• Where did the Hebrew vowel pointings come from?
• Is it necessary to learn the Hebrew vowel pointings?
• Why is Hebrew written from right to left?
• When did Hebrew cease to be a spoken language?
• What is "aniy l'dodiy v'dodiy liy"?
• What does the phrase "heaven and earth" mean?
• How are Hebrew verb tenses different from English?
• Was Hebrew a common language in Israel in the first century CE?
• What are the different forms of Hebrew verbs?
• Did Moses Speak and write Hebrew or Aramaic?

Hebrew is written with 22 letters. Of these 22, 4 were originally vowel/consonants such as our "Y" which can be a consonant as in "Yellow" or a vowel, as in "Fly." The aleph, hey, vav (archaically waw) and yud were these vowel/consonants but, not all words had these "vowels" and the vowel sounds were often "understood" and remembered by memory. Around 700 CE (AD) the Masorites, wanting to standardize Hebrew pronunciation, added dots and dashes (called nikkudot or nikkud in the singular) above and below the consonants to form vowels. Also at this time all 22 letters became consonants alone and no longer stood for vowels. The nikkudot are only used in Modern Hebrew for beginning Hebrew grammar books, Bibles, Sidduriym (prayer books) and obscure words where the pronuciation is probably not known by most readers. Magazines, books, newspapers, signs, etc. will not use the nikkudot as the words can be recognized by their consonants only. You can see how easy it is for one fluent in the language by looking at the following sentence in English without the vowels.

In Ancient/Biblical Hebrew word meanings were more generalized. One Hebrew word can have a wide meaning. In Modern Hebrew more precise meanings of a word are made by adding different nikkudot to separate out the different meanings. For instance the Hebrew word "AYL" originally meant "a strong one" and is spelled with three letters; aleph-yud-lamed. In order to divide out more precise meanings of the word, different nikkudot have been added. The word "ayil" is a ram (strong one of the flock), "ayal" is a stag (strong one of the forest) and "eyal" is strength.

The vowel pointings (called nikkudot or nikkud in the singular) were invented about 1000 years ago and were never in the original writings. There main function is to help standardize pronunciation. But since Hebrew words are solely dependent on the consonants the vowel pointings are not necessary. In fact the Hebrew language today does not even use the vowel pointings except in grammar books, childrens books and the Bible. There are times when the vowel pointings do help with translation but only in a minor way. For instance if you see the Hebrew word hey-lamed-kaph (HLK) it could mean "he walked" (third person masculine singular, perfect tense) and would be pronounced halakh. But it could also be the participle meaning "walking" and be pronounced holeykh. But, the context will also aid in determining if it is halakh or holeykh. So, the vowel pointings help but are not necessary. This is similar to our word "play," which can be a verb or a noun. You don't know until it is in a sentence like "I am going to play Moses in the play." The first use is a verb while the second is a noun. The only other problem that can arise when the vowel sounds are ignored is that you will not know how to pronounce words. This is not a problem if you are only going to read and translate the text but you would not be able to read it out loud.

Most ancient writing was done with a hammer and chisel in stone. The chisel was held in the left hand and the hammer in the right. From this position it is natural to write from right to left. When ink came into use, it was usually written from left to right to prevent the hand from smearing the ink. It was actually common to write Hebrew, as well as other languages, in either direction. The direction the letter faced informed the reader which direction to read it. At some unknown point in time, the actual direction became standardized. The Hebrews and other Semites continued with the original right to left, while the Greeks and other Europeans adopted the new left to right method.

Hebrew has been spoken in one form or another from the beginning. As we and others believe, Hebrew was the first language of Adam as well as Noah and his descendents. Noah had three sons, of which Shem continued the Hebrew language. When the nation of Israel entered the land of Israel after the exodus from Egypt (about 1500 BCE), they spoke Hebrew. When Israel was taken into Babylonian captivity (about 570 BCE) they continued to speak Hebrew (as we see in the book of Daniel). When Israel returned to the land of Israel (about 500 BCE) they continued to speak in Hebrew. Hebrew continued to be spoken during the 1st century CE (AD) as can be attested by many letters and documents found during the time. In 135 CE the Jewish revolt against Rome was defeated and Jews were expulsed from the land and dispersed around the world. At this point most Jews adopted the language of the country they resided in, but Hebrew continued to be spoken in the synagogues. In the late 1800's Eliezer Ben Yehuda began a resurrection of the Hebrew language as a common language for Jews which found its fulfillment in 1948 when Israel once again became a nation with Hebrew as its national language and is spoken there to this day.

The phrase אני לדודי ודודי לי (aniy l'dodiy v'dodiy liy) is a common phrase placed on wedding rings and other wedding or marriage mementos. This phrase means "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." It is a variation of a phrase found in Song of Solomon 2:16 which states; "dodiy liy v'aniy lo" - "my beloved is mine and I am his."

This is a Hebrew idiom meaning "all things". It should be remembered that the ancient Hebrew who wrote the Biblical text did not have a conception of the Milky Way Galaxy or the universe. Also they saw the heavens and stars as a canopy or tent covering over the earth. Genesis chapter one is not meant to be a scientific discussion on the origins of the solar system but rather a poetic story about God's involvement with his whole of creation.

It is quite possible that there are many Hebrew idioms in the Bible, the problem is that the definition of an idiom is a phrase that has no real meaning and is only understood from the culture the idiom is derived from. What this means is that their may be many other idioms but because we do not know them, we would never know them to be idioms. Therefore we often understand them as literal when they were never meant to be literal. Some idioms are known only because they have survived as idioms to this day. In Israel the expressions "good eye" and "bad eye" are still used to mean "generous" and "stingy". Both of these idioms can be found in both the Old and New Testaments (Proverbs 22:9, Proverbs 23:6, Matthew 6:22,23).

Hebrew verb tenses are related to action (perfect - completed action and imperfect - incomplete action) whereas English verb tenses are related to time (past, present and future). When the English translation has past tense it is usually the perfect tense in the Hebrew since it is completed action. The imperfect tense can be translated as present or future and can cause some problems when translating the Hebrew imperfect tense. The reality is that the Hebrew is not writing about time (past, present or future) as in their mind even something completed can be in the future. For example I can say "my father taught me about life" which is written in the past tense. While my father taught me many years ago, we see this as past tense and in the Hebrew mind it is a completed action. But, in the Hebrew mind this completed action exists in the past, present and future.I still learn from my father today by remembering all that he taught me and I will continue to learn from him even after he is dead.

One of the best arguments for proving that Hebrew was a commonly used language in Israel during the first century CE (AD) is through the evidence discovered in the archeological record. Letters from Shimon Ben Kosba (Simon Bar Kockba) have been discovered in the dead sea region and were written during the second Jewish revolt of 130-135 CE. These letters are written in Hebrew, not Aramaic or Greek. What is also interesting about these letters is that they use contractions, which can only come from a spoken language. We consistently use contractions such as "I'm" for "I am" or "wouldn't" for "would not". One of these contractions is the word tashmayim, the contracted form of "et hashamayim" (the heavens).

Hebrew verbs have seven different forms - qal (simple active), niphal (simple passive), hiphil (causative active), hophal (causative passive), hitpa'el (simple reflexive), piel (intensive active) and pual (intensive passive). Each form slightly changes the application of the verb as will be demonstrated with the verb "to cut" in the third person, masculine. The qal form is simply "he cut". The niphal form would be "he was cut". The hiphil form would be "he made cut". The hophal is "he was made cut". The piel is "he slashed". The pual is "he was slashed". A good Lexicon or dictionary such as Benjamin Davidson's Analytical Lexicon is very helpful in identifying these different forms in Hebrew verbs. A dictionary such as Strong's can be a little misleading. For example the verb ra'ah (Strong's number 7200) states that this word can mean "see" or "appear" but this is a little misleading. The word ra'ah means "to see" but when used in the niphal form it would be "was seen" which means "to appear". Thayer's dictionary is a little more helpful as it provides the different meanings based on the form of the verb.

Abraham, the ancestor of Moses, did come from "Chaldee" where the Chaldeean language (or "Aramaic") was spoken. Both Aramaic and Hebrew are practically identical. They used the same script and the same root words. While Aramaic and Hebrew have some slight differences today, 3,500 years ago, the time of Abraham, the two languages were most likely identical.

Abraham is called a Hebrew because his ancestor's name was Eber (see the geneology of Abraham in the Bible). The Hebrew spelling for Eber and Hebrew are identitcal except that Hebrew ends with a yud basically meaning "descendent of Eber." Moses of course is descended from Abraham through Isaac-Jacob-Levi-Kohath-Amram. Moses would have spoken the same language as his family which is descended from the Hebrew Abraham.

The next question is what script Moses would have used to write. It is true that he did not use the square script used today or in the first century CE. At the time of Moses a more pictographic script (similar to Egyptian Hieroglyphics) was used. You can see some examples of this "early Semitic/Hebrew" script on our site.

There is no record of Moses existing outside of the Bible but this does not mean that he was not a historical figure. It has been purported that many Biblical characters never really existed until they were discovered in the archeological record. Some examples of this are King David and the Temple (which some scholars had stated that neither had actually existed). This was until they were found in ancient writings recently discovered. King David is mentioned in the Tell Dan Inscription and the Temple is mentioned in the "House of Yahweh" inscription. Maybe an ancient inscription mentioning Moses will one day be found as well.