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Semitic languages such as Arabic, Assyrian, Ugaritic, Ethiopic, and Aramaic to discover
the basic meaning of many heretofore obscure terms.
But is is not enough merely to have clarified the meaning of each root word. Each
word can take on different shades of meaning as it is employed in various contexts, so
one must study the various biblical occurrences of the word to arrive at an accurate
understanding of its intended use.
This type of research has introduced students of Hebrew to a new world of
understanding the Old Testament. But how can this material be made available to those
who do not know Hebrew? That is the purpose of the present work.
now the lay student can have before him or her the Hebrew root, or a Hebrew word
based on that root, and can trace its development to its use in the passage before him.
Moreover, he can acquire some appreciation of the richness and variety of the Hebrew
vocabulary. For example, Hebrew synonyms often have pivotal doctrinal repercussions,
as with the word
virgin
in Isaiah 7:14, compared with similar words meaning “young
woman.” In some cases, a play on words is virtually impossible to reflect in the English
translation (e.g., Zeph 2:4–7). Some Hebrew words can have quite different—sometimes
exactly opposite—meanings in different contexts; thus the word
can mean “to
bless” or “to curse,”and
can mean “to redeem” or “to pollute.”
The lay student, of course, will suffer some disadvantage in not knowing Hebrew. yet
is is fair to say that an up-to-date expository dictionary that makes a happy selection of
the more meaningful Hebrew words of the Old Testament will open up a treasure house
of truth contained in the Hebrew Bible. It can offer a tremendous boon to the meaningful
study of Scripture. It cannot fail to become an essential reference work for all serious
students of the Bible.
M
ERRILL
F. U
NGER
INTRODUCTION
The writings of the New Testament are based in a large measure on God’s revelation
in the Old Testament. To understand the New Testament themes of Creation, Fall, and
Restoration, it is necessary to read of their origin in the Old Testament.
The New Testament was written in a popular dialect of an Indo-European language,
Greek. The Old Testament was written in the Semitic languages of Hebrew and Aramaic.
For centuries, lay students of the Bible have found it very difficult to understand the
structure of biblical Hebrew. Study guides to biblical Hebrew are designed for people
who can read Hebrew-and many of them are written in German, which only compounds
the difficulty.
This
Expository Dictionary
seeks to present about 500 significant terms of the Old
Testament for lay readers who are not familiar with Hebrew. It describes the frequency,
usage, and meaning of these terms as fully as possible. No source has been ignored in
seeking to bring the latest Hebrew scholarship to the student who seeks it. It is hoped that