THE FIRST

HEBREW

PRIMER

THIRD EDITION

REVISED WITH NEW EXPLANATORY NOTES

•

Ethelyn Simon

Irene Resnikoff

Linda Motzkin

•

THE ADULT BEGINNER’S

PATH TO BIBLICAL HEBREW

EKS Publishing Co., Oakland, California

Managing Editor

Alan K. Lipton

Research Editor

Dorey Brandt-Finell

Editor and Proofreader

Peter Wyetzner

Consulting Editor

Shlomo Karni

Gardner-Zemke Professor, University of New Mexico

Endnotes

Jessica W. Goldstein

Book Design

Irene Imfeld

Cover Illustration

Carl Buell

The First Hebrew Primer, Third Edition © 2005 by EKSPublishing Co. No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews. For information contact the publisher.

EKS Publishing Co.

P.O. Box 9750

Berkeley, CA 94709–0750

e-mail: orders@ekspublishing.com
Phone (510) 251-9100 • Fax (510) 251–9102

•

ISBN 0–939144-15–8

לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם

… הוּא יַעֲשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם עָלֵינוּ וְעַל כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל …

      

for the God of Heaven

… may he make peace for us and for all Israel …

Preface

The First Hebrew Primer is a simple, straightforward guide to Biblical Hebrew. Thirty lessons provide enough information and practice to enable you, with the aid of a Hebrew-English dictionary, to understand most biblical texts. The goal of the Primer is to teach students to read and understand Biblical Hebrew as quickly as possible; therefore, the lessons emphasize recognition and translation—not memorization.

We present vocabulary based upon frequency in the Hebrew Bible and have carefully controlled the number of words introduced. Wherever possible, the most common Hebrew words are taught in early chapters. By the end of the Primer, you will have learned most words that occur two hundred or more times in the Bible. This controlled vocabulary should make the transition to reading biblical text as easy as possible.

Several special features in the Primer are worth noting. We introduce the first in a series of Tall Tales in chapter 8. These stories are familiar folktales translated into Biblical Hebrew. The stories reinforce the grammar and vocabulary taught in each lesson and provide the student with an early opportunity to read large passages of text. The Primer also presents an adapted version of the Book of Ruth as a series of guided readings. These readings become more complex as the student’s skills develop. Spelling charts in the back of the book give conjugated forms of common Hebrew words that allow students to read and write Biblical Hebrew.

To make learning easier, we sometimes use our own terms for grammatical concepts. The chart on page 368 lists the traditional English and Hebrew names for EKS terminology. We also have been careful to present those forms that are the most common in the Hebrew Bible; as a result, you will study and practice many more masculine forms than feminine ones. Some forms are so rare that we have left ...