ow WA oN © ISRAEL BIBLE CENTER © “Puna ji9n 7xAwW'r © ISRAEL BIBLE CENTER © BIBLICAL HEBREW: FIRST STEPS Step One: Hebrew Letters ay. Hey Daiet Gime Bet Alef Each Hebrew letter has a proper name. It is shown in cursive above the character on the Alphabet, chart. The letter Bet makes 2 “B” sound as in the English word “BALL”. Please note letter B in BALL is bolded and underlined on the chart to point to the sound in focus. The word BALL under the Hebrew character merely provides an analogy of sound to the Hebrew letter Bet by providing an English word example. ‘Some Hebrew letters like Bet have a dot inside them. But sometimes you will see this same letter without a dot. You will learn about this in a later slide.ay. Hey Gime Bet Alef More About Letters Some Hebrew letters look different when they appear as the last letter in a word. These 5 Hebrew letters have a “regular form” (on the right) and a “final form” (on the left). Both forms of each letter have the same sound, but when these letters come last in a Hebrew word their final forms are used. Notice how this word begins with Mem (on the right) and ends with Mem (on the left). The closing letter Mem looks different.‘Some Hebrew letters have a dot inside them. Its called - Dagesh. The letters with and without the Dagesh sound different. The Dagesh marker can appear in final letter forms as well, so both forms are shown in this chart. Pey Chaf_—‘Kaf Vet Bet jp ap ID 23 FLY PLAY HARD KING VOICE BAIL There is a letter in the alphabet (almost at the end) that has three branches. It has two variations that make two similar sounds. The first is called Sin and it makes the sound “S” as in “SOCK”. The other makes the sound “SH” asin “SHOCK” and is called Shin. The only visible difference is a dot which appears on the right or on the left branch of this three- pronged letter. Shin Sin Vv WwW SHOCK SOCK So, lets clarify... f the dot is on the right itis Shin ~ SH sound, on the left its Sin ~S sound. This can stil be confusing... An easy way to remember how the location of dots affects the sound is a phrase - “sin is never right”. TW" yaw This short phrase demonstrates both letters in action. You may not be ready to read yet, but you can notice the difference between the characters. Let’s begin getting used to the idea of Sin and Shin. Ignore the markings below the letters for now. You will learn about them later. Observe that the first word begins with a Shin (the dot is on the right branch). In the second word, the second letter is Sin (the dot is on the left branch}, BIBLICAL HEBREW: FIRST STEPS Reading Confusing Letters There are several letters in Hebrew which are very easy to confuse at first glance. This could be a challenge in memorizing and recognizing letters.These are Bet, Nun, Kaf and Pey: Dja|Ij2 The next set of letters are Dalet, Resh, Vav, Yod, Zayn, final Nun and final Kaf: Wikphals Consider the Mem (first letter from the right), final Mem, Samek and Tet: vjo|o|r Next are Hey, Chet and Tav: ninja ‘And last are Ayin and Tzadeh: x|v You have just been introduced to Hebrew letters, the Alphabet. These were the consonants. You have not learned the vowels yet. That will be in the next step. But you can already begin to read simple words, even if you know only one vowel. Hebrew vowels are not like letters. They are marks that go below, above or inside the letters. The two horizontal dots under the first letter in each word is the vowel “EH”. From right to left pronounce the letter sound and then the vowel and then the next letter sound. a “rnp aia-999 Nery WTPATRY haa fy V9WNA Wha RAwrAA Tiny ny PDX XY! “Raron shall carry the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgment over his heart when he enters the holy place, for a memorial before the LORD continually. (Ex. 28:29 NASB)7 1. Learn the shapes and the names of Hebrew letters along with the sounds they make. ‘Memorize the letters in order by name and be able to correlate the names to corresponding sounds. 3. Write out the entire Hebrew alphabet from memory (in order) and add the names to each character. Move on to the Second Step only when you have completed these objectives and thoroughly mastered the Alphabet. Do not skip this step! BIBLICAL HEBREW: FIRST STEPS Step Two: The Vowels ‘The next step in learning how to read Hebrew is to master the vowels. Hebrew vowels are not, technically part of the Alphabet and are not even letters but special marks, so they have to be learned separately. Their sounds are the same as in many other languages ~ a, e, i, 0, u. The vowel ‘marks used in Hebrew today are called nikkudot. Vowels were designed by Jewish scribes between the 6th and 10th centuries CE, long after the Hebrew Bible was written, The lines and dots which are placed under, over and inside Hebrew letters were designed to avoid adding extra letters to the Holy Scriptures. This chart uses the letter Alef as a sample letter, but the vowels sound the same with other letters. Note that most vowel marks appear as dots and lines under the letters. Some dots appear on top of the letters and others are inside: Chetgf-Segol/ Segoli Tzere Chat Patach/ Pexach / Kematz NNR RRS EH as in EPIC AH as in ART (elem! Che. Chirig) Chri Tod XUN NON OH as in OPEN EE as inEAT ‘Siva Nach’ Shwa Na Libbue=/ ShurukChatef-Patach/Patach / Kamat: ‘There is more than one vowel mark that makes an AH NX NN sound in Hebrew. Kamatz is along AH as in “Alarm” - T Patach is short as in “Arch” and Chataf-Patach is a very short AH sound as in “Art”. A asin ART Chataf-Segol/Segol / Tsere ‘The same is with EH sound in Hebrew. Tsere makes a long x x x EH as in “Ever”, Segol is short as “End” and Chataf-Segol is, . very short variation of the same sound. EHas in EPIC There are two vowel marks that make an EE sound in Hebrew. Chiriq-Yod is long as in the English word “Image” and Chirig is a short EE sound as in “Ink” Similarly, there are two OH sounds. The Cholem-Vav is a long OH as in “Ocean” and Cholem is short asin “Old” Cholem / Cholem-Vav Chirig / Chirig Yoda XIN XN ON OH as in OPEN EE asin EAT There are two vowel marks that make a U sound in Hebrew. Shuruk is long and Kibbutz is short. The last mark on the vowel chart is called Shva. In some cases, it sounds as EH and in other cases it is silent. It is not a full vowel and will be explained in detail shortly. ‘Shva Nach /Shva Na Kibbutz /Shuruk X X os EH as in SET / Silent Uasin PUTCheap Segol! Segal! Tiere Chota Patach/ Patach / Kamotz ¥XN AH as in ART. Cholem/ CholemTav Chiiq/ Chir Tod i NIN KON (OH as in OPEN EE as in EAT Siva Nach ShrvaNa Though ancient Hebrew did not have special characters to represent vowels, the vowels were always there. Words cannot be pronounced without vowels. Try to imagine how the Hebrew Bible would look written in consonants alone. In English it would look something like this - “Thn Gd sd, It thr b ght nd thr ws ight. (Gen. 1:3) ‘As Hebrew language changed and developed over centuries several consonants like X-1-1+ (Alef, Hey, Vay, Yod) were used as em kriyah - “mother of reading” or “helping letters” to designate certain vowel sounds phonetically. All together there are only five basic vowel sounds resembling — a, e, i, 0, u. But the four “helping letters” n-n-1+ (Alef, Hey, Vav, Yod) often combine with nikudot (the special vowel marks) and make new blended sounds. You have already encountered some of such composite vowels. The examples that include a Vowel#Vod are: 72 (ai) “2 (ehy) °2 (ey) “2 (ee) Other popular combinations include a Vowel+Hey: 72 (oh) There are some longer combinations as well. This is a good moment to practice what you have already learned. Let’s try reading a couple of short words together!aip Starting from right to left the first letter Tet — T sound. Next comes Vav with a dot on top ~ Cholem. Vav—OH sound. And the last letter is Bet, but it has no Dagesh, no dot inside, so it sounds like V. The three sounds together make TOV. It means “good” in Hebrew. Try another word. First comes Resh - R sound. Under Resh is Patach — AH sound, Always read the consonant first and than move on to the vowel. Ayin is a silent letter, so no sound. Thus, we have the word RAH. It means “bad”, “wicked” or “evil” in Hebrew. v1 When King Solomon asked God for wisdom in 1 Kings 3:9, he asked that the LORD would give him an ability to determine the difference to judge “between good and bad” yy? riv-y'2. “between good and bad” Ironically, the knowledge of good and evil is exactly what enticed Eve to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit in the garden. That same knowledge of good and evil led God to expel Adam and Eve from the garden. The tree of life which could give them life for an indefinite length of time also grew in the garden. God did not want them to eat f rom it, so he exiled them from the garden. BIBLICAL HEBRE\ Reading the Shva The Shva is a special mark that looks like two vertical dots or a semicolon under a iva letter. This example uses Alef but it can be any consonant. The special mark is not a vowel but acts like @ vowel and some like to call ita “half vowel”. All words X are combinations of consonants and vowels. They can be broken up into units Eltasia Ser called syllables. Each syllable must have at least one vowel sound to be proper or SILENT s¥llable. The Shva, whether silent or vocal, fulfils the role of a vowel that every syllable needs. The Shva is pronounced only when it needs to stand in for a real vowel in a syllable, when the actual vowel is not there, Shva Na sounds like a hurried “EH” in English word "SET". Shva Nach is silent. When a real vowel is present in a syllable, even if Shva appears in that same syllable, it has no need to be vocalized and therefore it is silent.Look at this example... Studying the Hebrew vowel system you already St Final noticed that Shva can be clustered together with another vowel under a NNN letter. In such cases the Shva is always silent and the real vowel is OR pronounced as a short sound in that syllable. PRONOUNCE, THE VOWEL ONLY ‘IN Take the Hebrew pronoun “I am”. If you look at the first letter Alef, underneath it you will notice a Shva and a Patach clustered together. This combination is called Chataf-Patach. The presence of Patach means that the Shva will not make any sound, but it will shorten the vowel. So, the Shva is, silent and the word reads as AH-NEE. ny “he will build” Now look at another example... Notice that there is a Shva Nach under the 2nd letter - Bet. You don’t yet know how to determine which Shva it is, but Shva Nach is silent. It simply marks the end of the first syllable. Pause the video right now and try reading the word yourself. Here is a phrase you saw at the beginning of this course when you studied Sin and Shin. You now know consonants, vowels and Shva, and can try to read it. Notice that the first letter of the first word has Shva Na and the second letter in the second word has Shva Nach. URW! yaw “Hear, O Israel” Pause the video and see if you can sound out these words by yourself. Then resume the video to check your reading skills against the explanation, TNX DIANA AN TRV! ynw Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! (Deut. 6:4) The rules that determine whether the Shva is silent or not can get somewhat complicated. They can wait until after you acquire solid reading skills. For now, let's keep it simple and just consider how the Shva fits into the syllables. If it needs to stand in for a vowel which is not there, it is pronounced as EH. Otherwise, itis silent.BIBLICAL HEBREW: FIRST STEPS Two Kinds of Dagesh There is a special group of six Hebrew letters aa 73 9 7 (Bet, Gimel, Dalet, Kaf, Pey, Tav) that can have a special dot inside them called a Dagesh. You have already noticed them in the Alphabet. Some like to call this group begadkephat letters, an acrostic name, listing the consonant sounds in order. The name is a memory device. You already know that the presence or the absence of the Dagesh can change the way these letters are pronounced. The first Hebrew words we read were [a (ben) “son” and 2° (lev) “heart” in Step One. You saw that letter Bet with and without Dagesh makes different sounds. Pey Chaf af Vet Bet ae WE PLAY HARD KING VOICE BAIL Look at the chart and remember the pronunciation variations. Without the Dagesh these same letters sound a little different. But there are two kinds of Dagesh marks in Hebrew. This one, which you have already encountered is called Dagesh Qal. Dagesh Qal appears exclusively in five begadkephat letters changing their sound. The second variety is Dagesh Chazak which can occur in all Hebrew letters with the exception of xin y (Alef, Hey, Chet, yin) and 1 (Resh). These letters cannot accommodate a Dagesh marker. Unlike the Dagesh Qal you may remember, Dagesh Chazak does not affect the sound so dramatically. It simply doubles the sound. Ginet For example, the letter Gimel hasa simple G sound. With Dagesh Chazak it x sounds similar to “GG” and is pronounced like the English word "EGG". ‘with Dagesh Chacak anyon Let's look at Dagesh in action. The Ast letter of this word has a Dagesh Qal and a Shva Na - a vocal Shva. The 3rd letter has a Dagesh Chazak which stresses the Lamed. The letter Hey on the end is silent. In this case it is one of those helping or em kriyah letters combined with the vowel Kamatz to create a blended vowel. Pause the video now and try to read the word on your own. 10ayen This Hebrew word means “prayer”, “plea”, “request”, “supplication”, “petition” and “intercession” descriptions is this one - “May my prayer be counted as incense before You; The lifting up of my Temple. 1. Learn the shapes and the names of the Hebrew vowel marks along with the sounds they make, 2. Go over the rules about the two kinds of Shva and the two kinds of Dagesh. 3. Go over the examples and words provided in this section and make sure you understand why they sound the way they do. 4, Repeat previous sections, if necessary. Move on to the Third Step only when you have completed these objectives and thoroughly mastered the Vowels. Do not skip this step! BIBLICAL HEBRE\ : FIRST STEPS Step Three: Reading Reading is combining consonants with vowels and pronouncing them together. You have done this, before. This is a simple exercise to check your skills. Pause the video and read the word on your own. Then Resume the video and hear step-by-step explanations and check yourself. aT Ifyou are ready for longer words, you can skip to the next video. Or you can keep practicing some more words and build up your reading skill A simple rule to remember: When a word ends with letters Alef, Ayin or Hey and there is no vowel marker under those letters — the consonants are not pronounced, Hey in this case is one of special helping letters. ARY ready to read longer words you can skip to the next section. If not, a couple more words are coming up for further practice. 11Here is another exercise word. Do not forget about the final forms. Pause the video now and read this word on your own. Then resume the video and check how you did, o This word has three consonants and two identical vowels. Pause and sound it out on your own. Then resume the video and check yourself. YIN BIBLICAL HEBREW: FIRST STEPS Reading in Syllables The basic reading process is: 1. Read the consonant (one of the alphabet letters) 2. Read the vowel (a mark below, above or in the middle of a letter). 3, Move to the next consonant and look for another vowel. Itis time to stop reading one sound at a time and to begin reading in syllable units. 2 1 ‘There are two kinds of syllables: opened and closed. Opened syllables will end with a vowel or 2 Shva Na ## isan opened syllable. # 2 is a closed syllable. Closed syllables end with another consonant or Shva Nach, T A proper syllable will have at least one vowel or a Shva. There are no syllables made up of consonants alone. “one” The syllables are numbered to help you read in units and not one sound at a time. The divider shows the breaks. Reading in syllables is much faster. When the syllables are blended correctly the words become recognizable to those who hear them. Pause the video right now and try reading this word in, syllable sections on your own. Then resume and check how you did, 3 2: 1 5 4 Oxy volw “Hear, O Israel” 1272 -nPoIR DP AIRY Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You (Ps. 16:1) Only practice will give you the skills of reading well. As before, this phrase is broken into syllables. Do not read words one sound at a time! Read them syllable by syllable by blending the combinations of consonants and vowels together. Use the lines and spaces as breaking points. Pause now, try reading it yourself, and resume when ready. aralg-72 *nla|to mys “alas You are my Lord; have no good besides You (Ps. 16:2) If you are having trouble or feel like you need some help, do not hesitate to backtrack and revisit the previous steps. Go ahead, pause and read this phrase. Resume and check yourself. Follow the step- by-step syllable explanations if you still need more guidance. Then read the second line with no special breaks. BIBLICAL HEBRE\ IRST STEPS. Reading God's Name God has many names in the Hebrew Bible. But one name is very special. It reveals God's nature in a very multi-faceted way. In Jewish tradition it is considered to be most holy and therefore never fully pronounced. You may see it spelled with or without vowels in Hebrew Bibles. Even if the vowels are present, they are not pronounced because they are not original to this name, i? mint see this nin . Some pronounce it as Yahweh and others use the letters YHWH, The issue is that the TU TFT? consonants ovina as they appear in Torah scroll, but the vowels used in the shis biblical texts come from another Hebrew word: ‘77x (Adonai) “LORD”. Ancient scribes put artificial vowels into God’s name on purpose. The goal was to remind the readers to not pronounce the holy name but to substitute it with Adonai or to simply say this say Hashem “The Name”. The vowels were meant to be only a hint but not everyone 5 knew that. Sounding out the vowels some Christian Bibles actually pronounced the ITN name and arrived at Jehovah, 13Occasionally the term Adonai “Lord” or “Master” is used in conjunction with God's special name in the Bible, er Since Adonai is the usual substitute for YHWH in Hebrew what should be done? Instead of saying ‘Adonai twice in a row Jewish tradition is to say Adonai Elohim ~ “LORD God” - "For You are my hope; Lord GOD, you are my confidence from my youth.” (Ps. 71:5) BIBLICAL HEBREW: IRST STEPS, Reading and Punctuation You should be able to read practically anything in Biblical Hebrew now! What is left are a few exceptions to the rules. All languages have exceptions. As you read further, you will be introduced to a few common exceptions and even some light translation. Of course, to translate competently one has to memorize words and build up a vocabulary. Another component to translation is the knowledge of grammar rules, but this is outside the scope of this FIRST STEPS course, You have just learned about reading God’s name. It’s time to practice. Go ahead and pause the video and read three words of this sentence on you own. Jay Nona WAWY '"NY-TY NiNAY ONY AID! © LORD God of hosts, how long will You be angry with the prayer of Your people? (Ps 80:4/5) TINQY ODN AIA! This name of God confuses people because it is hard to translate to English. Some Bibles say “LORD Sabaoth” The first word we read as Adonai thus - LORD in English. The second word is a generic word for deity or pagan gods, or a mighty powerful being(s), sometimes angels and sometimes even humans. NINQY DIX AIA" The third word xqy means an “army” “force” “host” (as in a large group) or “warfare”. So, a better translation would be “LORD of Hosts” or “Lord of Armies”. It may be strange for some to think of God as a military commander, but this is the sense and idea which Hebrew communicates - God who commands multitudes. The next two words in the sentence have a dash connecting them. It is called a Makef. It makes no sound, but functions like a hyphen in English. Makef connects words into a phrase and they should not be broken up. Go ahead, pause, read the next two words and then resume the video, 14M-TY NINQY DD O LORD God of hosts, how long will You be angry with the prayer of Your people? (Ps. 80:4/5) Biblical Hebrew has no quotation marks, no commas, nor even question marks. Texts with vowels have periods when sentences come to an end. A period is called Sof Pasuk (end of a passage). Sof Pasuk looks like a semicolon at the very end of the sentence. Pause and read the last line now! JAY N79NaA AWY 'NN-TY NINIY DR DIN" ‘© LORD God of hosts, how long will You be angry with the prayer of Your people? (Ps. 80:4/5) This last phrase shows you how picturesque Hebrew can be. The second word in this phrase you already know ~ “prayer”. It was the last word we looked at in Step Two. The third word is oy “people” with a possessive ending "yours” attached, so “your people” But the first word, though translated as “angry” is actually a Hebrew idiom. JAY N79na Nwy This verb nyWiy is not simply saying that God is upset. It should be translated as “smoking or burning with anger”. It is connected to the noun |wiy “smoke”. So, this is a vivid picture of God being so angry that he is “smoking” and “burning”. This is similar to the English idiom “to boil with anger”, except in Hebrew it is “to smoke with anger”. ‘As you now read over these words you notice that this is a prayer asking for God to avert his anger. He is a merciful God. How long can he stay angry and not answer the prayers of his people? Yes, they are guilty. Yes, they have sinned. But God accepts repentance. So, help people return, LORD! say N79N2 AIWY 'NN-T NiNAY D'D'7N AI" © LORD God of hosts, how long will You be angry with the prayer of Your people? (Ps. 80:4/5) BIBLICAL HEBREW: FIRST STEPS When AH Breaks the Rules Kamatz and Patach are two vowels that make an AH sound. Sometimes they break the normal rules. When reading, the consonant is always pronounced first and then the vowel. But Patach does something unusual when it appears under Chet, Ayin and Hey at the very end of a word. The Patach jumps its turn and rushes ahead. This is called Patach Gnuvah or a Patach which literally “steals” a place from another letter. This happens only at the end of words. Look at this example illustrating Patach Gnuvah: 15,ni “Noah” Noah means “rest” “relief” or “respite” in Hebrew. Normally one would read the second syllable as Chet first and then the Patach. But this is a Patach Gnuvah, so it rushes ahead of Chet and “steals” its, proper place. = *3 Look at the first example. You already know that when Shva joins Patach nothing 4» drastic happens. The AH sounds becomes shorter ~ Chataf Patach. SSX) sur when the same occurs with Kamatz, it becomes an OH sound rather than AH. The "Fi Chataf Kamatz is always pronounced as OH. Usually Kamatz makes an “AH” sound, But when Kamatz occurs in a closed and unaccented syllable it is called Kamatz Katan and is pronounced as OH. anan “wisdom” Accents, or where exactly the words are stressed, are hard to know at this stage of learning Hebrew. It is most common for Hebrew words to be stressed on the last syllable, And identifying a closed syllable is not very hard. Read the first line of this sentence and note that the first vowel is Kamatz Katan (small kamatz) which sounds as OH and not AH. Pause the video now and try it [pn nianj2 AID yina ningn Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square (Prov. 1:20). agin yina ninan The first word means “wisdom”, and in this sentence itis plural. The second word means “outside” or “outdoors”. And the last word in this phrase is a verb 12) which can mean “to make a happy noise” “to exclaim”, “to sing joyfully”. Before reading the second part of the sentence, look at the last word and at the last letter, just. before the Sof Pasuk, It looks like Hey has a Dagesh. But it is not a Dagesh, Hey is one of those letters which cannot have a Dagesh. This dot is called Mapiq. It indicates a feminine ending of the word. The subject - “wisdom” nnan is a word of feminine gender and other words related to the subject adjust their gender accordingly. 167 AN nian} AN yina ninzn Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square (Prov. 1:20), This is exciting! You are reading entire sentences now. If you are struggling right now and something is still missing repeat the previous steps. Pause the video now, read on your own, then resume and check how well you read, wn Congrats! ‘You completed the FIRST STEPS in Biblical Hebrew. 7