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92-520: Shecaniah or Shechaniah , which means "one intimate with God", is the name of a number of characters mentioned in the Hebrew Bible . [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Easton, Matthew George (1897). Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons. {{ cite encyclopedia }} : Missing or empty |title= ( help ) This article related to

184-551: A "doubled" letter, making the list BeGeD KePoReT . ( Sefer Yetzirah , 4:1) The following table contains the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet . The apostrophe-looking symbol after some letters is not a yud but a geresh . It is used for loanwords with non-native Hebrew sounds. The dot in the middle of some of

276-416: A Hebrew text with these letters would require using the spelling in the language from which the transliteration to Hebrew was originally made). The non-standard " ו׳ ‎" and " וו ‎" are sometimes used to represent / w / , which like / d͡ʒ / , / ʒ / and / t͡ʃ / appears in Hebrew slang and loanwords. The Sound / χ / (as "ch" in loch ) is often transcribed "ch", inconsistently with

368-720: A cantillation mark used for Torah recitation, though its visual appearance and function are different in that context. In much of Israel 's general population, especially where Ashkenazic pronunciation is prevalent, many letters have the same pronunciation. They are as follows: * Varyingly Some of the variations in sound mentioned above are due to a systematic feature of Ancient Hebrew. The six consonants /b ɡ d k p t/ were pronounced differently depending on their position. These letters were also called BeGeD KeFeT letters / ˌ b eɪ ɡ ɛ d ˈ k ɛ f ɛ t / . The full details are very complex; this summary omits some points. They were pronounced as plosives [b ɡ d k p t] at

460-641: A central dot called dagesh ( דגש ‎), while the soft sounds lack a dagesh . In modern Hebrew, however, the dagesh only changes the pronunciation of ב ‎ bet , כ ‎ kaf , and פ ‎ pe , and does not affect the name of the letter. The differences are as follows: In other dialects (mainly liturgical) there are variations from this pattern. The sounds [ t͡ʃ ] , [ d͡ʒ ] , [ ʒ ] , written ⟨ צ׳ ‎⟩, ⟨ ג׳ ‎⟩, ⟨ ז׳ ‎⟩, and [ w ] , non-standardly sometimes transliterated ⟨ וו ‎⟩, are often found in slang and loanwords that are part of

552-438: A different final form used at the end of words, the final forms are displayed beneath the regular form. The block (square, or "print" type) and cursive ("handwritten" type) are the only variants in widespread contemporary use. Rashi is also used, for historical reasons, in a handful of standard texts. Following the adoption of Greek Hellenistic alphabetic numeration practice, Hebrew letters started being used to denote numbers in

644-704: A form of the paleo-Hebrew script called the Samaritan alphabet . After the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE, Jews used both scripts before settling on the square Assyrian form. The square Hebrew alphabet was later adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diaspora – such as Karaim , the Judeo-Arabic languages , Judaeo-Spanish, and Yiddish. The Hebrew alphabet continued in use for scholarly writing in Hebrew and came again into everyday use with

736-562: A group—if it existed—was only a small minority in early Israel, even though their story came to be claimed by all." Scholars believe Psalm 45 could have northern origins since it refers to a king marrying a foreign princess, a policy of the Omrides . Some psalms may have originated from the shrine in the northern city of Dan. These are the Sons of Korah psalms, Psalm 29 , and Psalm 68 . The city of Dan probably became an Israelite city during

828-510: A number of reverse letter orders; such as vav - he , chet - zayin , pe - ayin , etc. A reversal to pe-ayin can be clearly seen in the Book of Lamentations , whose first four chapters are ordered as alphabetical acrostics. In the Masoretic text , the first chapter has the now-usual ayin-pe ordering, and the second, third and fourth chapters exhibit pe-ayin . In

920-778: A range of sources. These include the Septuagint, the Syriac language Peshitta translation, the Samaritan Pentateuch , the Dead Sea Scrolls collection, the Targum Onkelos , and quotations from rabbinic manuscripts . These sources may be older than the Masoretic Text in some cases and often differ from it. These differences have given rise to the theory that yet another text, an Urtext of

1012-592: A rejection of God's kingship; nevertheless, God permits it, and Saul of the tribe of Benjamin is anointed king. This inaugurates the united monarchy of the Kingdom of Israel . An officer in Saul's army named David achieves great militarily success. Saul tries to kill him out of jealousy, but David successfully escapes (1 Samuel 16–29). After Saul dies fighting the Philistines ( 1 Samuel 31 ; 2 Chronicles 10 ),

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1104-524: A special two-column form emphasizing the parallel stichs in the verses, which are a function of their poetry . Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ"ת , which is also the Hebrew for " truth "). These three books are also the only ones in Tanakh with a special system of cantillation notes that are designed to emphasize parallel stichs within verses. However,

1196-424: A vowel instead of a consonant (which would be, respectively, /ʔ/, /ʕ/, /v/ and /j/ ). When they do, ו ‎ and י ‎ are considered to constitute part of the vowel designation in combination with a niqqud symbol – a vowel diacritic (whether or not the diacritic is marked), whereas א ‎ and ע ‎ are considered to be mute, their role being purely indicative of the non-marked vowel. Niqqud

1288-637: Is a true alphabet, with all vowels rendered in the spelling, except in the case of inherited Hebrew words, which typically retain their Hebrew consonant-only spellings. The Arabic and Hebrew alphabets have similarities because they are both derived from the Aramaic alphabet, which in turn derives either from paleo-Hebrew or the Phoenician alphabet , both being slight regional variations of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet used in ancient times to write

1380-476: Is called a gershayim and is a punctuation mark used in the Hebrew language to denote acronyms. It is written before the last letter in the acronym, e.g. ר״ת ‎. Gershayim is also the name of a cantillation mark in the reading of the Torah , printed above the accented letter, e.g. א֞ ‎. The following table displays typographic and chirographic variants of each letter. For the five letters that have

1472-733: Is consistently presented throughout the [Hebrew Scriptures] as the God who created the world, and as the only God with whom Israel is to be concerned". This special relationship between God and Israel is described in terms of covenant . As part of the covenant, God gives his people the Promised Land as an eternal possession. The God of the covenant is also a God of redemption . God liberates his people from Egypt and continually intervenes to save them from their enemies. The Tanakh imposes ethical requirements , including social justice and ritual purity (see Tumah and taharah ) . The Tanakh forbids

1564-563: Is credited as the author of at least 73 of the Biblical Psalms . His son, Solomon , is identified as the author of Book of Proverbs , Ecclesiastes , and Song of Solomon . The Hebrew Bible describes their reigns as a golden age when Israel flourished both culturally and militarily. However, there is no archeological evidence for this, and it is most likely a "retrospective extrapolation" of conditions under King Jeroboam II ( r.  781–742 BCE). Modern scholars believe that

1656-556: Is highly likely that extensive oral transmission of proverbs, stories, and songs took place during this period", and these may have been included in the Hebrew Bible. Elements of Genesis 12–50, which describes the patriarchal age , and the Book of Exodus may reflect oral traditions . In these stories, Israelite ancestors such as Jacob and Moses use trickery and deception to survive and thrive. King David ( c.  1000 BCE )

1748-524: Is mentioned in the Midrash Koheleth 12:12: Whoever brings together in his house more than twenty four books brings confusion . The original writing system of the Hebrew text was an abjad : consonants written with some applied vowel letters ( " matres lectionis " ). During the early Middle Ages , scholars known as the Masoretes created a single formalized system of vocalization . This

1840-413: Is roughly 2000. The Tanakh consists of twenty-four books, counting as one book each 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel , 1 Kings and 2 Kings , 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles , and Ezra–Nehemiah . The Twelve Minor Prophets ( תרי עשר ) are also counted as a single book. In Hebrew, the books are often referred to by their prominent first words . The Torah ( תּוֹרָה , literally "teaching") is also known as

1932-657: Is roughly chronological (assuming traditional authorship). In Tiberian Masoretic codices (including the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex ), and often in old Spanish manuscripts as well, the order is Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra. This order is more thematic (e.g. the megillot are listed together). Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( Hebrew : אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי , Alefbet ivri ), known variously by scholars as

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2024-519: Is simply pronounced /t/. Likewise, historical /ð/ is simply pronounced /d/. Shin and sin are represented by the same letter, ש ‎, but are two separate phonemes . When vowel diacritics are used, the two phonemes are differentiated with a shin -dot or sin -dot; the shin -dot is above the upper-right side of the letter, and the sin -dot is above the upper-left side of the letter. Historically, left-dot-sin corresponds to Proto-Semitic * ś , which in biblical-Judaic-Hebrew corresponded to

2116-487: Is the system of dots that help determine vowels and consonants. In Hebrew, all forms of niqqud are often omitted in writing, except for children's books, prayer books, poetry, foreign words, and words which would be ambiguous to pronounce. Israeli Hebrew has five vowel phonemes, /i e a o u/ , but many more written symbols for them: Note 1: The circle represents whatever Hebrew letter is used. Note 2: The pronunciation of tsere and sometimes segol – with or without

2208-573: The Ktav Ashuri , Jewish script , square script and block script , is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages , most notably Yiddish , Ladino , Judeo-Arabic , and Judeo-Persian . In modern Hebrew, vowels are increasingly introduced. It is also used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic , especially among Druze . It is an offshoot of

2300-470: The Dead Sea Scrolls version (4QLam/4Q111), reversed ordering also appears in the first chapter (i.e. in all the first four chapters). The fact that these chapters follows the pre-exilic pe-ayin order is evidence for them being written shortly after the events described, rather than being later, post-exilic compositions. The descriptions that follow are based on the pronunciation of modern standard Israeli Hebrew. pronunciation By analogy with

2392-680: The Hebrew Bible is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Hebrew Bible The authoritative form of the modern Hebrew Bible used in Rabbinic Judaism is the Masoretic Text (7th to 10th century CE), which consists of 24 books, divided into chapters and pesuqim (verses). The Hebrew Bible developed during the Second Temple Period , as the Jews decided which religious texts were of divine origin;

2484-634: The Imperial Aramaic alphabet , which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire and which itself derives from the Phoenician alphabet . Historically, a different abjad script was used to write Hebrew: the original, old Hebrew script, now known as the paleo-Hebrew alphabet , has been largely preserved in a variant form as the Samaritan alphabet , and is still used by the Samaritans . The present "Jewish script" or "square script", on

2576-718: The Masoretes added vowel markings to the text to ensure accuracy. Rabbi and Talmudic scholar Louis Ginzberg wrote in Legends of the Jews , published in 1909, that the twenty-four book canon was fixed by Ezra and the scribes in the Second Temple period . According to the Talmud , much of the Tanakh was compiled by the men of the Great Assembly ( Anshei K'nesset HaGedolah ), a task completed in 450  BCE, and it has remained unchanged ever since. The 24-book canon

2668-598: The Masoretic Text , compiled by the Jewish scribes and scholars of the Early Middle Ages , comprises the Hebrew and Aramaic 24 books that they considered authoritative. The Hellenized Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria produced a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called "the Septuagint ", that included books later identified as the Apocrypha , while the Samaritans produced their own edition of

2760-592: The Proto-Canaanite alphabet , called the paleo-Hebrew alphabet by scholars, began to emerge around 800 BCE. An example is the Siloam inscription ( c.  700 BCE ). The paleo-Hebrew alphabet was used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah . Following the Babylonian exile of the Kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BCE, Jews began using a form of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet , another offshoot of

2852-542: The patriarchs : Abraham , his son Isaac , and grandson Jacob . God promises Abraham and his descendants blessing and land. The covenant God makes with Abraham is signified by male circumcision . The children of Jacob become the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel . Jacob's son Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, but he becomes a powerful man in Egypt. During a famine, Jacob and his family settle in Egypt. Jacob's descendants lived in Egypt for 430 years. After

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2944-412: The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative /ɬ/ (or /ś/). Historically, the consonants ב ‎ bet , ג ‎ gimmel , ד ‎ daleth , כ ‎ kaf , פ ‎ pe and ת ‎ tav each had two sounds: one hard ( plosive ), and one soft ( fricative ), depending on the position of the letter and other factors. When vowel diacritics are used, the hard sounds are indicated by

3036-464: The "Pentateuch", or as the "Five Books of Moses". Printed versions (rather than scrolls) of the Torah are often called Chamisha Chumshei Torah ( חמישה חומשי תורה "Five fifth-sections of the Torah") and informally as Chumash . Nevi'im ( נְבִיאִים Nəḇīʾīm , "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim . This division includes the books which cover

3128-571: The 2006 precise transliteration system of the Academy of the Hebrew Language; for " צ ‎" SBL uses "ṣ" (≠ AHL "ẓ"), and for בג״ד כפ״ת with no dagesh, SBL uses the same symbols as for with dagesh (i.e. "b", "g", "d", "k", "f", "t"). In transliterations of modern Israeli Hebrew, initial and final ע ‎ (in regular transliteration), silent or initial א ‎, and silent ה ‎ are not transliterated. To

3220-584: The 5th century BCE. This is suggested by Ezra 7 :6, which describes Ezra as "a scribe skilled in the law ( torah ) of Moses that the Lord the God of Israel had given". The Nevi'im had gained canonical status by the 2nd century BCE. There are references to the "Law and the Prophets" in the Book of Sirach , the Dead Sea Scrolls , and the New Testament . The Book of Daniel, written c.  164 BCE ,

3312-641: The Exodus , the Israelites wander in the wilderness for 40 years. God gives the Israelites the Law of Moses to guide their behavior. The law includes rules for both religious ritual and ethics (see Ethics in the Bible ) . This moral code requires justice and care for the poor, widows, and orphans. The biblical story affirms God's unconditional love for his people, but he still punishes them when they fail to live by

3404-487: The Hebrew Bible resulting from centuries of hand-copying. Scribes introduced thousands of minor changes to the biblical texts. Sometimes, these changes were by accident. At other times, scribes intentionally added clarifications or theological material. In the Middle Ages, Jewish scribes produced the Masoretic Text , which became the authoritative version of the Tanakh. Ancient Hebrew was written without vowels, but

3496-410: The Hebrew Bible were composed and edited in stages over several hundred years. According to biblical scholar John J. Collins , "It now seems clear that all the Hebrew Bible received its final shape in the postexilic, or Second Temple, period." Traditionally, Moses was considered the author of the Torah, and this part of the Tanakh achieved authoritative or canonical status first, possibly as early as

3588-580: The Hebrew Bible, but the books are arranged in different orders. The Catholic , Eastern Orthodox , Oriental Orthodox , and Assyrian churches include the Deuterocanonical books , which are not included in certain versions of the Hebrew Bible. In Islam , the Tawrat ( Arabic : توراة ) is identified not only with the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses ), but also with the other books of

3680-533: The Hebrew Bible, once existed and is the source of the versions extant today. However, such an Urtext has never been found, and which of the three commonly known versions (Septuagint, Masoretic Text, Samaritan Pentateuch) is closest to the Urtext is debated. There are many similarities between the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament . The Protestant Old Testament has the same books as

3772-421: The Hebrew Bible. Tanakh is an acronym , made from the first Hebrew letter of each of the Masoretic Text 's three traditional divisions: Torah (literally 'Instruction' or 'Law'), Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings)—hence TaNaKh. The three-part division reflected in the acronym Tanakh is well attested in the rabbinic literature . During that period, however, Tanakh was not used. Instead,

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3864-410: The Hebrew alphabet, and not loanwords . Geresh is also used to denote an abbreviation consisting of a single Hebrew letter, while gershayim (a doubled geresh ) are used to denote acronyms pronounced as a string of letters; geresh and gershayim are also used to denote Hebrew numerals consisting of a single Hebrew letter or of multiple Hebrew letters, respectively. Geresh is also the name of

3956-724: The Hebrew canon, but modern scholars believe there was no such authoritative council of rabbis. Between 70 and 100 CE, rabbis debated whether certain books "make the hands unclean" (meaning the books are holy and should be considered scripture), and references to fixed numbers of canonical books appear. There were several criteria for inclusion. Books had to be older than the 4th century BCE or attributed to an author who had lived before that period. The original language had to be Hebrew, and books had to be widely used. Many books considered scripture by certain Jewish communities were excluded during this time. There are various textual variants in

4048-581: The Jacob cycle must be older than the time of King Josiah of Judah ( r.  640 – 609 BCE ), who pushed for the centralization of worship at Jerusalem. The story of Moses and the Exodus appears to also originate in the north. It existed as a self-contained story in its oral and earliest written forms, but it was connected to the patriarchal stories during the exile or post-exile periods. The account of Moses's birth ( Exodus 2 ) shows similarities to

4140-571: The Talmudic tradition ascribes late authorship to all of them; two of them (Daniel and Ezra) are the only books in Tanakh with significant portions in Aramaic . The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Talmud gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles. This order

4232-557: The Tanakh is monotheism , worshiping one God . The Tanakh was created by the Israelites , a people who lived within the cultural and religious context of the ancient Near East . The religions of the ancient Near East were polytheistic , but the Israelites rejected polytheism in favor of monotheism. Biblical scholar Christine Hayes writes that the Hebrew Bible was "the record of [the Israelites'] religious and cultural revolution". According to biblical scholar John Barton , " YHWH

4324-571: The Tanakh, such as Exodus 15, 1 Samuel 2, and Jonah 2. Books such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are examples of wisdom literature . Other books are examples of prophecy . In the prophetic books, a prophet denounces evil or predicts what God will do in the future. A prophet might also describe and interpret visions. The Book of Daniel is the only book in the Tanakh usually described as apocalyptic literature . However, other books or parts of books have been called proto-apocalyptic, such as Isaiah 24–27, Joel, and Zechariah 9–14. A central theme throughout

4416-466: The Torah to Moses . In later Biblical texts, such as Daniel 9:11 and Ezra 3:2, it is referred to as the " Torah (Law) of Moses ". However, the Torah itself credits Moses with writing only some specific sections. According to scholars , Moses would have lived in the 2nd millennium BCE , but this was before the development of Hebrew writing. The Torah is dated to the 1st millennium BCE after Israel and Judah had already developed as states. Nevertheless, "it

4508-533: The Torah, the Samaritan Pentateuch . According to the Dutch–Israeli biblical scholar and linguist Emanuel Tov , professor of Bible Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , both of these ancient editions of the Hebrew Bible differ significantly from the medieval Masoretic Text. In addition to the Masoretic Text, modern biblical scholars seeking to understand the history of the Hebrew Bible use

4600-530: The ancient Israelites mostly originated from within Canaan. Their material culture was closely related to their Canaanite neighbors, and Hebrew was a Canaanite dialect . Archaeological evidence indicates Israel began as loosely organized tribal villages in the hill country of modern-day Israel c.  1250  – c.  1000 BCE . During crises, these tribes formed temporary alliances. The Book of Judges , written c.  600 BCE (around 500 years after

4692-452: The beginning and end of the book of Job are in the normal prose system. The five relatively short books of the Song of Songs , Ruth , Lamentations , Ecclesiastes , and Esther are collectively known as the Ḥamesh Megillot (Five Megillot). In many Jewish communities, these books are read aloud in the synagogue on particular occasions, the occasion listed below in parentheses. Besides

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4784-455: The beginning of a syllable, or when doubled. They were pronounced as fricatives [v ɣ ð x f θ] when preceded by a vowel (commonly indicated with a macron, ḇ ḡ ḏ ḵ p̄ ṯ). The plosive and double pronunciations were indicated by the dagesh . In Modern Hebrew the sounds ḏ and ḡ have reverted to [d] and [ɡ] , respectively, and ṯ has become [t] , so only the remaining three consonants /b k p/ show variation. ר ‎ resh may have also been

4876-564: The birth of Sargon of Akkad , which suggests Neo-Assyrian influence sometime after 722 BCE. While the Moses story is set in Egypt, it is used to tell both an anti-Assyrian and anti-imperial message, all while appropriating Assyrian story patterns. David M. Carr notes the possibility of an early oral tradition for the Exodus story: "To be sure, there may have been a 'Moses group,' themselves of Canaanite extraction, who experienced slavery and liberation from Egypt, but most scholars believe that such

4968-430: The books of Daniel and Ezra ), written and printed in Aramaic square-script , which was adopted as the Hebrew alphabet after the Babylonian exile . The Tanakh includes a variety of genres, including narratives of events set in the past. The Torah ( Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy ) contains legal material. The Book of Psalms is a collection of hymns, but songs are included elsewhere in

5060-433: The connotations of alternative expressions such as ... Hebrew Bible [and] Old Testament" without prescribing the use of either. "Hebrew" refers to the original language of the books, but it may also be taken as referring to the Jews of the Second Temple era and their descendants, who preserved the transmission of the Masoretic Text up to the present day. The Hebrew Bible includes small portions in Aramaic (mostly in

5152-474: The content of the Ketuvim remained fluid until the canonization process was completed in the 2nd-century CE. There is no scholarly consensus as to when the Hebrew Bible canon was fixed: some scholars argue that it was fixed by the Hasmonean dynasty , while others argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later. The speculated late-1st-century Council of Jamnia was once credited with fixing

5244-423: The contrary, is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet and was technically known by Jewish sages as Ashurit (lit. "Assyrian script"), since its origins were known to be from Assyria ( Mesopotamia ). Various "styles" (in current terms, " fonts ") of representation of the Jewish script letters described in this article also exist, including a variety of cursive Hebrew styles. In the remainder of this article,

5336-570: The covenant. God leads Israel into the Promised Land of Canaan , which they conquer after five years. For the next 470 years, the Israelites were led by judges . In time, a new enemy emerged called the Philistines . They continued to trouble Israel when the prophet Samuel was judge (1 Samuel 4:1–7:1). When Samuel grew old, the people requested that he choose a king because Samuel's sons were corrupt and they wanted to be like other nations ( 1 Samuel 8 ). The Tanakh presents this negatively as

5428-483: The events it describes), portrays Israel as a grouping of decentralized tribes, and the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 may reflect older oral traditions. It features archaic elements of Hebrew and a tribal list that identifies Israel exclusively with the northern tribes. By the 9th or 8th centuries BCE, the scribal culture of Samaria and Judah was sufficiently developed to produce biblical texts. The Kingdom of Samaria

5520-425: The everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary. The symbol resembling an apostrophe after the Hebrew letter modifies the pronunciation of the letter and is called a geresh . The pronunciation of the following letters can also be modified with the geresh diacritic. The represented sounds are however foreign to Hebrew phonology , i.e., these symbols mainly represent sounds in foreign words or names when transliterated with

5612-486: The exploitation of widows, orphans, and other vulnerable groups. In addition, the Tanakh condemns murder, theft, bribery, corruption, deceitful trading, adultery, incest, bestiality, and homosexual acts. Another theme of the Tanakh is theodicy , showing that God is just even though evil and suffering are present in the world. The Tanakh begins with the Genesis creation narrative . Genesis 12–50 traces Israelite origins to

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5704-459: The eye of readers orientating themselves on Latin (or similar) alphabets, these letters might seem to be transliterated as vowel letters; however, these are in fact transliterations of the vowel diacritics – niqqud (or are representations of the spoken vowels). E.g., in אִם ("if", [ʔim] ), אֵם ("mother", [ʔe̞m] ) and אֹם (" nut ", [ʔo̞m] ), the letter א ‎ always represents the same consonant: [ ʔ ] ( glottal stop ), whereas

5796-628: The juxtapositions ת״ק ‎, ת״ר ‎, ת״ש ‎, ת״ת ‎, and תת״ק ‎ respectively. Adding a geresh (" ׳ ‎") to a letter multiplies its value by one thousand, for example, the year 5778 is portrayed as ה׳תשע״ח ‎, where ה׳ ‎ represents 5000, and תשע״ח ‎ represents 778. The following table lists transliterations and transcriptions of Hebrew letters used in Modern Hebrew . Clarifications: Note: SBL's transliteration system, recommended in its Handbook of Style , differs slightly from

5888-511: The kingdom is divided between his son Eshbaal and David (David ruled his tribe of Judah and Eshbaal ruled the rest). After Eshbaal's assassination, David was anointed king over all of Israel ( 2 Samuel 2–5). David captures the Jebusite city of Jerusalem ( 2 Samuel 5 :6–7) and makes it his capital. Jerusalem's location between Judah in the southern hills and the northern Israelite tribes made it an ideal location from which to rule over all

5980-468: The language to children. The Tiberian system also includes a set of cantillation marks , called trope or te'amim , used to indicate how scriptural passages should be chanted in synagogue recitations of scripture (although these marks do not appear in the scrolls). In everyday writing of modern Hebrew, niqqud are absent; however, patterns of how words are derived from Hebrew roots (called shorashim or "triliterals") allow Hebrew speakers to determine

6072-544: The late 2nd century BC, and performed this arithmetic function for about a thousand years. Nowadays alphanumeric notation is used only in specific contexts, e.g. denoting dates in the Hebrew calendar , denoting grades of school in Israel, other listings (e.g. שלב א׳ , שלב ב׳ – "phase a, phase b"), commonly in Kabbalah ( Jewish mysticism ) in a practice known as gematria , and often in religious contexts. The numbers 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900 are commonly represented by

6164-489: The letter yod – is sometimes ei in Modern Hebrew. This is not correct in the normative pronunciation and not consistent in the spoken language. Note 3: The dagesh , mappiq , and shuruk have different functions, even though they look the same. Note 4: The letter ו ‎ ( waw/vav ) is used since it can only be represented by that letter. By adding a vertical line (called Meteg ) underneath

6256-517: The letter and to the left of the vowel point, the vowel is made long. The meteg is only used in Biblical Hebrew , not Modern Hebrew . By adding two vertical dots (called Sh'va ) underneath the letter, the vowel is made very short. When sh'va is placed on the first letter of the word, mostly it is "è" (but in some instances, it makes the first letter silent without a vowel (vowel-less): e.g. וְ wè to "w") The symbol ״ ‎

6348-776: The letter is combined with a previous vowel and becomes silent, or by imitation of such cases in the spelling of other forms. Also, a system of vowel points to indicate vowels (diacritics), called niqqud , was developed. In modern forms of the alphabet, as in the case of Yiddish and to some extent Modern Hebrew , vowels may be indicated. Today, the trend is toward full spelling with the weak letters acting as true vowels. When used to write Yiddish , vowels are indicated, using certain letters, either with niqqud diacritics (e.g. אָ ‎ or יִ ‎) or without (e.g. ע ‎ or י ‎), except for Hebrew words, which in Yiddish are written in their Hebrew spelling. To preserve

6440-408: The letters י ו ה א can also function as matres lectionis , which is when certain consonants are used to indicate vowels. There is a trend in Modern Hebrew towards the use of matres lectionis to indicate vowels that have traditionally gone unwritten, a practice known as " full spelling ". The Yiddish alphabet , a modified version of the Hebrew alphabet used to write Yiddish,

6532-628: The letters, called a " dagesh kal", also modifies the sounds of the letters ב ‎, כ ‎ and פ ‎ in modern Hebrew (in some forms of Hebrew it modifies also the sounds of the letters ג ‎, ד ‎ and/or ת ‎; the "dagesh chazak" – orthographically indistinguishable from the "dagesh kal" – designates gemination , which today is realized only rarely – e.g. in biblical recitations or when using Arabic loanwords ). س ‎ א ‎ alef , ע ‎ ayin , ו ‎ waw/vav and י ‎ yod are letters that can sometimes indicate

6624-429: The normal form in the following table (letter names are Unicode standard ). Although Hebrew is read and written from right to left, the following table shows the letters in order from left to right: As far back as the 13th century BCE, ancient Hebrew abecedaries indicate a slightly different ordering of the alphabet. The Zayit Stone , Izbet Sartah ostracon , and one inscription from Kuntillet Ajrud each contain

6716-484: The other dotted/dotless pairs, dotless tav, ת ‎, would be expected to be pronounced /θ/ ( voiceless dental fricative ), and dotless dalet ד ‎ as /ð/ ( voiced dental fricative ), but these were lost among most Jews due to these sounds not existing in the countries where they lived (such as in nearly all of Eastern Europe). Yiddish modified /θ/ to /s/ (cf. seseo in Spanish), but in modern Israeli Hebrew, it

6808-408: The proper title was Mikra (or Miqra , מקרא, meaning reading or that which is read ) because the biblical texts were read publicly. The acronym 'Tanakh' is first recorded in the medieval era. Mikra continues to be used in Hebrew to this day, alongside Tanakh, to refer to the Hebrew scriptures. In modern spoken Hebrew , they are interchangeable. Many biblical studies scholars advocate use of

6900-540: The proper vowel sounds, scholars developed several different sets of vocalization and diacritical symbols called nequdot ( נקודות‎ ‎, literally "points"). One of these, the Tiberian system , eventually prevailed. Aaron ben Moses ben Asher , and his family for several generations, are credited for refining and maintaining the system. These points are normally used only for special purposes, such as Biblical books intended for study, in poetry or when teaching

6992-583: The rebirth of the Hebrew language as a spoken language in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in Israel . In the traditional form, the Hebrew alphabet is an abjad consisting only of consonants , written from right to left . It has 22 letters, five of which use different forms at the end of a word. In the traditional form, vowels are indicated by the weak consonants Aleph ( א ‎), He ( ה ‎), Waw/Vav ( ו ‎), or Yodh ( י ‎) serving as vowel letters, or matres lectionis :

7084-602: The reign of King Jeroboam II (781–742   BCE). Before then, it belonged to Aram , and Psalm 20 is nearly identical to an Aramaic psalm found in the 4th century BCE Papyrus Amherst 63 . The author of the Books of Kings likely lived in Jerusalem. The text shows a clear bias favoring Judah, where God's worship was centralized in Jerusalem. The Kingdom of Samaria is portrayed as a godless breakaway region whose rulers refuse to worship at Jerusalem. The books that make up

7176-574: The revelation at Sinai , since it is impossible to read the original text without pronunciations and cantillation pauses. The combination of a text ( מקרא mikra ), pronunciation ( ניקוד niqqud ) and cantillation ( טעמים te`amim ) enable the reader to understand both the simple meaning and the nuances in sentence flow of the text. The number of distinct words in the Hebrew Bible is 8,679, of which 1,480 are hapax legomena , words or expressions that occur only once. The number of distinct Semitic roots , on which many of these biblical words are based,

7268-637: The same family of scripts, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire . The Samaritans , who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During the 3rd century BCE, Jews began to use a stylized, "square" form of the Aramaic alphabet that was used by the Persian Empire (and which in turn had been adopted from the Assyrians ), while the Samaritans continued to use

7360-693: The term Hebrew Bible (or Hebrew Scriptures ) as a substitute for less-neutral terms with Jewish or Christian connotations (e.g., Tanakh or Old Testament ). The Society of Biblical Literature 's Handbook of Style , which is the standard for major academic journals like the Harvard Theological Review and conservative Protestant journals like the Bibliotheca Sacra and the Westminster Theological Journal , suggests that authors "be aware of

7452-646: The term "Hebrew alphabet" refers to the square script unless otherwise indicated. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. It does not have case . Five letters have different forms when used at the end of a word. Hebrew is written from right to left . Originally, the alphabet was an abjad consisting only of consonants , but is now considered an " impure abjad ". As with other abjads, such as the Arabic alphabet , during its centuries-long use scribes devised means of indicating vowel sounds by separate vowel points, known in Hebrew as niqqud . In both biblical and rabbinic Hebrew,

7544-426: The text being transliterated), resulting in "im", "em" and "om", respectively. The diacritic geresh – " ׳ ‎" – is used with some other letters as well ( ד׳ ‎, ח׳ ‎, ט׳ ‎, ע׳ ‎, ר׳ ‎, ת׳ ‎), but only to transliterate from other languages to Hebrew – never to spell Hebrew words; therefore they were not included in this table (correctly translating

7636-460: The three poetic books and the five scrolls, the remaining books in Ketuvim are Daniel , Ezra–Nehemiah and Chronicles . Although there is no formal grouping for these books in the Jewish tradition, they nevertheless share a number of distinguishing characteristics: their narratives all openly describe relatively late events (i.e. the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent restoration of Zion);

7728-657: The time from the entrance of the Israelites into the Land of Israel until the Babylonian captivity of Judah (the "period of prophecy" ). Their distribution is not chronological, but substantive. The Former Prophets ( נביאים ראשונים Nevi'im Rishonim ): The Latter Prophets ( נביאים אחרונים Nevi'im Aharonim ): The Twelve Minor Prophets ( תרי עשר , Trei Asar , "The Twelve"), which are considered one book: Kəṯūḇīm ( כְּתוּבִים , "Writings") consists of eleven books. In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in

7820-636: The tribes. He further increased Jerusalem's importance by bringing the Ark of the Covenant there from Shiloh ( 2 Samuel 6 ). David's son Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem. After Solomon's death, the united kingdom split into the northern Kingdom of Israel (also known as the Kingdom of Samaria) with its capital at Samaria and the southern Kingdom of Judah with its capital at Jerusalem. The Kingdom of Samaria survived for 200 years until it

7912-461: The various Canaanite languages (including Hebrew, Moabite, Phoenician, Punic, et cetera). The Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before around 1000 BCE. An example of related early Semitic inscriptions from the area include the tenth-century Gezer calendar over which scholars are divided as to whether its language is Hebrew or Phoenician and whether the script is Proto-Canaanite or paleo-Hebrew . A Hebrew variant of

8004-549: The vowel-structure of a given word from its consonants based on the word's context and part of speech. Unlike the Paleo-Hebrew writing script, the modern Hebrew script has five letters that have special final forms , called sofit ( Hebrew : סופית , meaning in this context "final" or "ending") form, used only at the end of a word, somewhat as in the Greek or in the Arabic and Mandaic alphabets . These are shown below

8096-444: The vowels /i/, /e/ and /o/ respectively represent the spoken vowel, whether it is orthographically denoted by diacritics or not. Since the Academy of the Hebrew Language ascertains that א ‎ in initial position is not transliterated, the symbol for the glottal stop   ʾ   is omitted from the transliteration, and only the subsequent vowels are transliterated (whether or not their corresponding vowel diacritics appeared in

8188-463: Was chiefly done by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher , in the Tiberias school, based on the oral tradition for reading the Tanakh, hence the name Tiberian vocalization . It also included some innovations of Ben Naftali and the Babylonian exiles . Despite the comparatively late process of codification, some traditional sources and some Orthodox Jews hold the pronunciation and cantillation to derive from

8280-628: Was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. The Kingdom of Judah survived for longer, but it was conquered by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The Temple was destroyed, and many Judeans were exiled to Babylon . In 539 BCE, Babylon was conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia, who allowed the exiles to return to Judah . Between 520 and 515 BCE, the Temple was rebuilt (see Second Temple ) . Religious tradition ascribes authorship of

8372-497: Was more powerful and culturally advanced than the Kingdom of Judah. It also featured multiple cultic sites, including the sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan . Scholars estimate that the Jacob tradition (Genesis 25–35) was first written down in the 8th century BCE and probably originated in the north because the stories occur there. Based on the prominence given to the sanctuary at Bethel (Genesis 28), these stories were likely preserved and written down at that religious center. This means

8464-536: Was not grouped with the Prophets presumably because the Nevi'im collection was already fixed by this time. The Ketuvim was the last part of the Tanakh to achieve canonical status. The prologue to the Book of Sirach mentions "other writings" along with the Law and Prophets but does not specify the content. The Gospel of Luke refers to "the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms" ( Luke 24 :44). These references suggest that

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