Quotes About Hebrew

The word "Semitic" was coined in 1781 by a German historian to describe a group of languages that originated in the Middle East and that have some linguistic similarities; they include Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic, ancient Akkadian, and Ugaritic. There's nothing that binds the speakers of these different languages together as a people.

The name Zechariah comes from the Hebrew root z-k-r, which means "remember"; the "yah" at the end is the marker for YHWH, so the name means "God remembers.

Elizabeth's name likely derives from the Hebrew Eli, meaning "my God," the beginning of Jesus' cry from the cross ("My God, my God"). The second part comes from sheva, which is an oath. Thus, her name indicates that God keeps promises.

In my office in Jerusalem, there's an ancient seal. It's a signet ring of a Jewish official from the time of the Bible. The seal was found right next to the Western Wall, and it dates back 2,700 years, to the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there's a name of the Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu.

However, it may come as a surprise to know that in the Hebrew language the word for "service" is the same word used for "worship.

So far, Maimonides had penned all his writings and letters in the Arabic which the Jews in Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, and Persia were using at that time. However, like nearly all Jewish–Arabic authors, he employed the Hebrew alphabet.

William Bedwell was both a leading mathematician and, because his readings in medieval mathematical studies had led him down this path, an Arabist, one of England's first. He was no admirer of Islam, being the author of a vituperative book on 'the blasphemous seducer Mohammed', but he was captivated by the theological, medical and mathematical genius of the Arabs. Arabic, he was also convinced, was an invaluable tool in the interpretation of Hebrew.

John Smyth, originally from Gainsborough, but by 1608 pastor of the Brethren of the Separation of the Second English Church at Amsterdam, its congregation made up of Lincolnshire farmers, decided that they needed to hear the scriptures in the original. One can only imagine the effect on the poor exiles from Gainsborough: hour on hour of Smyth reading out passages of Hebrew and Greek of which they had not the faintest understanding, desperately looking for the sanctity in this.

I find that the same Hebrew word which signifies to lodge, to abide, signifies to murmur. They use one word for both, for murmuring is a disorder that lodges in men; where it gets in once it lodges, abides and continues, and therefore, that we may dislodge it and get it out, we will labor to show what are the further reasonings of a discontented heart.

Says Robert Roth in Story and Reality: "For the Greeks . . . words were definitions. . . . For the Hebrews, on the contrary, words were descriptions." 14

H. Bauer ... was already arguing that some elements of Hebrew, such as the consecutive tenses, had a close relationship with Akkadian.

before the tenth century Hebrew writing, like Phoenician, was purely consonantal, and it was halfway though the ninth century BCE, under the influence of Aramaic.

The earliest inscriptions in Hebrew date from the tenth BCE.

Hebrew ... linguistic development was far from uniform. Even though they share a number of common tendencies, a variety of Hebrew traditions is seen to have co-existed during this period.

There are difficulties involved in regarding the Babylonian tradition as a single or homogeneous phenomenon following just one line of development. If, despite this, we continue to speak of a Babylonian Hebrew tradition or dialect, we have to add many provisos to our statements.

During its peak in the eighth to ninth centuries, the Babylonian version of Hebrew extended from Persia to Yemen. It declined in the tenth century with the disappearance of the main academies under the weight of Muslim power, and was replaced by the Tiberian system. However, the origins of the Yemenite system are still relatively obscure.

Analysis of Aleppo Codex ... represents the Ben-Asher tradition, having been vocalized by Aaron Ben-Asher himself.

The Pharisees deliberately avoided the Late form of Biblical Hebrew (LBH), which is the language of the Bible written after the exile, presenting their teaching in the language of the spoken vernacular.

The earliest Hebrew texts that have reached us date from the end of the second millennium BCE.

The Israelite tribes that settled in Canaan from the fourteenth to thirteenth centuries BCE, regardless of what their language might have been before they established themselves there, used Hebrew as a spoken and literary language until the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE.

The exile marks the disappearance of this language (i.e., Biblical Hebrew) from everyday life and its subsequent use for literary and liturgical purposes only during the Second Temple period.

Archaic Hebrew ... earliest inscriptions dating as far back as the close of the second millennium BCE.

Archaic Hebrew ... no general agreement among scholars regarding this term.

Biblical Hebrew is not a language in the full sense of the word but merely a 'fragment of language'.