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BIBLICAL HEBREW Gary A

BIBLICAL HEBREW Gary A

BIBLICAL Gary A. Rends burg

Language : . Antonyms: In the the is called Sapat Kanafan, literally 'lip (that is, language) of ', reflecting no distinction between Hebrew and other Canaanite (see below); the specific of is called YahUdft 'Juclahite'. In the early postbiblical period we encounter the name flvrft 'Hebrew', and this name continues to be used in when referring to the , whether ancient or modern. of the early postbiblical period also called the language La haq-qOdd, literally 'the holy ', a term that continued to be used fu later periods.

Location: . Also, because of the unique circumstances of the Diaspora of the Jews, Biblical Hebrew spread through­ out the world. With the Babylonian conquest oflsrael in general and , in particular, in 586 B.c., and even more so after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in A.. 70, Jews settled in other countries. In all cases they adopted the of these countries for everyday usage, both spoken and written, but they continued to read and other classical texts in Hebrew. (An important exception is the Jews of who read the Bible in GE'Ez.) Thus, Hebrew spread as the language of into areas of Asia, North , and , and in more modem to the Americas, , and Australia. .

Family: Northwest Semitic subgroup of the West Semitic group of the Semitic branch ofthe Afro-Asiastic .

Related Languages: Most closely related to the other dialects of Canaanite (see below), then tO , , AKKADIAN, South Arabian and Ge'ez.

Dialects: Biblical Hebrew is one of a number of closely related dialects of the Canaanite language, which, along with Aramaic constitutes the Northwest Semitic language group. Other dialects of Canaanite include Ugaritic1 (attested at a slightly earlier ), PHOENICIAN, Ammonite, Moabite, and Edomite (all attested contemporaneously with Bibical Hebrew). Biblical Hebrew, in tum, can be divided into two subdialects: Judahite, referring to the subdialect of Judah in southern Israel, and Israelian, referring to the subdialect or dialect cluster of northern Israel (including the areas settled by those Israelite tribes east of the River). The evidence for these different varieties stems from an analysis of the biblical books themselves: about 80 percent of the Bible was written in Judah and reflects Judahite Hebrew, while approximately 20 percent was written in northern Israel and reflects . There is also evidence for the existence of diglossia in ancient Hebrew. The Bible is written in a classical literary register (whether Judahite or Israelian), but divergences from the grammatical standard are often colloquial uses that have crept into the text.

Origin and History , and often Canaanite words are used instead of their Akkadian equivalents. Hebrew is the dialect of Canaanite used by the people of Is­ About a century and a half after the literary texts rael. The early history of Hebrew is thus part of a larger pic­ and the Amama letters come our earliest biblical texts. Bibli­ ture, the history of Canaanite. The earliest evidence for cal Hebrew is typically divided into three chronological peri­ Canaanite comes from two sources: (a) Ugaritic, referring to ods: Archaic (about ll00-1000 B.c.), Standard (about 1000- the texts found at (modem Ras Shamra on the Syrian 550 B.c.), and Late (550-200B.c.). Archaic Biblical Hebrew is coast), and (b) the letters (found at modem ­ represented by only a handful of ancient poems in the Bible. Amarna, ). Standard Biblical Hebrew makes up most of the corpus and U garit was destroyed about 1200 B.c., so the majority of its includes such familiar works as the ; the books of , texts, mainly administrative in nature, clearly come from the , , and Kings; such as , , 13th century. The literary texts, mainly myths and epics, are and ; and poetic compilations such as and Prov­ probably older, and we can date their composition to the 14th erbs. Late Biblical Hebrew, which is characterized most of all century B.c., if not earlier. The Amama letters are several hun­ by influences from Aramaic, the of that period, dred epistles written by local Canaanite kings to the is represented by books such as Chronicles, , , of Egypt in the mid-14th century B.c. They were written in Nehemiah, and Qohelet (). Akkadian, but the responsible for these letters typi­ Archaeological fieldwork in the last century has uncovered cally used a pidgin Akkadian. The and syntax fre­ hundreds of Hebrew inscriptions from the biblical period, most quently follow Canaanite rather than Akkadian gram- extremely short.

1Many scholars consider Ugaritic to be an independent language and not a dialect of Canaanite. ·:-it1i~· ij~ .{ .·. 292 Biblical Hebrew

Table 1: Labial Dental/ Alveo- Velar Pharyngeal Glottal Alveolar palatal Stops Voiceless p k,q ? Voiced b d g

Fricatives Voiceless s ~ s X ~ Voiced z g 1 Nasals Laterals Voiceless s Voiced I

Trill Glides y

Technically, Biblical Hebrew should refer only to the ­ a to indicate a doubled . The text that the brew of the Bible (and perhaps the contemporary inscriptions). produced is known as the.. It repro­ But postbiblical compositions are written in the same language, duces in writing the traditional pronunciation of the received typically in the natural continuation of Late Biblical Hebrew. biblical text of the late first millennium A.D. At the same time, Among these are the literary work (Ecclesiasticus), however, scholars agree that the traditional pronunciation harks dated about 180B.c., and most importantly, the Scrolls back to a much earlier period. (found at ), dated about 150B.c. to about A.D. 50. Even­ There were 25 distinct consonants in Biblical Hebrew, even tually Hebrew died out as a spoken language; the best estimate though the had only 22 letters. A single letter /:1 was is approximately A.D. 220. But Jews continued to write texts in used to indicate both /'r).l and lxl; 1 was used to indicate both 111 Hebrew, although not in Biblical Hebrew, even in its latest and lgl; and swas used to indicate both (sf and lsi. In the other stage, but in a more colloquial variety known as Mishnaic 19 instances, there is a one-to-one correspondence between Hebrew (named after the Mishna, a classic text of law and orthography and consonantal . In the course of time, practice dated about A.D. 220). Is/ merged with /s/. When scribes wished to use a historical orthography, they continued to writes; when they wished to Orthography and Basic Phonology use a more phonetic orthography, they used s. Also, lx/ even­ tually merged with /'r)./, and ;g; with 111. Hebrew is written in a 22-letter alphabet that was invented by The IV /q/ M are known as emphatics. The exact the Phoenicians. The 22 letters indicate consonants only, and articulation of these consonants in Biblical Hebrew is unknown. the direction of writing is right to left. The corresponding consonants in Arabic are velarized or The letter forms evolved over time. In the alphabet t~ble pharyngealized; the corresponding consonants in South Ara­ appear both the ancient Hebrew letters, as originally borrowed bian and Ethiopian Semitic are glottalized. from the Phoenicians, and the more familiar At some point in ancient Hebrew, the six stops fbi /pi ld/ ltl still in use to this day. The latter alphabet includes five addi­ /g/ lk/ developed a two-fold realization. Following , they tional graphemes used in final position only. came to be pronounced as lv/ If/ /of IS! ;g; /x/; other­ At first, Biblical Hebrew orthography did not express the wise, they remained stops. vowels. In time, the letters y, w, and h came to be used to indi­ Consonant was phonemic in ancient Hebrew. In cate final vowels (quite regularly) and medial long vowels (spo­ theory all consonants could be single or geminate except that radically). When used in this manner, these letters are called in the Masoretic Text, /?/!hi 111 /'r)./ /r/ can occur only single. matres lectionis, or ' letters'. This process is seen more When morphological processes would have geminated one of fully developed in the , where almost all long those seven consonants, the quality of the vowel in the preced­ vowels are marked by vowel letters. In the sys­ ing generally changed instead. tem adopted in this chapter, matres lectionis are indicated by Table 2: Vowels superscript letters. - In about A.D. 850 Jewish scholars known as the Masoretes Front Central Back (tradents) developed a series of markings to indicate the vowels. Hih. g i i uu These markings typically are dots and dash_es placed either above or below the line. Actually, three different systems were invented, Mid 0 although in time the one developed at (in northern Is­ Low a a rael) became the standard system utilized by Jews. In addition, the Masoretes developed diacritical marks to indicate distinc­ Historically, there were three simple vowels in Semitic, short tions not shown by the 22-letter alphabet, such as a dot inside /a/ /i/ /u/ and long /a/ /l/ /u/. In the course of time, the Hebrew Biblical Hebrew 293

Table 3: The Hebrew Alphabet Ancient Form Familiar Form Value Ancient Form Familiar Form Value 4 it ? '1 ? 1 .l 9 b ~ D (finalC) m \ l g 1 ~ (finall) n .,. d - s ~ -T 0 ~ n h 0 lJ ~.g y , w ) !I (final i1) p l · I z '$ !l (final f) ~ 1=1 n Q.,x 9 p · q ® «< t , r , 4 ~ y w fl1 s, s 'Y :I (final1) k X n. t short vowels developed various allophones, depending on the Hebrew agree with the nouns they modify in num­ kind of syllable in which the vowel occurred (open or closed) ber, gender, and definition: and depending on syllable . The Masoretic notation sys­ tem (described above) indicates all these fine differences. In misteh gildowl the transliteration system used in this chapter, some of these feast:MASC.INDEF large:MASC.INDEF allophones are marked by a macron (for example, a). The origi­ 'a large feast' (Genesis 21 :8) nallong vowels, marked by a circumflex, are not affected by type of syllable or by placement of accent. -~:Yr hag-g:}dowl-ah Ancient Hebrew also had two diphthongs, ay and aw. Gen­ the-city:FEM the-large-FEM erally in unaccented and occasionally in accented syl­ 'the large city' ( 1:1) lables, these diphthongs became monophthongs /e/ and /6/. Stress in Biblical Hebrew was generally on the final syllable The Hebrew verb can appear in two conjugations, one utiliz­ in a phrase. Short vowels in unstressed open syllables typi­ ing suffixes and one utilizing mostly prefixes (accompanied by a cally were reduced to[:}]. few suffixes). Scholars still debate whether these conjugations reflect different tenses (present/future versus past) or aspects (im­ Basic Morphology perfect versus perfect). Hence, they are often simply referred to as the suffix and prefix conjugations, respectively. The suffixes As with all , Hebrew morphology is charac­ and prefixes indicate the person, number, and gender of the sub­ terized by the interplay of and pattern. Most roots consist ject (gender distinctions are not made in the first person). of three consonants, and they may occur in any number of Hebrew verbs occur in.a limited number of patterns, with the typical verbal and nominal patterns. For example, the root Z­ following the most common. The simple pattern is, as withzakar • , K-R appears as a simple verb zakar 'he remembered'; in a above, C1aC2aC3 A pattern CiC2C2eC3 with the middle root derived verb hizkfr 'he caused to remember, he reminded'; in consonant doubled, often has a resultative meaning. The pattern , a participial form of the latter mazkf Yr 'recorder, secretary'; hiC1CiC3 with prefixed hi-, generally has a meaning, as , and in the noun forms zeker 'remembrance', zikkarown 'me­ with hizkt Yr above. The pattern hitCpCPiC3 with prefixed hit-, morial', and ?azkara" 'memorial-sacrifice'. has a reflexive force. (All forms cited are third person masculine · Hebrew nouns are inflected for number (singular, [and, singulars from the suffix conjugation, the typical citation form.) in some cases, dual]), gender (masculine, feminine), and defini­ Hebrew has two sets of pronouns: free or independent forms, tion (definite, indefinite). There are numerous nominal patterns, and bound or suffixed forms. They are inflected like the verb. often with associated semantic qualities. For example, C1iC2C2eC3 The free forms serve as subjects. The bound forms have pos­ is used for nouns representing people with bodily defects (such sessive meaning when suffixed to nouns and objective mean­ as a blind person, lame person, or hunchback); is ing when suffixed to verbs or prepositions. An unusual feature C1aC2C2aC3 used for professions (such as a cook, archer, or horseman). of Biblical Hebrew is the presence of two first person singular The definite is ha- with the following consonant gemi­ pronouns ?'nf and ?anokf, apparently used interchangeably, nated: melek 'king', hammelek 'the king'. There is no indefi­ although some scholars have detected syntactic or stylistic cri­ nite article. teria determining which form is used. 294 Biblical Hebrew

The conjunction wa- 'and' and several common prepositions ready a dead language for centuries. These loanwords presum­ (la- 'to, for', ba- 'in', ka- 'as, like') do not appear as independent ably reached the West Semitic world at a very early date, in fonns, but instead are prefixed to the following word. the third millennium B.c., and Hebrew simply inherited them from earlier Canaanite. Alternatively, although less likely, they Basic Syntax might have entered Hebrew through Akkadian. The Greek loanwords above are early borrowings into He­ The basic in Biblical Hebrew was VSO. However, brew, the result of trade and contact in the east Mediterranean for emphasis, the subject or could occur in initial position. during the Late Bronze and Early Ages. Later, after the Biblical Hebrew has a special verb form used conquests of the Great, many more Greek words regularly for past-tense narration. Its third person masculine entered Hebrew. And still later, although well beyond the bib­ , lical period, loanwords entered Hebrew. singular form appears as wayyiC1CiiC3 comprised of the con­ junction wa- (serving here as a ), the agreement marker Also, trade contacts to the east brought the of exotic y (doubled, most likely because a special past-tense marker n spices, gems, woods, and animals into Hebrew. Most of these has been absorbed), and the verbal stem. probably came from , such as tukkf 'type of bird (par­ Verbless clauses and sentences (for identification or classifi­ rot?)', while for others the exact origin cannot be determined, cation) occur frequently because there is no copula. For example: for example, qinnlimown 'cinnamon'. In the opposite direction, hundreds 'of Canaanite words en­ hfi'i' ?•don-iY tered the during the Late when · he master-my 'He is my master.' (Genesis 24:65) many West Semites settled in the Egyptian delta. The biblical portrayal of the in Egypt (end of the Adjectives follow the nouns they modify (see examples be­ and beginning of the ) is part of this picture. low). Clearly the Israelites were not responsible for the introduction of I Two nouns are often juxtaposed to create a construct phrase. all the words into Egyptian since they were but one among many This construction may indicate , or it may best be groups of West Semites resident in Egypt then. But Hebrew is rendered by an adjectival phrase in ENGLISH. If the construct the best-attested Canaanite dialect. In the same way, we are able I phrase is definite, the definite article is prefixed to the second to point to a considerable number of Hebrew words present in of the two nouns only. If the construct phrase is plural, only the lexicon, probably transmitted by the the first of the two nouns is so marked: Phoenicians through their contacts in the Aegean. Examples in­ clude (in their familiar English fonns) griffin, nectar, and balsam. big~d-eY haq-qodes In more recent times, Hebrew words were borrowed into garment -PL.CONSTRucr the-holiness numerous languages of the world, because of the Jewish 'the holy garments' (Exodus 29:29) Diaspora, and perhaps more importantly resulting from the spread of . Since Christianity adopted many ideas A special form Jet, with no equivalent, appears of Judaism and canonized the Bible of Judaism (to which it before definite nouns serving as the direct object. added other books, most importantly the , it­ Negation is accomplished by placing one of three different self containing many ), Hebrew words naturally words, lo£, Jal, or Jeyn, all essentially 'no' or 'not', before the entered the and elsewhere. Examples in word or phrase being negated. The choice depends on which English areamen,, , , and of course many follows. familiar personal names. Contact with Other Languages Common Words

Israel is at the crossroads of the ancient world, situated on the man: 'i'1Ys long: ?arok land bridge uniting Egypt and , and with access woman: 'i'issah small: qatan to both the and the . In addition, water: mayirn tree: )e~ mighty empires such as the Egyptian, Persian, and Greek ones sun: semes three: saiOs ruled the land for centuries. Accordirigly, Hebrew is in a unique good: towb fish: dag position to have borrowed loanwords from a variety of lan­ bird: ~ippor big: gactowl guages. Among the best examJ!les are the following: dog: keleb no: lo'i' yes: no true equivalent; 'i'ak ='indeed' From EGYPTIAN: game£ 'papyrus', Jetuwn 'linen' From SUMERIAN: kisser 'chair', mallal:z 'sailor' Example Sentences* From Akkadian: siirfys '', segal 'queen, consort' From Aramaic: k'tab 'writing', q•rab 'ba,ttle' (1) wa-y-y-iqqa]:> ?abram 'i'et saray 'i'ist-ow From PERSIAN: dlit 'law' , 'garden' and-PAST-3M.SG-takes Abram Ace Sarai wife-his From GREEK: lappfd 'torch', makerlih 'sword' w~- 'i'et lowt ben 'i'a.Q.-iw. The Sumerian loanwords require a special comment. By the and-Ace son:coNSTRUCT brother-his time of the earliest attestation of Hebrew, Sumerian was al- 'Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son.' Biblical Hebrew 295

(2) wa-y-y-it?-uw ?ot-ah sar-ey par~oh. concepts and technological advances. For example, Biblical and-PAST-3M-see-PL Ace-her of:ficer-PL.coNsmucr Hebrew biiriiq 'lightning\ provided the root for Modern He­ 'Pharaoh's officers saw her.' brew mivriiq 'telegram'. The Academy of the Hebrew Lan­ guage, an official arm of the State of Israel, is responsible for (3) wG-saray ?eset ?abram lo? yillGd-ah 1-. monitoring linguistic development and for coining new words and-Sarai wife:CciNsmucr Abram NEG bear-3F.SG ·to-him today, and it continues the same process of mining the ancient 'And Sarai the wife of Abramhadnotbometohlm (a child).' Hebrew lexicon.

*All sentences are from the book of Genesis. Select Bibliography

Efforts to Preserve, Protect, and Blau, J. 1976. A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. Wiesbaden, Promote the Language Germany: Otto Harrassowitz. Clines, D.J.A., ed. 1993~. The Dictionary ofClassicalHebrew. Throughout their history Jews have continued to read the 8 vols. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press. Bible in Hebrew, thus transmitting the language without in­ Joiion, P.,and T. Muraoka. 1991. A Grammar of Biblical He­ terruption for 3,000 years. In the , Jewish schol­ brew. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico. ars wrote and dictionaries of Biblical Hebrew. Chris­ Kutscher, E.Y. 1982. A History of the Hebrew Language. R. tian scholars also learned Hebrew during different historical Kutscher, ed. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. epochs and made important contributions to the study of the Saenz-Badillos, A. 1993. A History of the Hebrew Language. language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hebrew was revived as -a language for everyday use in the Waldman, N.M. 1989. The Recent Study of Hebrew. Cincin­ late 19th and early 20th centuries. Individuals such as Eliezer nati: Hebrew Union College Ptess. Ben-Yehuda looked to the Biblical Hebrew lexicon for roots W altke, B.K., and M. 0' Connor. 1990.An Introduction to Bib­ from which to build new words necessary to express modem lical Hebrew Syntax. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

_I FACTS ABOUT THE WoRLD's LANGUAGES: An Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, Past and Present

Edited by Jane Garry and Carl Rubino

Contributing Linguistics Editors: B. Bodomo Alice Faber French

THE H. w. WILSON COMPANY NEW yORK AND DUBLIN

A New England Publishing Associates Book 2001

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