The Ancient Hebrew Language and Alephbet
Notes



NOTES


1.
The first two letters of the Greek alphabet are alpha and beta, hence the word "alephbet".      Back
2.
B'reshiyt 14.13, The name of the first book of the Hebrew Bible is "B'reshiyt" from the first word of the book and means "in the beginning". The Greek name is "Genesis" meaning "beginnings".      Back
3.
When a Hebrew word is identified in the text, the word will be written in three ways. First, The word will be written in the modern Hebrew font. Secondly, an English equivelant to the Hebrew consonants with a period seperating each consonant and using the following equivelances; a-aleph, b-bet, g-gimel, d-dalet, h-hey, v-vav, z-zayin, c-chet (pronounced like the name Bach), t-tet, y-yud, k-kaph, l-lamed, m-mem, n-nun, s-samech, a-ayin, p-pey, ts-tsade, q-quph, r-resh, sh-shin, t-tav. Thirdly, a transliteration of the Hebrew word into Englsih. The Hebrew is read from right to left, the English equivalence and transliterations are read from left to right.      Back
4.
Since root words are the "building blocks" for words and not words themselves, there are no transliterations into English.      Back
5.
Bereshiyt 11.16      Back
6.
or Shemitic languages. The language and dialects spoken by the descendants of Shem, the son of Noah.      Back
7.
Bereshiyt 11.1      Back
8.
A Greek word meaning between (meso) rivers (potamia), the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.      Back
9.
Merrill F. Unger, "Tower of Babel," Unger's Bible Dictionary, 1977 ed.: 115. (BCE - Before the Common Era, equivalent to BC)      Back
10.
Bereshiyt 11.7      Back
11.
Bereshiyt 11.8      Back
12.
The land of the Sumerians was known as Sumer, which is Shinar in the Bible (Bereshiyt 10.10) also known as Babylonia.      Back
13.
J.I. Packer, Merril C. Tenney, William White, Jr., Nelson's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Bible Facts (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995) 337.      Back
14.
Madelene S. Miller and J. Lane Miller, "Sumer," Harper's Bible Dictionary, 1973 ed.: 710.      Back
15.
Unger, "Scythian," 987.      Back
16.
From Ham, another son of Noah.      Back
17.
Unger, "Egypt," 288.      Back
18.
Bereshiyt 2.16      Back
19.
Bereshiyt 5.21      Back
20.
Bereshiyt 11.8      Back
21.
William Smith, "Hebrew Language," Smith's Bible Dictionary, 1948 ed.: 238.      Back
22.
A word of Greek origin meaning picture-writing where a picture represented a sound or combination of sounds. The Sumerian pictographs evolved into the cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing familiar to most people.      Back
23.
I believe the flood to be a literal flood that covered the whole earth. See The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris.      Back
24.
Henry H. Halley, Halley's Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids, Mi: Zondervan, 24th) 44-5.      Back
25.
John Philip Cohane, The Key (New York: Crown, 1969) 38.      Back
26.
The Tenack is the Hebrew name for the Hebrew Scriptures also known as the Old Testament. Tenack is an acronym for it's three parts; Torah (law), Naviyiym (prophets) and the Ketuviym (writings).      Back
27.
This is the pictographic Hebrew alephbet as best as can be reconstructed by comparing ancient Hebrew scripts as well as sister languages of the period.      Back
28.
The Hebrew language attaches letters to the front (prefixes) and back (suffixes) of words to add pronouns, prepositions, etc.      Back
29.
Thomas Smothers, "Writing," Holman's Bible Dictionary, 1991 ed.: 1423.      Back
30.
Vowels are often omitted in Hebrew      Back
31.
Fred H. Wight, Manners and Customs of Bible Lands (Chicago: Moody, 1983) 78. See the story of Lot and the strangers in Bereshiyt 19.8.      Back
32.
The vowels did not originally exist in the ancient Hebrew but were invented in approximately 700 CE to help unify Hebrew pronunciation.      Back
33.
Ernst Ettisch, The Hebrew Vowels and Consonants (Brookline Village Ma: Branden Publishing Co., 1987) 87.      Back
34.
A prefix is the adding of a letter to a the beginning of a word. A suffix is the adding of a letter at the end of a word. An infix is the adding of a letter in the middle of a word.      Back
35.
Approximately 80% of all the words found in the Tenack are from the parent or child root word, while the remaining 20% are from the combination roots.      Back
36.
The terms "parent root", "child root" and "combination root" are of my own creation and are not to be understood as standard Hebrew terminology.      Back
37.
Edward Horowitz, How the Hebrew Language Grew (KTAV, 1960) 299-315.      Back
38.
Horowitz, 22.      Back
39.
As more specific words were formed from the parent root, the meanings of the parent root began to take on a more specific meaning, losing the original generic meaning.      Back
40.
The various scripts and dates in this chart are excepted by most scholars. The Hebrew script in this chart only dates to approximately 1,000 B.C.E. since most sources only date Hebrew to this time.      Back
41.
The square is the door and the horizontal line is the pole which the door hangs from. To open the door, the curtain is pushed to the side.      Back
42.
All of the ancient Hebrew letters have an identical or very similar letter in the Egyptian script. The sounds for each Egyptian letter is very different from the Hebrew as in this letter. The Egyptian sound is "ts" equivalent to the Hebrew tsade. A clear picture of the "confusion" of the languages at the Tower of Babel.      Back
43.
When the Hebrews were taken captive into Babylon around 500 BCE, they found the square Aramaic script easier to write and adopted it for their own language. The Samaritans which are half Hebrew and half Gentile remained in the land of Israel and retained the ancient Hebrew script even to this day.      Back
44.
The pictures and what they represent have been compiled by comparing the many ancient scripts of the near east and by consulting the many resources. For a list of the resources, refer to the Bibliography.      Back
45.
Each letter of the alephbet has a name. These names are also Hebrew words which have a meaning related to the picture. If the original picture is uncertain, the defintion of the word (and other words derived from the same root) will help identify the picture. The same is true of the opposite. If the picture is known but the definition of the word is unknown or uncertain, the picture will help define the word.      Back
46.
A two consonant parent root.      Back
47.
The Hebrew name for the book of Deuteronomy meaning "words".      Back
48.
Notice the verbal, action oriented, definition of this "noun".      Back
49.
The American Heritage Dictionary, Compact Disk, Microsoft Corporation, 1992.      Back
50.
The Hebrew name for the book of Exodus meaning "names".      Back
51.
The American Heritage Dictionary      Back
52.
James Strong, "halh hale'ah," New Strong's Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Hebrew Bible, 1995 ed.: 34.      Back
53.
The child root is followed by a hebraic definition and a chart displaying the Hebrew, English transliteration, Strong's number, definition and the number of times this word is found in the Tenack.      Back
54.
As in the word halleluia which means "praise Yah (the LORD)".      Back



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