 h asvowel indicators:

Vowel Letter At End of Word In Middle of WordA A A

) W U = U or 0

4 A A A, Y =.{. = -t" e., or ~

XXIIIf OTh = iih, [h, m, or oh (rare) (not so used)(I .e , any other final vowel)

XXIV ~.(l) When reviewing this section, compare these selected ex-amples with the comments on Paragraph 10, Remarks (1).

(2) The real difficulty of this section, from a reading per-spective, is that a reader becomes used to recognizing certain fonnsand fails to recognize the same word spelled in a less frequent,alter-nate way, especially when final letters are involved.

For example, ;P, l~1ffiis sometimes written 01:>':;> blYth, and thereverse--~=t""':::>J.l-tilWf6nlth is sometimes written J=fn~.i;1.aktiibn.ii.

(3) Some teachers will prefer to have the student simply indi-cate the aleph in transliteration, without further ado:

Hebrew Word Possible Transliteration AlternativesTextbook Alternative

0)(1 head 1t.5'l)(~f.) found m~a(' I

It will become clear when reviewing after studying Paragraph 10, thatthe way to recognize quiescent aleph in a Hebrew word in Hebrew scriptis to note that aleph is quiescent when it has no vowel point under(or over) it: (ch{., liSt').

T T

(Xl

Def

x

g.

(1) does have a dagesh, then

Comments, p. 11

(XXlllf)\Terms to be masteredlin this paragraph:

DeL Mater lectio~is (pl., matres lectionis) = vowel letter

Full writing (also, Scriptio plena) = spelling a wordwith a vowel letter which is to be expected.

Defective writing (also, Scriptio defectiva) = spellinga word without a vowel letter otherwise to be expected.

Quiescent aleph = an aleph which has no sound at all.

1) Orthography = correct spelling (from Greek orthos,straight + grapho, write).

9. The Dagesh and Mappiq

XXIVf Summary statement on begadkepat letters:

When a begadkepat letter

(a) the letter is hard in pronunciation; and

(b) the dagesh isa dagesh lene, if the begadkepat letter begins a

word after a break, orif the begadkepat letter follows a

consonant sound; but

the dagesh isa dagesh forte, if the begadkepat letter follows

a vowel sound.

(2) does not have a dagesh, then it is spirantized.

10. The Vowel Points.

xxv see the next page for a chart of the Hebrew vowels,arranged in terms of vowel length and including all of the com-monly used vowels which are important at this stage.

To the chart in the textbook on p. XXV, make this addi-tion to the line beginning nq.ibb1U. • • .": add,in the columnlabled "Plain;' to .,+.l bu. ": "(or /ill )"50 that the line reads:

3. bu (or bU.)-, -1.'1. bl1

Remark (1) can now be understood in the light of the examples ofB.d(l), which are given below with Hebrew vocalization:

Full: 1]-l jJ~ yiiqtun Defective: "D-;}' qiiqlim he will ariseI~T

-0',' yiiJWn u' > qWm he will raise·T • T

~i,~gl1goR. '7'n gagoR. bigT T

-.

comments, p , lZ

Perhaps you are rightly wondering how to distinguish when~ indicates biand when b£ and when ~ indicates bu and when bu, andhow to tell whether ~ bo is a regular bo and when it is defectiveforfb8. As it turns out, the latter question is not very crucial,but the former one is so attention can be given it at this point.

For ~ read bi if it is in an unaccented closed syllable;otherwise read bZ, which is defective for bt.

For ~ read bu if it is in an unaccented closed syllable;otherwise re~d bIT, which is defective for bu.

(For "a always read b'i5, and do not worry at this point whether itis defective or not.)

A CHART OF THE HEBREW VOWELS

Hebrew vowels fall into two basic categories--unchangeableand changeable vowels) with several subdivisions. They are mosteasily learned in relation to their transliterations; cf. comments, p. 6B.

The Vowel Classes of the Hebrew VowelsType of Vowela class I i-class u-class

UNCHANGEABLE

Originally Long(SClUp.u.O plena)

~3. ~ c b. ~ "-e '3. '13. u~M.e /fog fJt!r.eq !fog ~olem wiW ....~

.6uJteq

.:.:l e 3. -l. 3.- 0" .:), IT..'.

!>M.e iWteq ho-f.em qibbil6

(Some.tUne.6 CiLUed "THE SHORT VOWEL CHART")

a, a :;!- e .J. i ..1 0 3- u-T

~ l6ogo-f. !UJr.eq qiim~ h7ttQ- qibbiU..• p

3. a 3. e 3- 75-r ..qWn~ ~Vte [to-f.em

Originally Long(SClUptio denectiva J

CHANGEABLE

Short

Lengthened

Reduced. -..6ilWa"simple shewa"

hiiC-.. ep-=-.~Hcompound shewa fI

3.« .a z~ip-pt$ft i}atep-.6ogal

it

p , 6B.

""-11,

~q

u:1i4

11,

4

Comments , p . 13

XXVI Remark (3) (b) "But after any other vowel it represents zero"(Le., nosound at all.) This statement is usually true, and it implies that theshewa.sign indicates the end of a syllable after every a, e, i, 0, andu. True, usually the short vowels (a, e, i,D, and 11,) are used in un-accented closed syllables, but they are sometimes used in partlyclosed syllables, and all of the textbookJs examples are of this lattercategory. The three examples in the textbook each indicates ·ahat theshewa has some sound, because the begadkepat letter following in eachof the three examples is spirantized (though see the footnote on p. XIXwhere Lambdin prepares the reader for Rema£k (3)(b». A bettel trans-literation would be "(0):' indicating that the shewa is neither fullyvocal nor silent, but that it is given some sound by some speakers--at least enough to cause a following begadkepat letter to be spirant-ized. The transliterations would be, on this basis: timfolka yourname, maf(oJ~e kings, and yl6mok(olga he will watch you. -

Three other words which have already been encountered at vari-ous points in the Lessons illustrate the common situation: the shewaindicates a closed syllable after the short vowels ( a, e, i, 0, and11,) in most situations in the language; these are typical examples:

1>$7QLJ30n

or : •

maf)ak messenger, angel (Parr. 25(a) and 28)

miX~ judgment (Par. 25(a)

~o~ah wisdom (Par. 33)

Correct the spelling of the transliteration: replace a by 0 asunderlined: "'~?~~.ilok'.e shadows (not ~mt),"if it is incorrectlyspelled in the printing which you have of the textbook.

Remarks (3), (7) and (8): I SUMMARY OF THE SHEWA SIGN: IShewa (.) can be either silent or vocal, so the following rules must be

Def. learned· in order to pronounce the written script correctly; (initialshewa is a shewa under the first letter; final shewa is a shewa underthe last letter; medial shewa is a shewa under any other letter in themiddle of the word):

T. I~l.>hwail.> afwa.yl.>voc.af (3(c».

2. Fil'l.lLf- I.>hwa iI.> aiJlJayl.>I.>.ile.n;t, but this is not too common, as it oc-curs only in certain final kapns or in indicating doubly closed syllables(7, 8).

3. When the. 6hwa I.>.{gn oecuns undelt ;two 1.>u.c.c.eMive c.oMonana, :the 6.iu.:tiJ.> I.>Uen:C and the. second Ls voc.af (unless the second is under the lastconsonant, in which case both are silent; cf. #2)(3(a) and 8).

4. Medial 6hwa iI.> voc.af aMeIt a pltec.eding '~yllab.ee w.Uh any k'.ong vowd.u.ndelt a c.oMonan:t w.Uh daguh 60Jt:te (cf. #3).

(3(b) )

5. Medial I.>hwa iJ.> I.>Uen:Cwhen th». plteceding COMOnan:t hM a I.>hoJt:tvoweLand l.>impllJ indica.:tu a etased I.>IJUable, unless #6 (infrequent) applies(3(b) as amended above).

Comments, p , 14

#6. Me£Ual 6hwa,u. [uss: b04e-fJj vocal .£6 :the pltececUng con6onant ha6 ashotu: vowel and :the 6oUowing cOn6onant ,u. a 6p.£Jr.antized begadkepat oran equivalent situation obtains in non-begadkepat letters; the mostcommon cases of this are with certain forms of pronominal suffixes andwith inflected forms of words like metek, king, as will be explained atan appropriate time. (The second set of examples in 3(b) apply here.)

Def. Such a shewa is called a "6hwa medA.um" by some grammarians be-cause it is about midway between silent shewa and vocal shews, but beoareful not to confuse this with ''medial shewa."

XXVIIf 11(2 and 3) deal with qames hatup in a way which makes a summary state-ment with a few additions desirable.

\ A SUMMARY OF QAME~-~rfiP IQiim~-iJ~p occurs mainly in the following situations:

1. In an unaccented, closed syllable; this is common:

'ofuldh food

~o1yniih wisdom

2. Before a syllable with ~ii:tep'lam~:''?~~ bo~aUwith a sickness

3. Instead of ~ep-'lam~ when a following shewa disallowsoften this results in two successive 'lam~-~p's:

of. 1~¥.'J ho 'ama!! it was set up

with ~I~ ho 'ornfltffithey were set up

4. In many inflected forms of nouns of this and related patterns (##11and 12 in Appendix A) which have a penultimate stress on a u-class vowelin the singular (i.e., vocabulary) form:

7~"; 'aget a food,';.:>>? ' .D<'

• : T O~ my food

hatep--'lame!>.. . . ,

j

U01'7:>X': -. t T ~k("I.eeJtem their foods.

ha6 axu: ornestes andlned atier-e , )

be-t be

state-

(1/#11; vowel

Comments, p. 15

ALTERNATE APPROACHES FOR POSSIBI.EREASSIGNMENT OF INTRODUcrORY MA1ERIAL (PARR. 1-11)

So that the student can begin reading in Hebrew scriptat a slightly earlier time than that contemplated by the authorof the textbook, as the following comparative chart will show,before reading the Lessons themselves, the student could workcarefully through the introductory material as follows:

Before Lesson In the Summer,Study:

In the Winter,Study:

In the author'splan, study:

1 1-3 1-3 1-32 4-7 4-6 4-63 8,9 7,84 10 9,10 75 8,96 107 11 11 11

LESSON 1

3 12. The Noun: Gender. Be sure to learn the gender with the vocabularymeaning of the vocabulary words; only feminine gender is noted.

5

Det.15. Prepositions. ~. Prepositions of the type b~ (in), l~ (to), and k~(like) are often called "inseparable prepositions, " because they areinseparably joined to their object.

5 ~ and~. In some printings' of the textbook, the if in (-Ihabbaifitis not clear in the typeset of the examples of these two paragraphs.

6 c. The example (line I, p. 6), neg~ ha'am before the people, ispremature: in a word like 'am, the article is ha- (not ha-) becausethe C does not double in Hebrew (as will be explained in Par. 6), andthe word takes the article in a slightly different spelling than forjust the vocabulary word itself (cf. Par. 21). The.major point of theparagraph is still true: some prepositions are written as separatewords.

7 Exercises (a) On the ~rst line, p. 7, the accent is missing in thetranscription b-<.qqa£-V:/iD-,because of difficulties in printing "over ....

(d) Change the directions to: Write the following in Hebrewtkan6~bed -<.nto fngl-<.6h chanact~, unless the instructor statesotherwise.

Comments, p. 16

LESSON 2

18.' The Definit'e--Article.The student may find it convenient to have thematerial of Parr."14 and 18 summarized in one place:

SUMMARY: THE DEFINITE ARTICLE. I1. Except before the laryngeals ([I.It), 'Jc;n~. ilh, l\'),

the normal form of the definite article is:

ha- + doubling of the following consonant; i.e.,.1} (read. "he, p~, dageX 6oJt-te"). ;j1

2. Because laryngeals can not orHinarily be doubled (have a dageX 6oJtte).the article attached to a word which begins with a laryngeal must havea different spelling. The difference varies as follows:a. Usually before b. Usually before c • However, before

l• h" , "7lh and n ~ (and 11M & nhii, ITlit, \I ~,11 if, >t ,(which lo not quite rarely Y C) •

'T • T:.

•double). _a remains and a and before T"compensatory dagel 60Jtte is gnac.c.entedlengthening" said to be implied OJM & y'(1i, the Iffrom _a to ~a in the laryngeal, form has e (l>egot)takes place. or the laryngeal rather than a or a: -is said to be vir-IT hii- tually doubled. 11 he- nT VageX 60Jtte hnpu-

••c.itum is the Latin •name for this im-plied Dages.

(')11 ha-Usually, to recognize a definite article on a word is much easier thanto learn how to attach one to a word, especially in the case of 2.c.,which even instructors and textbook authors sometimes fail to state orto apply consistently and correctly.

19. Noun Plurals. The answer to the last question in the paragraph is:because the first letter is a guttural. See Par. 6.

20. Vocabulary 2. Be sure to learn the irregulAr plurals as they comeup in the vocabularies. as you will be using them frequentl~;

have the

:j1~ 6oJde).must have

ore

• IiT

the TI6egotlII or a: -

rt..•

than.c , I

:e or

rph is:

come

-------------.,Comments, p. l7A

LESSON 3

22. Adjectives. Compare the forms of the monosyllabic adjec-itives "bitter" and "evil" with the others shown. Youwill seethat Par. 6 will explain the differences in pointing/spelling.

23. The Use of Adjectives.

SUMMARY: nm nJREE USES OF HEBREW ADJECTIVES \are

(1) nm ATTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVE, which by definition,is an adjective which qualifies a noun directly by attributingsome quality to the noun, as in English Ita good king."

In Hebrew, the attributive adjective always follows the nounwhich it modifies and agrees with it ~i~n~(~a~)~g=e==n3d~e~r~-~-~m~a~s=c~.~0~r.fem.;

(b) number--sing. w. sing.;pl. w. pl. or dual.

and (c) definiteness.Hebrew Attributive Adjectives:Compare the English, Greek, and

English Greek Hebrew

A a good king 1) ~.Y"&los j1or6<,4eefs:

, • > .0/2) j3Dtd"A~<.>S" 6(1"" CTOS

C' a A ,/'B the good king 1) o ",y'" VOS r"''' .....~"J) <A". ,'c> "',2 0/ __ dL"e-U.s D "'let "'DS

N.B. For those who have had Greek, it will be worth noting thatthe Hebrew attributive adjective is syntactically placed the sameas the Greek.

(2) nIB PREDICATIVE (or Predicate) ADJECTIVE, which bydefinition is an adjective which predicates some quality to thesubject of its clause, as in English "The king is good."

In Hebrew, the predicative adjective occurs (as an adjective--see#3, on the next page) only in clauses of classification; i.e."The king is good" means that "the king" belongs to the class ofpeople who can be classified "good." In Hebrew prose, the predi-cative adjective regularly precedes (contrary to the textbook)and agrees with its subject in (1) gender--masc. or fem.;

and (2) number--sing. w. sing.;pl. w. pl. or dual subjects;

but the predicativeadjective is always indefinite. Compare:

The king is good 1) cOpj",4lA.,,',r JrC(&o~.X~;TJ. 10 'f'7,FrJ hammetek tab hlP

2) 'Afol.{)()· ,;j3"'4.A~JS. 'T~~ i] .1io .:tO~ hammetek,

(continued on the back)

Comments, p. 17B

The two possibilites given on the previous page for the Heb-rew equivalent for "The king is good" are slightly different fromthe statements in the textbook, which wrongly oversimplifies thematter. The student may wish to correct the examples in the bookto conform to the actual pattern as it occurs in the Hebrew Bible--at least in most prose passages and all of the Pentateuch.

on p. 14, beginning with the examples "The man isnote the following corrections:

Corrections:good, It et c . ,

. ,.<,,,~ ha.-l"r +.~~p hu~')l.']';l :11'-' w " .. -co -<.u. , The man is good.. h; ~ t. z: '; "a.'h +."'~=,.i.o »J\. '-.r "':l 10 ..,u» li'" 'UI. ~~ "-U UJL 'IA.T . T' r The woman is good.

hii(-Ut glJg8.ldh WlJ.¢piih h1IThe city is great andgood.

When a subject noun is indefinite, there is sometimes a chance of ambi-guity, but not in the case of the example as stated, because:

good wisdom

~'71 ,11i0 710::m ~ogma.h1:8pah lUi Wisdom is good.• -e T : T

As it turns out from careful linguistic study which was in progresswhile Professor Lambdin's outstanding book was in preparation, the situ-ation turns out to be slightly different when the Waw-conjunction is at-tached. This difference will be explained subsequ~ly. Meanwhile,consider the word order in the exercises to be suspect, and correct theirimproper orders as you find them.

(3) mE SUBSTANTIVE' (=NOUN) USE OF THE ADJECTIVE,which occurs in Hebrew when a word usually classified as an ad-jective is used syntactically as a noun, rather much like the word"good" in its second use: (I)The people are good. (adj. use)

(2)The good are fortunate. (noun use)or in this use: (3)Good is an ambassador's aim. (nounIn its third use above, "Good" is an abstract noun. (See thediscussion at the top of p. 15.)

tWO TYPES OF CLAUSES WITHOUT VERBS I[L:~~~:~:=:]Sus = Suspended

(1) VERBLESS CLAUSES OF CLASSIFICATION, which classify a subjectas a member of a particular class, e.g. good things, bad things, eta.Sequence P-SP-S

use)

IBEGINNII«i SUMMARY:

'T~~!J 1)1:)

)nil :IiI' :r7~iJThe king is good. to!! ha.nrnUek

SSu8,P-SRes The king is good . hammtUe~ t:op hU. I(2) VERBlESS CLAUSES OF IDENTIFICATION. ,as a part1cular person, item

tetc.

Sequence S-PS-P

which identify a SUbject

1'?,~i} 0'~1]1~~';}~·1>T0'~iJ

The is the king.man hii).tJ hammUekSSus,SRes_PThe man i s the king.

------------~Comments. p. 18A

lESSON 4

m

k

,26. The Active Participle

PRELIMINARY SUMMARY: THE FOUR COMMON USES OF TIlE PARTICIPIE:

nd The man was/is writing.(Time determined from the context.)

(1) As a verb to express (a) continuous action: "is writing" .J.,1\:;'"was writing"

or (b) imminent action: "is going 'to write .."

This use is sometimes called the predicative use because inusage the participle is the verbal predicate of some subject, e.g.

Contrast with: The man was good;

and notice the difference in word order between the adjectiveproperly discussed (see Comments on Lesson 3) and the participle.

(2) As an adjective in the attributive position. Usually, thenoun and the participle will have the article, because definitenouns are more common than indefinite ones in usage .

:dr the man who was writingis writingis about to write, etc ..

.:J.1] 3~ w'~'Jthe man wri ting

"

J. J] ~ liS' ~ a man writing . . ., etc.who was writing, etc.

Alternately, A man was writing; if verbal use.use) (3) As a noun, normally with the article, again, because definite

nouns are more common in usage than indefinite nouns.. Many suchparticiples, since they indicate the doer of some action, willbe translated by English words ending in "-er," but others willhave noun equivalents in Bnglish.

:t ]:ateOIled'ended

:lD :;Yi:!the writeret c .. l~j a giver, one who gives

11~<6 a judge

(4) As a true participle--true from the English perspective--, theHebrew participle is used in a non-restrictive way (see the illus-trations of restrictive and non-restrictive clauses and phrases inthe Comments on Par. 32) as in (a), in contrast to (b) which isrestrictive ..

---(xQ. 1..'90 rO>X"";l ~n (a) The man, judging very much, is evil•• T --- Judging very much. the man is evil.

i)?f.) O=:>WI1 0 -xn y, (b) The man judging very much is evil.; .- - . T

Comments, p. l8B

27. The Object Marker. Be sure to observe that this is used withdefini te (but not with indefinite) direct objects,.which are oftwo types: (a) Proper nouns (which need no article to be definite)

and (b) Common nouns made definite by the definite article,as well as (c) nouns made ,definit.. in other ways to be shown later •

.'

.-

SPECIAL NOm ON PROPER NA/o£S

Proper names have not been included on the vocabulary cards, sothe student is encouraged to examine the vocabularies at the end of thelessons to see whether there are any such new words and to make his owncards for such, if he desires to do so to have such words on cards.(The first time this may prove to be a problem is Lesson 5, Par. 33.)

Landes gives the following list of high frequency properfrom which Abraham (U~ ;~'5.) and Samson C110Q~) are mi ssing:should be inserted between Nos. 7 and 8, and Nos. 30 and 31.

names,they

PROPER AND PLACE NAMES OCCURRING OVER

70 TIMES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

Arranged in Decreasing Frequency Order

";<:~ I. Israel ,,~20. Assyriam 2. David 'm'I:l1!i 21. Samuel

;-ry'~ 3. Judah WX) 22. Manasseh'T'm Judean '¥'~23. Gilead. ,

:n.:.-o 4. Moses \"';pCt 24. Hezekiah~"~"7:l 5. Egypt

lJ;l~i~ 25. Jonathan':~"!? Egyptian em: 26. Jeroboamem,. 6. Jerusalem 01'l1!i:J" 27. Absalom- , ,

• 'f·

i~"7. Aaron ,~28. Esau-s- " .,~:o 8. Philistine ~':'~29. Ahab..'.;'1!r(~ 9. Pharaoh 111~ 30. Canaan

L,." 10. Babylon'~I!~ Canaanite -?,,'l:"'~ II. Joshua C;J~~ 31. Jehoshaphat

(#)j:r;C 12. Jordan r-rtlN 32. Amorite:'wr.:! 13. Moab ""'~J33. Daniel

~~.N 14. EphraimCl~ 34. Chaldeans- ''''

~~ 15. Benjamin "j,,, 35. EleazarT, , ,....,~16. Zion\~~.~~ 36. Elijah' .

!:.,.~17. Aram ~'"l1';37. Bethel""~l'M 1.8. loab

j~ 38. Gad~"'i'1:i' 19. Jeremiah P''': 39. Reuben.. , ,. ~"o

1

;e)le ,te r ,

so,f thesown3. )

es,ey

Comments, p. 19A

LESSON 5

29. TIffi (INSEPARABLE 1 PREPOSITIONS ~, ::J, AND ';> •

These three prepositions are called "inseparable" because theyare inseparably attached to their objects to form a longer word.

Their _objects maybe sUbstantives of any kind (uSually nouns,but also fJpecial forms of pronouns, participles am the verbal nounsknownas "infini tiTe constructs"),

In the folloWing discussion, note that therecoize whether or not the word to which the real problem is to

re osition is attacheds tae1 de te or inde inite. Mores~ply,involved?The oral. and Visual cue to the definiteness of the object is thevocalization of the preposition.

is there an articl.e

--Whenattached to ANARTIiROUS words, the Vocalization is:(1) sometimesqames < '? <. '!) ::::l

or T T before an accented syllable (i.e'twhen '7.Jl is a near open syllable);(2) a reduoed Towel:

(a) simple shewa 3 before consonants with a fullvowel.(usually '7:J~is a distantopen syllabl.e);before consonants with a vocal

~ :~ shewa (because two successivevocal shewasare not pronounceabl.e);

--o,1)(L)'11':::1 before a word beginning with a yod. - ,. 'vooa1ized with a vooa1 shewa (this

(n">70-n» is really an extension of 2.b.); and' - r '.before a consonant vocalized withe.., ~ .::l a compoundshewa(really a speoial-: - ~:'; ,.:.,. case of 2.a},

~,,

(J)

(b) simple ahewaattenuatedto hireq

(c) phoneticallyChangedtohireq yod

a harmoniziJJgshort vowel

--Whenattached to ARTIaJLAR words, the vocal.ization .is: .~; ~,~. ~.which is the samevocalization as for the articl.e. _

E~sentiallY;' what happens is that two weak sounds are drop;;'d. For eXample, t~hamrn€1.egbecomes ~aJm1(Ue~, as the '21h- drops. This dropping of the weak 21h-sound is called"elision," in grammatical terminology.

30 , The Preposition )12 m.in.

( SUMMARY: THE PREPOSITION Jf,) min ~an be either separable or inseparable. It is i(1)

(2)

Sepa~le before articular words, regardless of the form of the article;-1t?

Inseparable before anarthrous words, and it takes the following forms:and

(a) The 6~nat nun assimilates .t::l

(b) Elision occurs 'I';l

(c) Compensatory Y.)Lengthening occurs

before regular consonants;

before yod vocalized with vocal shewa(min + Ifl' = mUjya* = mtl; and

before the laryngllals and /tel (6-(.nat IULncannot assimilate, so ~ lengthens to e).

Comments, p. 19B

31. The Comparative.Word Order. The first examPle gtVaD on p. 24'~s Dot likely to be correct sofar as word order is concerDelT.The Hebrew would more likely use"

either ..,',/1i1r.1'X'lTI D:Jn It).,,,,, ha'l~ \ll!\sBin hu' mehanna~ar___ •. TT T

or ,\!liJ~0'~~n~~ ~!I1sBm 1i8'18 mehann~'ar, though there is nota clear example an the Pentateuch: the lafter order does occur (e.g.Deut. 7:17; Gen. 49:12; 29:19), but in more complicated sentences thanthe student can handle at the present time. In Proverbs, the latter (alsogiven in the author's second example on p. 24)seems to be dominant, ifnot actually the only one, e.g. Provo 8:19; 12:9; 15:16, 17, etc. (Theambitious student may wish to check 8:19 "My fruit is better than gold,even fine gold,! and my yield than choice silver," found on p. 1164 ofthe Kittel edition of Biblia Hebraica.

More imnortant is to understand the difference between theFilling out the understoodilluminating:

second and the third examples on p. 24.words in the point of the comparison is

#2 The woman is more beautiful than the girl (is beautiful).

#3a The work is too hard for the man (to do it). orb The work is harder than the man (can<do).

It can now be seen that #3b is quite similar to #2, except thatthe item compared is different: #3 compares the ability (of the man)in relation to the difficulty of the subject (The work), but #2 comparesthe quality(beautifulness) of the first subject with the second (thewoman with the girl).

#2 is the way English expresses a comparison of quality betweentwo subjects, and

#3aiand .#3b are alternate ways in which English expresses acontrast between ability of a second subject and a quality of the first.

32. The Relative Word

Thewell by anysignificantwithou't it.

subject ofelementarydifference

the use of the relativeHebrew grammar, despitebetween a prepositional

'""Yword abet is not treatedthe fact that there is aphrase with >(fJ,eJt and one

IMPORTANT OBSERVATIONS#1 A prepositional phrase preceded by )Q.6eJt is a restrictive phrase.#2 A prepositional phrase without '>:'". . . .~~, 1S a non-restr1ctive phrase.

DeL Rest:ictive: The ~~den6~L~0~k their question to the teacher (who was)an the house ( eJt I.JU.tj-i!;) at the time. (No comma before "who":assumption-_more than one teacher- th', 1S One was available.)

Non-restrictive: The students took th 'e'r question to the teacher (Whowas) in the house (babbitjit) at the time. (Note the comma: ~nlyone teacher, and he happened to be in the house.)

DeL

OTJF:Sp,Co

---.....,.--------- ...........""""'.......,'""""""'":'"..,...,.........'"""'~~o--.======_~~-

t

I. RELATE WORDS TO THEIR COGNATES (words from the same root).A. Enflish cognates are infrequent, except in proper names,

wh ch may be of some help, if noticed, e.g."Jeho~a.Eha1" = the LORD jUdges: 13~~--to judge;"Natha!!iel" = God gives: 'l:J]~--togive;"Immanuel" = God is with us: ny--with- ."Sarah" = princess: 7l'W--princess, 'W--chieftain.~ -One problem which will be encountered is that,by the timea name reaches English from Hebrew via Greek and Latin,the consonants may have undergone some changes, e.g., ."Sabbath" o-/iAAQ rov T\~_ fV~ ~ T

"~l" ~,:O(). .,~~

"Lord .§.abaoth" ZOf~""'';6'ni>c.:l¥"Melchi~edek" Me)..x'((1'lSeK. n~-'~'?9and, as indicated in the last two examples, several Hebrewconsonants (primarily dentals, sibilants, and laryngeals)appear in IDorethan one equivalent in English derivatives.

B. Greek cognates occasionally will help, too, e.g.~f~tt. --a raised platform; tribunal: 7Tr.?*--highplace"'~v--Corban: 13..'1' -':"agift, and :l.'''1 --to come near--, r-o T. ,. - T

tn/".X'" --Passover: TIP$. --PassoverC. Hebrew cognates aid learning considerably, once a basic

group of words is known. For this reason, George M. Landeshas prepared A Student's Vocabulary of Biblic~l H~brew:Listed Accordin to Fre uenc and Co ate, wh~ch ~s muchto e cornmene or ~ncreas~ng one's vocabulary.

Since one usually learns a verb as the basic root, itis easiest to suggest that one relate nouns, adjectives andother words to verbal roots, by noting the following waysworde appear:1. Basic "segholate" patterns

(with penultimate stress for m.s.)(and an unaccented, closed first syllable for f.s.)

11.?--king -;'l~,?~--queen Tf':?r;--tobe king

"')~-o--book il'~ --book "')~~--to count,.:" ~: . (poetic) enumerate'7:>....~ -food i17:»l--food, .,::>~--to eat

TIT eating -T

OT502 IJFB and KWSHelps For Learning Hebrew Vocabulary ISpecial SupplementComments, p. 20A

The following is by no means exhaustive but it is hopedthat it will be found helpful to the beginne~, tr;ing to learnHebrew vocabulary words.

.nlso

t

es

t.

edaoe

Heb. Vocab.p. 20B

2 H(

2. Roots with two short vowels originally.(The m.s. will have two long vowels in vocab. form·whereas, the f.s. will have shewa and a long vowel~'77<..5 --spoil( s) ~"c.:> --to spoil

.,. "I" -..,.

fT'?>t0--request 7~t.>--to ask.,. u : -T

3. Roots with an unchangably long vowel after the first radical.,,~iJ--judge

"tJ'7iy--eterni ty..lH)W--to judge- ...

4. Roots with an unchangably long v. after the second radical.,'~3--firstborn

I

"·l':H.--boundary ';17 U,\.--boundary: T ~

~':l)--prophet illC':U --prophetess• .... .,. w:71l{·l.l.l--prophecy

\

Roots with a doubled middle radical (or equivalent)~~~--throneI~.v--blindri").~--deaf

'7:l·).--tobound,-T border

X:U--to prophesyT ..

5.

-ny--to-T

leiln --to-T

blindbe deaf

6. Roots with a preformativea. Mem (often of place or instrument)

71~'t')n--kingdomTT:-1] ij)n--place, locale..

i1~TT~\')--warT e- t •

~:;»)ln--food T\"'!>'It~--knife"t-~- .... _._" .

11.1 n n--camp'": ~-

:r~r:-to be kingD'li' --to stand1JTT~--to fight... .."=:l~--to eat- ..i1In --to camp II• T

b. Taw

inl'Tl--law..:H)i:F\--soj ourner..c. Aleph, He, Yodh,

ill' --to throw;TT teach

:JJc)·_-toreside- ..Nun, and Shin are used, but rarely.

7. Roots with a sufformative (other than just -ah)" Aa. -u! and -it form abstract from concrete nouns

1\'\ ::>~9--kingdQ; n~--kingn·l"IY.--testimony "~--wi tness ";,.l'Y-to testify

Heb , Vccab ,Comments,p. 200

~>~~1--begi~~ing Wi'--head

3

st radical,

,.,b. -i (mostly for nationality qr ordinals)

>7Y-iW>--Israelite, CrA'0'--Israel... , : . Israeli ...,., .'"l~n --Egyptian 't1'-1~I')--Egypt. : . .- ...~>"W--third 4,»)?iJ --three. .: ...

radical.

( ~ ,c. - n usually -on or -en)

W[~-the Most High

7";>1' --memorialT· ..,jl --to remember-.,."il7Y-to go upTT

3YIbn --pleasure i1~,--to be pleasedT .,..,.

l~{~--table

d. - m (mostly -am for forming adverbs))

l)~n--gratis, with-.,.. out reason

l~--grace

Uv.>"--by dayT

"O'i'--day

e. -1 occasionally

t., f.)""1 ::>--Carmel(= ?~ ,- orchardland)

~ll-r?--vineyard

8. Roots from the same original root or related roots

j1Vl'--to cry out pVS--to cry out-.,. -...~i"--good ::l'" and 1.I7'--to be good-T

II. LEARNWORDSIN CATAGORIESsuch as

A. Homonyms(indicated by a footnote system in Landes' Vocab.)

iWi -evil N'>Iy"' ).,.T

i1Y' --to shepherd.. .,.

rely.

::::l'"')-strife

-~--with

:::L.» --to strive

-J"\~-def. direct obj. marker

B. Near-homonyms(to the English ear: "Ie; l]/k/q)

"il)("l-to see"'T

"il\n -to shepherd......~'i'-voice?D--all

c. Synonyms

.lnD--to write (~~--scribe)"\1\lT--to count ('9t)--scribe)-or

READ WRITE- Going through the mechanics of eye-movement han -movemen , vocalizing, and listening aidslearning,so keep ~cratch paper handy to write out a word twenty times (ifneed be) and study aloud some of the time.CONCEPTUALIZE DOODLE ACTUALIZE: Create a mental picture,a stic - igure scene, or go ough the motion (if a verb).One of the cleverest diagrams of Greek prepositions showednamed mice in relation to a piece of cheese! Draw a stickfigure or label a picture, e.g. parts of the body, items in ascene, etc.VOCABULARY CARDS. Studying words, sometimes aloud, in briefunits of time is advantageous. Divide into levels of difficultyand review differently: (1) mastered--review weekly at first,monthly later; (2) almost learned--review bi-weekly; (3)active review--review daily; and (4) new words--review threetimes per day at least (vocabulary break time from other work).

VI. ASSOCIATE the oral vocabular~ word with some English word, phrase,pun, etc. E.g. II'Y (a rackJ--to arrange, set in order •.\ - ..To this point, consideration has been given primarily to begin-

ning the process of learning vocabulary words. The following sug-gestions may help you retain them.

III.

IV.

Heb. Vocab.20D

4

D. Antonyms:l)'O--good ~1.--bad; "0Y --rich.... ?:!:--poor

V.

1. READ THE HEBREW BIBLE. The more you do this the easier it gets.Guess words from their context and/or cognates. Look up as fewas possible. Don't be afraid to do this in parallel with yourEnglish Bible: attempt the Hebrew, read the English, reworkthe Hebrew; a non-idiomatic translation such as ASV is bestfor this purpose. (Do not confuse this with exegesis!)

II. MARK YOUR LEXICON, vocabulary list, or word list to indicatewords which you have had to look up before, either because youdid not know or remember the meaning, or because a special nuancewas involved. Indicate where you first encountered the word.Then, later, you can come back to the lexicon notice that the~ord.had given yOu ~roblems before, and revie~ the passage where1t flrst oame up. (Make a Vocab. card, if it is warranted.)

III. yrnNORIZEA FEW I~WORTANT VERSES: even doing one per week willdo wonders for your Hebrew vocabular,y knowledge of syntax,and retention of your Hebrew skills. '

r

(

N.B.(halem)

,f

Comments, p , 21 (There il!l no "p , 20" d.a~ing wi1;h Lea.on 6.)

LESSON 7

37. Predication of Existence

Be sure you understand the two common uses of "therell inEnglish.

(1) In clauses in which the real subject follows theverb of the clause, e.g.

There is a man. There is not a man.

(2) As an adverb of place, e.g.

The man is (bve~) there. The man is not (over) there.

There's the man!

Quite 9bviously, the second use above corresponds to theHebrew word~"(over) there, in that place." but what does thefirst use of English ''there''correspond to in Hebrew'?

The Hebrew equivalent to "There is a man" is a sentencewithout a verb, e.g.

(IA)or, more usually,

There is a man in the house.A man is in the house.

The Hebrewequivalent to "There is a man" (wnich predicatesexistence) and to "There isn't a man" (which predicates non-existence) is a sentence with the quasi-verbal words £6~. ~ )~, e.g.

(IB) There is a manin the house.

There isn't a man in the house.

Another Hebrew equivalent to "A man is in the house" isformed with the verb "to be" and will be explained later (Par. 61).

What is important to see in this connection is that thewords "There is a man" or "There is not a rp.an"have two differentuses in English, depending upon the vocal intonation, w~ich isdifficult to represent in printed form, except perhaps 1n thecase of (lB) by underlining the verb.

N.B.(holem)

38. The Inseparable Prepositions and~~ with Pronominal Suffixes.

First, notice the alternative forms given for three ofthe third plural forms. To remember them, you could add them asalternatives to the paradigms., Second, notice that the def. dir. obj. sign uses the formn"x, except in the forms with two consonants as suffix--2mp,2fp,(and alternative 3mp, 3fp).