Customer Reviews

The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you want to study the Hebrew scriptures and want quick access to the words you are not familiar with, this is the book! The Hebrew font is not the best, however very good. on a 1-10, I'd say a 9. This is not coined to Strong's. Which means it would only be helpful to a serious Bible student, with at least a knowledge of the Heberew alphabet. For those, the Strong's just gets in the way anyhow. The front of the book has an extensive section explaining in detail, the different aspect of Hebrew grammar. An excellent refresher, or foundation to anyone studying Biblical Hebrew. Each word listing also has the three letter root word listed on the reverse side of the page. Very convenient. It is a very beautifully bound book, very affordable, and very informative. Definately a great buy. I am a Hebrew student attempting to master the Scriptures, and I need to look no further for an excellent Hebrew lexicon.

When it comes to Lexicons this is the only one I will use, or suggest to others. This text makes it so easy to first find a word, then investigate the shoresh. The style of having the word on the left and having the shoresh on the right, which the reader can go and look up works perfectly for me. I learned most of my Biblical Hebrew from using this Lexicon alone. The areas of the book that may be a little hard to read are the grammer elements. I used other books for the grammer of Biblical Hebrew, but that did not take away from the value of this Lexicon. I will say that this Lexicon is for a somewhat seasoned veteran of the Hebrew language, but once you get the hang of how it works it is perfect.

This is a top-notch biblical reference and a must-have for your language shelf. Obviously, you don't want to become too dependent on it; but it can certainly get you out of a bind when you are stuck in a corner.

A standard lexicon can give the word's meaning but to translate a phrase or a verse, this book is necessary, unless one is advanced in Hebrew (or Greek for the Greek scriptures). Although scholars sometimes frown on these books, not everyone has what it takes to be able to read grammar from memory, but still want to be able to check the original language, & not have to rely solely on translations. As good as most of them are, they can't always give all the meaning of the original. Also being able to read the original words is a good way to check on the translations (in places I have seen some really blow it.)

Of course it must be remembered that a book like this will not make one a scholar. It will still take work to read the original & even then the result sometimes just doesn't appear to "fit". However like a Greek scholar said some years ago, there are treasures in the original languages that await the student who takes the pains to "mine" them.

One final thing about this particular book. Unless your eyes are young, get ready to invest in a stronger set of reading glasses. The print is VERY! small.

05-29-2010
A good companion book for the student to have is; The Complete Word Study Old
testament.KJV. This volume has a code above the words so you can see @ a glance
what the word is, such as, QPTA means that the verb is a Qal Participle Active, etc.
There isn't as much information in this volume as in the Analytical lexicon, but
for someone just needing a quick reference, it is much faster. This volume is only
in the KJV. An ASV might have been a bit better, but KJV is what's available.

The format of how this book presents its material is genius! The grammatical paradigms that precede the lexicon section are succinct, intelligently methodical and impressive in content (though it is designed and best used as a reference). Every Hebrew and Aramaic word (just as it appears in the Tanakh) is listed in alphabetical order--you don't need to figure out what the root word is in order to look it up; it will identify it for you. And the words are analytically and unmercifully attacked with awesome precision (root, proper meaning, metaphoric meanings, gender, conjugation, case, etc.). At the bottom of the page, you are given the scriptures where the words can be found. If you are a student of biblical Hebrew, this is a helpful companion. I subtracted one star because the font size is rather small, but don't let that deter you from this fine work. --Beautiful outer-book design (similar to the publisher's Septuagint edition)

If you are seriously working to translate an ancient foreign language, an analytical lexicon is a godsend. Instead of you wracking your brain to remember which obscure tense and verb stem you are looking at (or deciding whether or not you are looking at a verb at all), you can consult your analytical lexicon, which tells all.
This book is from the long lost days of British biblical scholarship, being first published in 1850. However, first, Benjamin Davidson remains one of the great names in the study of ancient Hebrew, and secondly, what we know about ancient Hebrew has changed very little, so its lack of modernity is no handicap.
I heartily recommend it to the serous student, scholar, and would-be translator.

I am showing my age here, but my copy of this dictionary fell apart from use before Amazon.com was founded. But because I used it so heavily, I am almost never stumped by a form when reading the Hebrew text today.

If I were a teacher, this would be a required text to buy. I would rather have my students using a text like this and actually reading the Hebrew Bible, than get frustrated and stop reading the Bible in Hebrew.

Minuses:
* Yes, the text is small. Get good lighting. Even when I was in college I had trouble focussing on small text when under fluorescent lights, and still do. Either get good incandescent lights or full-spectrum fluorescent lights.
* Dated, lists the forms according to an outdated understanding of Biblical Hebrew grammar. That grammatical understanding may have been correct for Tiberian Hebrew, but not Biblical Hebrew. But it is easy to understand the outdated terminology to get the true meaning.
* Follows the Masoretic points. The Masoretic points are not always correct even for meaning, not counting that there is no question that they do not represent the pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew when it was spoken by people before the Babylonian Exile.
* Sometimes lists the wrong forms and roots for words, based on Masoretic points that are wrong.
* Sometimes the definitions for words are not quite on, but usually close enough for beginning students.
* Sometimes the relationship between root and derivative are tenuous at best.

Plusses:
* Lists every word by every form in alphabetical order.
* Lists the root from which every word is derived. Looking at the root and other words derived from the same root can often give a deeper understanding of the meaning of words.

While I have listed fewer plusses, their value far outweigh the more numerous minuses, making this lexicon a must have for students of the language.

While this lexicon could be improved by updating it, even as it stands, it is an invaluable aid to the beginning student trying to read the Hebrew Bible.

Improvements that I would make include listing the forms without the Masoretic points such as found at Qumran, don't call forms by incorrect grammatical names based on modern usage, list synonyms and sometimes antonyms, list word meanings based on actions rather than according to semantic domains, based on reading the Hebrew Bible through multiple times and usage of words as they are found in the Bible rather than how they are translated. Goals for an update of an already excellent lexicon.

Like many pastors I have all the whiz-bang computer programs needed to do a careful study of the Hebrew text before preparing the sermon for Sunday. With a few touches of the buttons on the keypad--all the secrets of the text are laid before me on the computer screen... But what does one do when one is not at the computer, or you have traveled out of town, or the power is out? How does one proceed then? Davidson's book is old, dated, the print is not easy to read, and then there is the time element--it seems so slow to look up the words and to find the grammatical information, ugh!! Especially when one is used to having it at the tips of one's fingertips on the computer. But I belong to he generation that used to do things prior to the computer! I know, I know I'm old--I learned to type on a manual typewriter banging away on the keys and getting the white-out from the desk top when a mistake was made!!! Times have changed. But do not overlook this book. It is worth having on the shelf, particularly when one needs the lexical information and the computer is not available, or when one is at the beach, or so on. Then this book becomes a must have!!!! This is certainly "old-stying" it as they say, but sometimes old-styling is well worth it!! Buy the book, use the book, enjoy the book.

It came so quickly, even though I'm from Brasil!
Great purchase! Surely it is the first of many other things I'm gonna buy from Amazon!

Very useful. Every word is included in the Lexicon just as it appears
in the Hebrew (Chaldee) old Testament. The meaning and grammatical
explanation of the word are provided. This gives a feeling of surety
when you get doubtful.

I had acquired an Analytical Lexicon for the New Testament (Greek - English).
It helped me much and I was wandering if there was such an Analytical Lexicon
for the Old Testament. It appeared that there was!