ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a comprehensive introduction to Biblical Hebrew language and texts. It presents the essentials of biblical grammar and vocabulary in a systematic way. The chapter examines all the topics expected in a first-year Biblical Hebrew course, including the Hebrew writing system, pointing rules, nouns and adjectives, parsing, mastery of strong and weak verb paradigms and full attention to syntax. Hebrew is a fascinating language with a rich history spanning 3,000 years. It is a member of the Afro-Asiatic language family, which is a large group of languages spread throughout much of northern Africa and the Middle East. The chapter focuses on prepositions that take variants of the singular noun suffixes but are irregular when the suffixes are added. Just as in the case of plural nouns, the suffixes cause propretonic reduction. The preposition takes exactly the same suffixes. The only difference is that the short vowel pata lengthens to a qame before vowels.
