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This is my own little glossary of some Hebrew words. It does not aim to be anything like a complete Hebrew dictionary. A much better way to look up Hebrew words online is the Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew or Brown-Driver-Briggs.
I have had more than enough trouble with Hebrew characters formatting properly when I write online, so I’ve sworn them off (uhh[1]). I’m going with transliterations from now on. Here is the Hebrew alphabet as it will appear below:
ʾ b g d h w z ḥ ṭ y k l m n s (ʿ or ʕ) p ṣ q r š/ś t
When I transliterate words without vowels, I will generally not make any attempt to distinguish between the varying pronunciations of b, w, k, y and p. I will try to distinguish between š (as in sham) and ś (as in Sam). The following is a collection of Hebrew words, with brief notes attached, alphabetized according to their spelling in Hebrew. Shin and Sin are treated as a single letter for purposes of alphabetization.
ʾ. On the letter alef, see here.
ʾb. Pronounced av, 'father'; pronounced ev, greenness or freshness. See here.
ʾd. Pronounced ed, this word appears only twice in the Bible (Genesis 2:6, Job 36:27). I am not able to settle on a conclusive meaning based on the scanty information provided, but it has something to do with water. See the definition in SDBH.
ʾdm (a-DAM). A word for human, human being, or humanity. It is also the name given to the first human. The phrase bn ʾdm (ben adam, literally, “son of man”) refers to a human being.
ʾḥz is a verb in biblical Hebrew, and also the proper noun 'Ahaz'. See here.
ʾlh. Pronounced E-le, it means these. The less common pronunciation e-LO-ah (with the h pronounced as a consonant) is an unusual term for God.
ʾlh. When pronounced e-LO-ah, with the h clearly enunciated, this is the defective spelling of the word ʾlwh.
ʾlh twldwt (E-leh tol-DOT). This is a standard phrase, used to introduce information about a person or subject by means of a formulaic “These are the Toldot of X.” It is similar to less common the phrase zh spr twldwt, “This is the record of the Toldot of . . .” found in Genesis 5:1 and Septuagint Vorlage Genesis 2:4. For more, see the entry twldwt.
ʾlhym. Pronounce it, e-lo-HIM. Equivalent of the English words God, god, or gods, depending on context. It looks plural, but usually isn’t. In Genesis 1:1, paired with a singular verb, brʾ, it is singular in meaning. It most often is used in reference to the supreme biblical deity Yahweh, but sometimes it refers to another god (as Dagon in 1 Samuel 5:7) or gods (as in Exodus 18:11). Sometimes the context provides scanty clues and it is hard to say whether a singular or plural meaning is intended, as in Genesis 3:5. Once in a while an unusual singular-looking form, ʾlwh, is found, as in Deuteronomy 32:15.
ʾlwh. Pronounce it e-LO-ah (make sure to pronounce the final h as a consonant). This is the unusual singular-looking word for God or god. It is related to the much more common ʾlhym. It appears quite a few times in Job, but is uncommon elsewhere.
ʾlwhym. A plene spelling of ʾlhym.
ʾrṣ. Pronounce it E-rets. It means ‘earth’ as opposed to ‘sky’ (Genesis 1:1), or ‘land’ as in erets yisrael ‘land of Israel’ (1 Samuel 13:19).
ʾšdt. Traditionally, the word is pronounced as two words esh dat, but this probably isn’t right. Nobody knows what it means. It only appears in Deuteronomy 33:2. For discussion, see here.
ʾšh*. We have here two different words, and a third marginal or theoretical case: Pronounced ish-sha, this word means "woman". Its irregular plural is nashim. In construct phrases of the form eshet [NAME] or nashei [NAME], the expression means "wife of [NAME]". Pronounced ish-she, we have a term applied to some food and drink offerings in the Israelite sacrificial system. The term is traditionally read as "fire offering" or "offering made by fire", although there is some disagreement about this.
ʾt. Pronounce it et. This is usually the direct object marker in Hebrew, as in Genesis 1:1 — When God began to create et the sky and et the land. It is also often used as a rough equivalent of near, alongside, or with, as in Leviticus 19 (KJV) — Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with [et] the all night until the morning. There is also a strange usage of the word in Genesis 4:1, about which I hope to say more one day.
ʾth. Prounce it ata. Usually it’s the second person singular masculine pronoun you, although every now and then it’s the poetic verb come (as in Deuteronomy 33:2). In these cases ʾth is a more poetic equivalent to bwʾ.
bhw. Pronounce it as BO-hu. This is a synonym for thw, and all three verses of the Bible that contain the word bhw also contain the word thw. Those two words are discussed here.
bhmh (b’he-MAH). A word which, depending on context, can refer specifically to domestic quadrupeds, or to (large) quadrupeds in general, as opposed to small crawling animals, birds, and humans. For Gesenius, see here. For the entry in SDBH, start navigating from here.
bwʾ (bo). This is the ordinary term for come, come in, enter, and is also used for sexual relations.
brʾ. Pronounce ba-RA. It is the verb to create, as in Genesis 1:1. I don’t think it has the technical sense of creation ex nihilo, as some do. For some links concerning Ellen Van Wolde’s proposal on the word, see here. Its appearance in Genesis 1:21 I briefly discuss here.
brʾšyt. Pronounced b’-re-SHIT, this is a compound word made of of b- ‘in, when,’ plus rʾšyt, ‘beginning.’ I discuss it briefly here.
bšgm. I do not know the meaning of this word, which appears in Genesis 6:3.
gn. The so-called “garden of Eden” is, in Hebrew, the gan of Eden. But unlike a vegetable garden, it was filled with fruit trees. Discussed here, and see here.
gpr. The ark of Noah was made out of gpr wood, according to Genesis 6:14. As this is the only use of this word in the Bible, I don’t think there’s any way to know for sure what sort of wood was intended.
dšʾ. Pronounced DE-she, this is a word for vegetation. See here. Its occurrence in Genesis 1:11 is discussed briefly |here.
h-. Attached to a noun or adjective, this is the Hebrew article, roughly equivalent to the English word the. At other times, a prefixed h- is used to introduce a question.
hgh. Dictionary form pronounced ha-GA. Do not believe the Strong’s pronunciation over at Blue Letter Bible (here), which, probably due to a typo, reads it daw-gaw’. That is a mistake. This word means to study, read, or recite to oneself (quietly). I discuss it here.
hʾrṣ. Pronounce it ha-A-rets, as in Genesis 1:1. It is the prefix h- (the) plus the word ʾrṣ (earth). Note that when the word ʾrṣ is anarthrous, it is pronounced Erets, as in Genesis 1:10.
hr (har). A mountain, hill, or hilly tract of land. The plural is hrym (harim)
hrym. Plural of hr.
hšmym wʾt hʾrṣ. Read it as hash-sha-MA-yim v’-et ha-A-rets. Some people take this (in Genesis 1:1) as a merism for the universe. I leave it as sky and land. See here.
w-. Pronounce it was v- or u- depending on the word it precedes. This prefix is roughly like the English word and, though there are important differences in how it is used, especially when it is stuck on the front of a verb.
wyzkr. A wayyiqtol form of zkr “to remember”, as in Genesis 8:1, 19:29, 30:22; Exodus 2:24. Briefly mentioned here.
wykl. As used in Genesis 2:1, a wayyiqtol form of the verb klh (piʿel).
zh. Pronounced zeh, it is the equivalent of the English word 'this'.
zh spr twldwt. ze SE-fer tol-DOT. A phrase is is similar in import to ʾlh twldwt, but which appears less often. You can find it in Masoretic Genesis 5:1 and reconstruct it from Septuagint Genesis 2:4. See twldwt. At least some authors see the phrase as revealing the present of a 'Book of Generations' which was used as a source by a redactor of Genesis. See, for example, Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?, pp. 218-9.
zkr. A verbal root meaning 'to remember.' In passages where people are in trouble, we sometimes read that God “remembers” those he favors immediately before he intervenes to help (Genesis 8:1, 19:29, etc.).
ḥytw ʾrṣ. An odd phrase for wild animals, discussed here in connection with its use in Genesis 1:24.
ṭhwr. Pronounced ta-HOR. In terms of biblical law, some animals were permitted to eat. These animals were tahor, while other animals were not tahor, and therefore forbidden. Traditionally tahor has been translated as “clean,” but this could be misleading, because physical cleanliness is not the criteria for deciding whether an animal was tahor or not. The term also appears in contexts involving purity laws, to denote something as ritually pure.
ṭhr. Pronounced ta-HOR, see the fuller spelling ṭhwr.
ydwn. I do not know the meaning of this verb, which appears in Genesis 6:3.
yhwh. Proper name of the deity worshipped by the authors of the Bible. And in the Pentateuch, its presence is important in terms of the Documentary Hypothesis. The conventionally pronunciation among scholars is Yahweh, while traditionally in Jewish contexts it is Adonai or Hashem, depending on the situation.
-ym. On (usually) masculine words, this ending, usually pronounced -im, indicates that the word is plural. Sometimes, when pronounced -ayim, is is the dual ending.
yqwm (ye-KUM). A collective singular word that could be translated beings or living things. It is used twice in Genesis 7, in a description of God’s intent and action to destroy all yequm (all living things). Outside of this, its only appearance is in Deuteronomy 11:6.
yrḥ (ya-RE-aḥ). Word for ‘moon,’ which seems to be deliberately avoided in Genesis 1:16 due to possible religious or mythical connotations.
yrḥp (ye-ra-ḤEF). A suffix-conjugation form of the piel verb rḥp. Deuteronomy 32:11 contains the only instance of the form yrḥp.
k-. This prefix usually means (1) “like, similar to, as” or (2) “when.”
ky (ki). A particle often translated as because, this word is also used to introduce quotes. For an academic paper on its use with quotations, see this by John Hobbins.
kkr. See here.
kl (kol). This word means “all” or “every.”
klh (piel verb). To complete, to finish, to be finished with (something). I advocate translating is as was finished with in Genesis 2:2 here. For more, see Gesenius.
kngdw. This phrase, found in Genesis 2:18,20 is to be analyzed as k- + ngd + -w. The preposition ngd means typically “opposite” or “across from” while k- most commonly means “like,” “when,” or “as.” The whole kngdw means either something like suitable for him or something like as his counterpart.
knp (ka-NAF). Usually means “wing,” but Dillmann suggests that in Genesis 7:14 it might refer to flying insects, as opposed to birds (ṣpwr).
kpr (noun, construction material). In Genesis 6:14, Noah is commanded to cover the ark, inside and outside, with kpr, which would probably refer to some kind of waterproofing material. See the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, “Pitch.”
mym (MA-yim). Though it looks plural or dual, this is simply the term for “water” in Hebrew. You will never find a singular form (may ?) anywhere. Note: you could read this combination of consonants the prefix m- (from) plus the word ym (yam, sea), giving the meaning “from the sea.” This reading is suggested by Kittel in Genesis 7:6. See also mymy.
mymy. The construct form of mym (mayim) is usually my (me), “waters of.” However, the less common irregular form mymy (meme) also appears.
mksh (mik-SE). A covering, or roof. In Genesis 8:13, Noah pulls off the mksh of the ark so that he can see outside. Given an ark that is about 450 feet long and 75 feet wide, this would be challenging. Briefly discussed here. For a list of its occurrences in the Hebrew Bible and Gesenius's entry on the word, see here.
mlʾkh (mela-KHA). See here. This grammatically feminine noun refers to work or business, and it has a legal meaning: one is not to engage in any mlʾkh on the Sabbath day. The Bible did not give an exhaustive account of what constituted mlʾkh in the legal sense, although gathering firewood (Numbers 15:32-36) and kindling fire (Exodus 35:3) were included in its meaning. To fill this lacuna, rabbinical Judaism listed 39 activities constituting work on the basis of a creative interpretive move equating ‘work’ with the work involved in Temple maintenance. See here.
mn (min). A preposition meaning “from” and other things. Its shortened prefix form is m- (mi-).
mʾd (me-OD). This word means “very,” “a lot,” “very much.”
mpny (mi-PNE). Meaning “away from” or “because of,” this is a compound of the prefix m- “from” and pny “face, presence.”
mqdm. A compound of the preposition mn plus qdm, east. mqdm means “eastward” or “from the east” depending on the context. Sometimes, as in the story of the tower of Babel, this ambiguity can cause problems.
mqnh. See here.
mrḥpt (me-ra-ḤE-fet). A participial form of the piel verb rḥp. Genesis 1:2 contains the only instance of a participle of rḥp.
ngd. A preposition generally meaning across from or opposite.
npylym. Nephilim: described in Genesis 6:4 as demigods, and in numbers 13:33 as being very tall.
sbb. Discussed here.
spr (SE-fer). A noun often translated book, but also having a broader meaning. It can include short written texts, such as a receipt of a commercial translation (Jeremiah 32:12).
ʿdn (E-den, proper noun with tsere as the first vowel). This is the name of the location of the famous garden of Eden. It is probably no coincidence that it is the same word as the common noun ʿdn meaning pleasure or delight, and very close to the ʿdnh of the same meaning in Genesis 18:12. There is also a name for a ethnicity know as ʿdn, which the Masoretes point with segol in Isaiah 37:12 / 2 Kings 19:12 and Ezekiel 27:23. Whether there was originally any connection between the ‘garden of Eden’ and the ‘people of Eden’ I do not know.
ʿm (am). Most commonly the term means refers to a group of people, especially an ethnic group, but also sometimes a smaller group such as an armed force. There is also a somewhat less common usage in which the word means "kinsman". This less common usage is the one which appears in the idiom "to be gathered to ʿmyv".
ʿwp (OF). A word encompassing both birds and flying insects. Briefly discussed here.
ʿzr (E-zer). This word can refer either to (a) a person who provides aid or help, or (b) the aid or help itself. Most commonly it has sense (a), where it is usually used of God. Woman is also spoken of as an ʿzr to man (Genesis 2:18,20). For an example of ʿzr being used in sense (b), see Psalm 20:2 — “May [God] send you help from the sanctuary; and from Zion may he strengthen you.”
ʿm (when vocalized ʿam)
ʿṣ (ets). This word can refer to living trees, as in Genesis 1:11, to lumber, as in Genesis 6:14, or even to a specific wooden structure, like the ‘gallows’ or ‘gibbet’ of Esther 5:14.
ʿśb (E-sev). A term for seed-bearing plants in Genesis 1:11 and other passages. It is discussed briefly here and in a little more depth here.
pdwt, also spelled pdt, pronounced p’dut. This word means something like liberation/rescue/redemption in the three poetic passages where it appears. In one other passage, there is a tricky situation. See here.
pdt. See pdwt.
pny. A word in construct state, meaning, face of, surface of or presence of. When given the prefix m-, mpny can mean either away from or because of.
ṣbʾ (tsa-VA). The most common meaning of this word is army. There is also the concept of the celestial ṣbʾ, ‘army of heaven’ or ‘army of the sky,’ which consists depending on the context of the various heavenly beings or the various heavenly bodies (which are identified with one another in polytheistic worship). Yahweh, by virtue of his position as ruler of the sky and/or sovereign over human armies, is referred to as God of ṣbʾwt (‘God of armies’) and similar titles (‘Yahweh of armies’, etc.). There is also an unusual use of the term in Genesis 2:1 discussed |here.
ṣhr. This singular word is possibly related to the dual form ṣhrym ‘noon.’ But the form ṣhr appears only in Genesis 6:16 (Dillmann), and so the meaning is somewhat uncertain. The typical guess is that it means something like ‘window.’ An alternative interpretation is that it refers to the ‘back’ or ‘top’ of the boat in some way.
ṣpwr (tsi-POR). A word that refers to small birds, like sparrows or what have you.
qdm (KE-dem). Means ‘in front of’ or ‘east’ or ‘ancient,’ depending on the details of its use. In American thought, North is straight ahead or up by default, with South down, east rightward, and west leftward__. In the Hebrew Bible, the default hypothetical man faces eastward, with west behind him, south to the right, and north to the left. In terms of time, Americans think of the future as in front and the past as behind us. Metaphorically, we walk forward through time. In the Hebrew Bible, the past is in front and the future behind. When you add the preposition mn to qdm and produce miqqedem, the result is also sometimes ambiguous.
qhlt (ko-HE-let). What the author of Ecclesiastes called himself. Unfortunately, as John Hobbins notes, we don’t know what the word means.
qwl (kol). This word can mean either a voice or a sound.
qn. A word normally meaning nest, but the ark was to be made (of? with?) qnym (the plural, Genesis 6:14). Because the command “qinim you shall make the ark” does not seem to make sense with the usual meaning, most translators have rendered the word as rooms or cells or compartments. However, I have my doubts, as this would be the only time in the entire Bible that the word is used in this unusual sense.
qnym. See qn. The word qn, outside of Genesis 6:14, is always singular and always means ‘nest.’ In Genesis 6:14 it is plural and seemingly means something else.
qrʾ bšm YHWH (ka-RA b'-SHEM YHWH). To "invoke the name of Yahweh", usually a term describing all or part of the ritual involved in sacrificing an animal in the Hebrew Bible.
qṣ (kets). Equivalent to the English word end. This word has an excellent highly detailed entry in SDBH. In Genesis 8:3, where the Masoretic Text reads qṣh, Kittel says one should read qṣ h-, with the h- as the article, attached to the following word.
qṣh (qa-TSE). Usually equivalent in meaning to qṣ. In Genesis 8:3, where the Masoretes read qṣh, Kittel says one should read qṣ h-, with the h- as the article, attached to the following word. No SDBH entry yet (1/29/2016, and still the case 7/18/22).
qśyth (k’-see-TAH). A unit of money, of unknown value. See here.
rʾšyt. Pronounce it re-SHIT. When used of time and in the construct state, the word means ‘beginning of.’
rwḥ (RU-aḥ). A word for a spirit or a wind. In Genesis 3:8, the expression ‘rwḥ of the day’ is interpreted as referring to the ‘breezy’ or ‘cool’ part of the day.
rḥp (qal). A rare verb, only occurring once (Jeremiah 23:9). It may mean something like ‘tremble.’ Possibly related to rḥp (piel).
rḥp (piel). A rare verb, only occurring twice (Genesis 1:2, Deuteronomy 32:11) and of uncertain meaning. It is possibly related to rḥp (qal), another rare word, found only in Jeremiah 23:9.
rmś (noun). A word used of a class of land animals (Genesis 1:24), and of land animals generally (Genesis 9:3), and even of aquatic animals (Psalm 104:25). For a run-down of all its uses, see here. Briefly discussed here.
šʾwl. Pronounce it sh’-OL. This is Sheol, the abode of the dead, the netherworld. In American pop culture, there is often the idea of a good afterlife, heaven, as opposed to a bad afterlife, hell. In the Hebrew Bible the dead all go to Sheol, whether they are good or evil.
šʾl. Defective spelling of šʾwl. Pronounce it sh’-OL.
šbt (noun). Pronounce it shab-BAT. This refers to the Sabbath, the sacred seventh day on which work was prohibited by the Hebrew Bible. It is related to the verb šbt, which is used for the refraining from work (mlʾkh) which was observed.
šbt (verb, qal). Pronounce it sha-VAT. This verb means, in general, to cease, refrain, or abstain from some activity. More specifically, it is used to refer to the abstinence from work (mlʾkh) required on the Sabbath (the noun šbt).
škk. A verb, used a handful of times, which means ‘to decrease’ or ‘to lessen.’ See here.
šlm. Pronounced sha-LEM. For the Gesenius entry on it, which is fine as far as it goes, see here. It’s SDBH entry is not yet available,[2] but we live in hope. A particularly interesting instead of the word is in Genesis 33:18, where it either means safe and sound, or is the name of a city called Shalem. See here.
šmym. Pronounce it sha-MA-yim. The closest equivalent is the English word sky, though the biblical writers in Genesis and other passages pictured it as a solid dome. Although God is said sometimes to be in the šmym__, it would be potentially misleading to translate the word as heaven. In English, heaven is a place people go when they die. In the Hebrew Bible, the dead go to Sheol.
šmš. Hebrew term for the sun, likely avoided in Genesis 1 due to mythic or religious connotations. Its non-appearance in 1:16 is discussed briefly here.
tbh. A word used with only two referents: Noah’s tbh ‘ark’ and the vessel that Moses was put in.
thw. Pronounce it TO-hu. A word used for something inchoate, a wasteland, something nonexistent or ruined. Discussed here.
thw wbhw. TO-hu va-VO-hu. A phrase used in Genesis to describe the land before it had appeared (Genesis 1:2). Discussed here.
thwm. Pronounce it te-HOM. A word used both for the primeval ocean in the context of the creation of the world (Genesis 1), and of the waters below the earth after the creation. Discussed here.
twldh (tol-DAH). The strictly hypothetical singular form of twldwt. Because the word only appears in the plural see twldwt for more information.
twldwt (tol-DOT). This word is the backbone of the formula ʾlh twldwt and the related but less common zh spr twldwt, both of which are used to introduce information about a person or thing. See here for a discussion.
tbh (te-VA). Noah made an enormous tbh out of wood to save all the world’s animals from drowning in the Deluge (Genesis 6-9). Moses’ mother made a tbh of papyrus to save the baby from drowning in the Nile (Exodus 2:3,5). Those two stories contain the only usages of tbh in the Hebrew Bible.
tnn. A word used both to describe large and fearsome sea creatures such as Leviathan as well as serpents on land. Discussed briefly here.
tnnym. Plural of tnn.
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