Progress in Hebrew Language Studies

 

My Work Place:

My studies of the Hebrew Language are slowly progressing, mostly at my desk, designated for this purpose. I keep an exercise book, in which I write every day, mainly revising the Hebrew Alphabet and adding at least one word a day to the vocabulary. I lack a good memory so this kind of revision is very important in my way of learning, after having decided not to enrol in a proper Hebrew Language Course for the simple reason that I don’t want to put myself under pressure of any kind. I want to learn this beautiful language in my own time, at my own pace and enjoy using all the tools at hand, including some of the wonderful and informative websites I have managed to find so far, which have been tremendously helpful in my studies.

                 

During my studies I have also discovered that in the Hebrew Tanakh (The Hebrew Bible), most of the verses are expressed in rhyme, which is not reflected in the various foreign translations of the Old Testament. This makes the Hebrew Tanakh the most ancient and the most important book of poetry ever written. It also tells me that God himself, Our Lord and Father, is also the most supreme Poet, a fact that only now has dawned on me. My reading skills are not advanced enough to enjoy these beautiful writings yet but I am hopeful to be able to enjoy the verses in their original wording as time goes by and my reading ability advances.

Like I mentioned above, I lack vocabulary and memory training, but with the aid of the internet I have found a wonderful and very informative website, which I still haven’t explored completely. The listed ‘Picture Dictionary’ offers a vast amount of basic vocabulary with in-depth  explanations, which I found very useful and of which I have listed a little excerpt below, (with kind permission, according to the statement at the bottom of the webpage).

For further information, please follow the link below:

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/56_home.html

 

AHRC Home > Vocabulary > Picture Dictionary

Biblical Hebrew Picture Dictionary

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Fear (ירא yarey, Strong's #3372): The concrete Hebraic meaning of this verb is "to flow." It is related to the word yorehh ^[str:3138] meaning "first rain" and ye'or ^[str:2975] meaning "stream." When you are seriously afraid of something, you can feel your insides "flowing." This is the meaning of this word but is usually translated simply as "fear."

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Shadow of Death (צלמות tsalmavet, Strong's #6757): The Hebrew language rarely includes compound words (two words put together to form one word). One of those few compound words in Hebrew is tsalmavet which is the word tsal ^[str:6738] meaning "shadow" and mavet ^[str:4194] meaning "death." The "shadow of death" is despair, danger or tragedy which is understood as a deep impenetrable darkness.

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Valley (גיא gai, Strong's #1516): The parent root of this word is gey ^[Str:1341], a word meaning "pride" in the sense of lifting oneself up to a high position. The word gai is a valley, a place surrounded by "high" walls. While a valley can be a place of beauty, it can also be a place of darkness and defenselessness.

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