Customer Reviews

Reader's Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament, A

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With a minimum knowledge of Hebrew grammar, this book makes it possible to experience reading the Hebrew Bible (a.k.a. the Old Testatment) in its original language. It lists every word of the Hebrew Bible which appears less than 50 times in chapter and verse order with definition and page reference to the Brown, Driver & Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon for detail explanation of that word. In an Appendix is listed all words appearing more than 50 times -- and that list is only about 1000 words. So with a basic understanding of Hebrew grammar, and the acquisition of a vocabulary of 1000 words it becomes possible to read and enjoy the Bible in Hebrew. This book is for everyone--Christian, Jew or whatever--who enjoys reading the Bible, this books opens the way to a glorious experience.

This is an excellent book in a convenient size, that enables a beginning Biblical Hebrew student to read the Scriptures. You can't entirely rely on this volume if you are serious about studying Hebrew, but it makes a much more accessible alternative to the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon. As the other reviewers have pointed out, the helpful glossary in the back will give you all the most common (50 times or more) Hebrew words, ones that you should begin to memorize. the bulk of the book is goes through the Old Testament verse by verse and gives extra help on rare and difficult words. You obviously will need to know your grammar before you can use this book, but for those who have studied it but aren't completely solid, the book will make an excellent refresher as you use it to read the bible. This book is well worth the money to add to your library.

This is a great tool for allowing the reader to "plough through" passages of the Hebrew OT quickly. What this book does is list every word in the Hebrew OT that occurs less than 50 times along with a simple definition. The book is arranged by verse order, just like the Hebrew OT, so finding verses is not a problem.

The only caveat I offer on this recommendation is that this book is utterly useless to individuals who have NOT kept up with their Hebrew vocabulary memorization. In other words, if you do not know all the words that occur MORE than 50 times, you'll wind up consulting a lexicon no matter what, so picking up a standard lexicon would probably be more cost-effective for you than buying a lexicon AND this book. If you are an intermediate to advanced reader of BH, who has kept up on vocabulary memorization, this is a valuable tool. By the way, one has to memorize the top 600+ frequently ocurring words in BH in order for this book to fill in the gaps.

This volume is definitely a good expenditure for those who desire to read the Bible in Hebrew but have not yet been able to read the Tanach completely for themselves. All Hebrew students are expected to memorize all words used 50 times or more in the Old Testament (those who are not willing to do rote memorization shouldn't bother trying to learn any language). These words are provided with their meanings in an appendix. One can begin their memorization right away.

All other words (those occuring less than 50 times) are given, printed every time they occur, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, in the order of the Old Testament books, chapters, and verses (sort of like reading the Bible vertically rather than horizontally). The verbs are given in their particular stem form for each occurrence. In addition, the number of occurrences of the words for the particular book and for the entire OT are given; for verbs, the number occurrences of the particular stem currently found in a verse are given for the whole OT.

What I think is especially good about this volume is that it forces the student to learn much of the Hebrew vocabulary; and, even where words are given each time they occur (for those used under 50 times in the OT), the student is required to have studied enough grammar to recognize the verb stem forms. In other words, the book gives the verb spelling for the stem form used but does not tell the student the name of the stem; the student needs to have learned how to recognize the various verb stems. One might think that such a format is a negative point. But if one is not going to learn Hebrew correctly, one would not have any reason to own a book that is only for true Hebrew students.

I recommend this book over its 4-volume sister "The Analytical Key. . . .," because the latter volumes give away all the answers for every word; they require virtually no study of Hebrew at all. But the "Reader's" version forces the student to learn; thus eliminating lazy language study. So the "Reader's" version is for you if you are serious about learning Hebrew thoroughly without running to an answer key all the time.

But be aware, there are errors.

This book is not nearly as helpful for me as its New Testament counterpart (which is wonderful). This book is for someone with a pretty advanced Hebrew vocabulary, as it only glosses rather uncommon words. I am still at the level where I look up several words per verse (unless its a very simple verse), and sometimes there is not even one word glossed in a given verse. Also, unlike the New Testament lexicon, it does not have a list of common vocab for each book. At least for me, it serves no purpose, because I still end up having to look up most of the words I don't know anyway, so by the time I get to a word that may be in the lexicon I have forgotten that it is even there and end up looking it up in the dictionary anyway.

I don't recommend this dictionary for serious study of the Hebrew and Aramaic of Tanakh. This publication is more like a "Roget's Thesaurus" than an actual lexicon - it's too abridged and concise. Brown-Driver-Briggs is much more recommended for delving into the vocabulary of the Tanakh.

Even today, some of the words in the Tanakh can only be guessed or admitted unknown. Researchers be cautious, but seek Yahweh, and He'll show you what you need to know.

This lexicon is fine, BUT the subtitle is Volume I, as in part 1 of 3. I was expecting a lexicon of the entire Old Testament, but this book (at least the used one I purchased) only covers the Pentateuch, Genesis through Deuteronomy. I can only think that I did not read all the fine print, or the ISBN was mix matched with the new book covering the whole OT. At any rate...happy Hebrew reading.