ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a comprehensive introduction to Biblical Hebrew language and texts. It presents the essentials of biblical grammar and vocabulary in an engaging and 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 piel, an active stem that often has a transitive sense. The piel cohortative is formed like its qal and nifal counterparts, with suffix and pretonic reduction. In contrast to the nifal, hifil, and hofal, the piel does not have a characteristic prefix. Instead, its telltale hallmark is a strong dagesh in the second radical. The strong dagesh in the second radical is visible throughout the paradigm.
