Biblical Hebrew

בְּרֵאשִׁית — from the first letter to reading the text

Flashcards My progress

1. Why learn Biblical Hebrew?
   See what this course will give you and how to use it
2. Seventy words, nearly half the Hebrew Bible
   Learn by ear the seventy commonest words and seven names, before you learn the letters
3. 1Six letters, five vowels
   Read the first two words of the Bible
4. 2The whole first verse
   Read all of Genesis 1:1 and see how a Hebrew sentence is built
5. 3Let there be light
   Understand the dagesh, read vav as a vowel, and read Genesis 1:3
6. 4Roots and patterns
   See how almost every Hebrew word is built from a three-letter root and a pattern
7. 5The little words on the front
   Peel the article, "and" and the one-letter prepositions off a word, and see what they reveal
8. 6Nouns and the construct chain
   Recognise gender and number in a noun, and read "X of Y" chains the way Hebrew builds them
9. 7The first verb form, qatal
   Recognise the qatal (perfect) by its endings, and see that it marks a completed whole, not "the past"
10. 8The second verb form, yiqtol
    Recognise the yiqtol (imperfect) by its prefixes, and read it as an action not yet complete, repeated, or wished for
11. 9The narrative chain
    Follow the main line of a Hebrew story (wayyiqtol) and notice every place where the writer steps off it