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this small reference book will enlighten Bible students to the riches of God’s truth in the
Old Testament.
A. The Place of Hebrew in History.
Hebrew language and literature hold a unique
place in the course of Western civilization. It emerged sometime after 1500 B.C. in the
area of Palestine, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The Jewish people
have used Hebrew continuously in one location or another to the present day. A
modernized dialect of Hebrew (with spelling modifications) is the official language of the
State of Israel.
When Alexander the Great came to power, he united the Greek city-states under the
influence of Macedonia from about 330 B.C. to 323 B.C. Alexander and his generals
virtually annihilated the social structures and languages of the ancient societies that their
empire had absorbed. The Babylonians, Aramaeans, Persians, and Egyptians ceased to
exist as distinct civilizations; only the Greek (Hellenistic) culture remained. Judaism was
the only ancient religion and Hebrew the only ancient language that survived this
onslaught.
The Hebrew Bible contains the continuous history of civilization from Creation to
Roman times. It is the only record of God’s dealings with humanity through His prophets,
priests, and kings. In addition, it is the only ancient religious document that has survived
completely intact.
Hebrew is related to Aramaic, Syriac, and such modern languages as Amharic and
Arabic (both ancient and modern). It belongs to a group of languages known as the
Semitic
languages (so called because Scripture says that they were spoken by the
descendants of Noah’s son, Shem). The oldest known Semitic language is Akkadian,
which was written in the "wedge-shaped" or
cuneiform
system of signs. The earliest
Akkadian texts were written on clay tablets in about 2400 B.C. Babylonian and Assyrian
are later dialects of Akkadian; both influenced the development of Hebrew. Because the
Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian languages were all used in Mesopotamia, they are
classified as "East Semitic" languages.
The earliest evidence for the origins of "West Semitic" languages appears to be an
inscription from the ancient city of Ebla. This was a little-known capital of a Semitic state
in what is now Northern Syria. The tablets of Ebla are bilingual, written in both Sumerian
and Eblaite. The team of Italian archaeologists excavating Ebla have reported that these
tablets contain a number of personal and place names mentioned in the Book of Genesis.
Some of the tablets have been dated as early as 2400 B.C. Since Hebrew was also a West
Semitic language, the publication of Ebla’s texts may cast new light on many older
Hebrew words and phrases.
The earliest complete series of pre-Hebrew texts comes from the ancient Canaanite
city of Ugarit. Located on a cluster of hills in southern Lebanon, Ugarit has yielded texts
that contain detailed information about the religion, poetry, and trade of the Canaanite
people. The texts are dated between 1800 and 1200 B.C. These tablets contain many
words and phrases that are almost identical to words found in the Hebrew Bible. The
Ugaritic dialect illuminates the development of Old Hebrew (or Paleo-Hebrew). The
poetic structure of the Ugaritic language is mirrored in many passages of the Old
Testament, such as the "Song of Deborah" in Judges 5. The scribes of Ugarit wrote in a
modified cuneiform script that was virtually alphabetic; this script prepared the way for
using the simpler Phoenician writing system.