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 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 talks about the hifil stems, which is described as a causative stem, meaning that the sense of a hifil is often to cause someone or something to do the action of the root. Hifil verbs are usually active and typically transitive. The hifil has the same range of conjugations as the qal and nifal. The only differences are that it has only one participle and it has a distinct jussive form.
