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105-548: Many of the Hebrew prophets are introduced with the name of their father, their original place of residence, or both. For instance, Jonah is introduced as "Jonah, the son of Amittai... of Gath-hepher ", Elisha is introduced as "Elisha, the son of Shaphat, of Abel-meholah ", Micah is introduced as "Micah the Morashtite ", etc. Elijah, in turn, is introduced as "Elijah the Tishbite, of

210-475: A Messiah , a person anointed or given power by God, and of the Messiah's kingdom, where justice and righteousness will reign. This section is seen by Jews as describing an actual king, a descendant of their great king, David, who will make Judah a great kingdom and Jerusalem a truly holy city. The prophecy continues with what some scholars have called "The Book of Comfort" which begins in chapter 40 and completes

315-674: A Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000. In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government-owned, as well as private, Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs. Modern Hebrew

420-583: A century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble." Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. In the early 19th century, a form of spoken Hebrew had emerged in the markets of Jerusalem between Jews of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate for commercial purposes. This Hebrew dialect

525-649: A corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Moshe Zvi Segal , Joseph Klausner and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946–1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to

630-562: A distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic. ) Another important influence was Maimonides , who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah . Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and

735-532: A final revenge on those who did what David perceived as wrongdoing, and having a similar narrative style. While the subject matter in the Book(s) of Samuel is also covered by the narrative in Chronicles , it is noticeable that the section (2 Sam. 11:2–12:29) containing an account of the matter of Bathsheba is omitted in the corresponding passage in 1 Chr. 20. The Books of Kings ( Melakhim מלכים ) contains accounts of

840-579: A gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904–1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with

945-463: A literary language down through the Byzantine period from the 4th century CE. The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with

1050-532: A literary language, especially in Spain, as the language of commerce between Jews of different native languages, and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew , until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In May 2023, Scott Stripling published the finding of what he claims to be the oldest known Hebrew inscription, a curse tablet found at Mount Ebal , dated from around 3200 years ago. The presence of

1155-535: A set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba revolt around 135 CE. In

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1260-595: A single book. Again, although Daniel is considered a major prophet, his book is not in the category of the Nevi'im. The 66 chapters of the Book of Isaiah ( Yeshayahu [ישעיהו]) consist primarily of prophecies of the judgments awaiting nations that are persecuting Judah . These nations include Babylon , Assyria , Philistia , Moab , Syria , Israel (the northern kingdom), Ethiopia , Egypt , Arabia , and Phoenicia . The prophecies concerning them can be summarized as saying that God

1365-652: A spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt , they adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms. After

1470-468: A truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology , was to take its place among the current languages of the nations. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of

1575-549: A vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee , Pharisee , Scribe , Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts. While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in

1680-511: Is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have

1785-620: Is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages , it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period ) and Samaritanism . The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and

1890-466: Is actually a demonym for a place called "Tishbe", or if it is a form of the word "settler" conjugated to match Elijah – thereby reading "Elijah the settler" rather than "Elijah the Tishbite". The word tīšbī appears just six times in the Hebrew Bible, each time in conjunction with Elijah's own name, but no place called "Tishbe" appears throughout the entire Tanakh . Therefore, it is debated whether or not

1995-563: Is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson , stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige" and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew

2100-620: Is generally considered by Christians to refer to the crucifixion of Jesus , though Jews generally interpret it as a reference to God's people. Although there is still the mention of judgment of false worshippers and idolaters (65 and 66), the book ends with a message of hope of a righteous ruler who extends salvation to his righteous subjects living in the Lord's kingdom on earth. The Book of Jeremiah ( Yirmiyahu [ירמיהו]) can be divided into twenty-three chapters, which are organized into five sub-sections or books: In Egypt, after an interval, Jeremiah

2205-503: Is obvious and it is easy to transpose motifs between the two as suggested by Neeman. In the Sephardi traditions the haftarah melody is considerably more florid than the Torah melody, and usually in a different musical mode, and there are only isolated points of contact between the two. In some Near and Middle Eastern Jewish traditions, the whole of Nevi'im (as well as the rest of the Tanakh and

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2310-484: Is supposed to have added three sections, viz., ch. 37–39; 40–43; and 44. The main Messianic prophecies are found in 23:1–8; 31:31–40; and 33:14–26. Jeremiah 's prophecies are noted for the frequent repetitions found in them of the same words, phrases, and imagery. They cover the period of about 30 years. They are not in chronological order. Modern scholars do not believe they have reliable theories as to when, where, and how

2415-467: Is the God of the whole earth, and that nations which think of themselves as secure in their own power might well be conquered by other nations, at God's command. Chapter 6 describes Isaiah's call to be a prophet of God. Chapters 36–39 provide historical material about King Hezekiah and his triumph of faith in God. Chapters 24–35, while too complex to characterize easily, are primarily concerned with prophecies of

2520-560: Is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It is the only Canaanite language, as well as one of only two Northwest Semitic languages, with the other being Aramaic , still spoken today. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around

2625-453: Is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013 , there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently. Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% report having a higher proficiency in Hebrew than in Arabic. In total, about 53% of

2730-481: Is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however, properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting

2835-630: The Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish , as a guide to Halacha for the " average 17-year-old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan 's purpose in writing the Mishnah Berurah was to "produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute". The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, "the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of

2940-705: The Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος ( hebraîos ) and Aramaic 'ibrāy , all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי ), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan ) people ( Hebrews ). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham 's ancestor, Eber , mentioned in Genesis 10:21 . The name is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ‎), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of

3045-469: The Book of Daniel as part of the "Writings," or Ketuvim , rather than Nevi'im , in distinction to the later approach of the various Christian Bibles for Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox, in which Daniel is found among the Prophets, due to its prophetic nature according to common Christian theology. In the Jewish liturgy , a series of selections from the books of Nevi'im ("Prophets") of

3150-534: The Canaanite group of languages . Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Epigraphic evidence from this period confirms the widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore,

3255-557: The Gospel of Matthew . (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.) The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which

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3360-491: The Latin alphabet of ancient Rome . The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels , and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Proto-Sinaitic . It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs , though

3465-655: The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE) and the emergence of the Hasmonean kingdom , the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). The nationalist significance of Hebrew manifested in various ways throughout this period. Michael Owen Wise notes that "Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt [...] Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew

3570-525: The Second Aliyah , it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish , Judeo-Arabic and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian , Persian and Arabic . The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along

3675-414: The Talmud , the targum on Nevi'im was composed by Jonathan ben Uzziel . Like Targum Onkelos on the Torah, Targum Jonathan is an eastern ( Babylonian ) targum with early origins in the west ( Land of Israel ). Like the targum to the Torah, Targum Jonathan to Nevi'im served a formal liturgical purpose: it was read alternately, verse by verse, or in blocks of up to three verses, in the public reading of

3780-581: The Tribe of Gad , have been in possession of Gilead; therefore Tishbe was probably in the territory of the eastern half of Manasseh, or possibly in that of Gad . According to Pfeiffer and Vos, it is located in the territory of Manasseh, in proximity to the wadi known from the Bible as Cherith , in present-day Jordan. Tishbe has for a long time been identified as the historical town of Listib in Gilead, due to its location and

3885-455: The literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language . However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into

3990-609: The official language of the State of Israel . Estimates of worldwide usage include five million speakers in 1998, and over nine million people in 2013. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans ). Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around

4095-537: The ostraca found near Lachish , which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between c.  1000 BCE and c.  400 CE . It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. Sometimes

4200-592: The 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic period , the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon . Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew , the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans , later became

4305-547: The 1980s in the USSR , Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel ( refuseniks ). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun , Ephraim Kholmyansky , Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR. Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,

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4410-601: The 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Ben-Yehuda) and older Aramaic and Latin. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of

4515-594: The 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity . For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש , lit.   ' the holy tongue ' or ' the tongue [of] holiness ' ) since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible , but as Yehudit ( transl.  ' Judean ' ) or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl.  "the language of Canaan " ). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to

4620-746: The Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba 's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. For example,

4725-668: The British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language . The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary ( The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew , Ben-Yehuda Dictionary ). The seeds of Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by

4830-516: The Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. In time, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era , Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian , Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek , but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as

4935-532: The Haftarah and in the study of Nevi'im. Yemenite Jews continue the above tradition to this day and have thus preserved a living tradition of the Babylonian vocalization for the Targum to Nevi'im. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית ‎, ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ‎ ʿÎbrit )

5040-432: The Hebrew name of god , Yahweh, as three letters, Yod-Heh-Vav (YHV), according to the author and his team meant that the tablet is Hebrew and not Canaanite. However, practically all professional archeologists and epigraphers apart from Stripling's team claim that there is no text on this object. In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be

5145-527: The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is publicly read/sung aloud inside the synagogue, as part of Jewish religious practice. The Haftarah reading follows the Torah reading on each Shabbat and on Jewish festivals and fast days. The Haftarah readings do not contain the whole text of the Nevi‘im however; they are selections. The Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, 1st & 2nd Samuel, 1st & 2nd Kings. They contain historical narratives that begin immediately after

5250-588: The Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet , precursor to the Arabic alphabet , also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex , a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives into

5355-454: The Israeli population speaks Hebrew as a native language, while most of the rest speak it fluently. In 2013 Hebrew was the native language of 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian , Arabic , French , English , Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 12% of Arabs reported speaking Hebrew poorly or not at all. Steps have been taken to keep Hebrew

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5460-471: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as

5565-643: The Mishnah) is read each year on a weekly rota, usually on Shabbat afternoons. These reading sessions often take place in the synagogue courtyard but are not considered to be synagogue services. A targum is an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that was compiled or written in the Land of Israel or in Babylonia from the Second Temple period until the early Middle Ages (late first millennium). According to

5670-605: The Talmud, the Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which occasionally appears in the text of the Gemara, particularly in the Jerusalem Talmud and the classical aggadah midrashes . Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as

5775-406: The Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it

5880-467: The Torah portion. In some earlier authorities there are references to a tune for the "prophets" generally, distinct from that for the haftarah: this may have been a simplified melody for learning purposes. Certain cantillation marks and combinations appear in Nevi'im but not within any of the Haftarah selections, and most communities therefore do not have a musical tradition for those marks. J.L. Neeman suggested that "those who recite Nevi'im privately with

5985-422: The ability to speak the language and attempted to promote its use. According to the Jerusalem Talmud , Megillah 1:9: "Rebbi Jonathan from Bet Guvrrin said, four languages are appropriate that the world should use them, and they are these: The Foreign Language (Greek) for song, Latin for war, Syriac for elegies, Hebrew for speech. Some are saying, also Assyrian (Hebrew script) for writing." The later section of

6090-411: The above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as

6195-455: The average Jew, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicate a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman period , or about 200 CE. It continued on as

6300-428: The beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar , refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish. In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities,

6405-421: The cantillation melody may read the words accented by those rare notes by using a "metaphor" based on the melody of those notes in the five books of the Torah, while adhering to the musical scale of the melody for Nevi'im." Neeman includes a reconstruction of the musical scale for the lost melodies of the rare cantillation notes. In the Ashkenazi tradition, the resemblance between the Torah and Haftarah melodies

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6510-416: The collected Books of Samuel and Books of Kings are each counted as one book. Among the four books of the Latter Prophets,Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel account for three books and the (" Trei Asar ," Aramaic for "twelve": Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi) are counted as a single book. The development of the Hebrew Bible canon placed

6615-657: The command to cross the Jordan. In execution of this order Joshua issues the requisite instructions to the stewards of the people for the crossing of the Jordan; and he reminds the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half of Manasseh of their pledge given to Moses to help their brethren. He also performs miracles, or magic, such as stopping the sun & moon, and stopping the Jordan river. The book essentially consists of three parts: The Book of Judges ( Shoftim שופטים) consists of three distinct parts: The Books of Samuel ( Shmu'el שמואל) consists of five parts: A conclusion of sorts appears at 1 Kings 1–2, concerning Solomon enacting

6720-541: The composition of 1 Maccabees in archaizing Hebrew, Hasmonean coinage under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), and coins from both the Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba Revolt featuring exclusively Hebrew and Palaeo-Hebrew script inscriptions. This deliberate use of Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew script in official contexts, despite limited literacy, served as a symbol of Jewish nationalism and political independence. The Christian New Testament contains some Semitic place names and quotes. The language of such Semitic glosses (and in general

6825-410: The content of Hebrew inscriptions suggests that the written texts closely mirror the spoken language of that time. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as

6930-493: The death of Moses with the divine appointment of Joshua as his successor, who then leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land, and end with the release from imprisonment of the last king of Judah. Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover: The Book of Joshua ( Yehoshua יהושע) contains a history of the Israelites from the death of Moses to that of Joshua . After Moses' death, Joshua, by virtue of his previous appointment as Moses' successor, receives from God

7035-514: The dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim ( Sifra , Sifre , Mekhilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere;

7140-423: The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "[t]he differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear", and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to

7245-513: The earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often introduced calques from Yiddish and phono-semantic matchings of international words. Despite using Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation as its primary basis, modern Israeli Hebrew has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following: The vocabulary of Israeli Hebrew is much larger than that of earlier periods. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann : The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words

7350-406: The early 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah , destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the east in Babylon . During the Babylonian captivity , many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus, for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic. After Cyrus

7455-607: The first Middle East printing press, in Safed (modern Israel), produced a small number of books in Hebrew in 1577, which were then sold to the nearby Jewish world. This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote

7560-406: The generic term for these passages is Baraitot . The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew. About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. By the third century CE, sages could no longer identify the Hebrew names of many plants mentioned in the Mishnah. Only a few sages, primarily in the southern regions, retained

7665-512: The gods of Babylon in due time in chapter 46. In chapter 45:1 the Persian ruler Cyrus is named as the messiah who will overthrow the Babylonians and allow the return of Israel to their original land. The remaining chapters of the book contain prophecies of the future glory of Zion under the rule of a righteous servant (52 and 54). Chapter 53 contains a very poetic prophecy about this servant which

7770-666: The kings of the ancient Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah , and the annals of the Jewish commonwealth from the accession of Solomon until the subjugation of the kingdom by Nebuchadnezzar II and the Neo-Babylonian Empire . The Latter Prophets are divided into two groups: the major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel) and the Twelve Minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi) collected into

7875-456: The language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which is derived from the name of the alphabet used , in contrast to Ivrit , meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet . Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, as it declined in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt , which

7980-458: The language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is often referred to as "Hebrew" in the text, although this term is often re-interpreted as referring to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, these glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well. It has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of

8085-464: The language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine , then a part of the Ottoman Empire . Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora " shtetl " lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making

8190-595: The narrative books of Joshua , Judges , Samuel and Kings ; while the Latter Prophets ( Hebrew : נביאים אחרונים Nevi'im Akharonim ) include the books of Isaiah , Jeremiah , Ezekiel , and the Twelve Minor Prophets . The Jewish tradition counts a total of eight books in Nevi'im out of a total of twenty-four books in the entire Tanakh: there are four books of the Former Prophets, including Joshua and Judges, and

8295-720: The newly declared State of Israel . Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today. In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew , Modern Israeli Hebrew , Modern Hebrew , New Hebrew , Israeli Standard Hebrew , Standard Hebrew and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew

8400-576: The northwest limits of Ajloun in the Ajloun Governorate in northern Jordan. However, Listib is known to have been uninhabited during the time of the Northern Kingdom of Israel . Alternatively, Tishbe may be identical to the as-yet undiscovered "Thisbe" referenced in the Book of Tobit ( Tobit 1:2 ), which was located west of the Jordan River in the territory of the tribe of Naphtali , "to

8505-525: The phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite , and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone , written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam inscription , found near Jerusalem , is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include

8610-582: The present day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence. During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain , important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic . Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj , Jonah ibn Janah , Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence ), David Kimhi . A great deal of poetry

8715-562: The primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into the Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and

8820-607: The rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. William Schniedewind argues that after waning in the Persian period, the religious importance of Hebrew grew in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and cites epigraphical evidence that Hebrew survived as a vernacular language – though both its grammar and its writing system had been substantially influenced by Aramaic. According to another summary, Greek

8925-401: The settlers of Gilead." When considering the general pattern of how prophets are first introduced in the text of the Hebrew Bible, it would seem the passage is a simple statement of Elijah's origins. Because the original Hebrew words for "Tishbite" ( תִּשְׁבִּי ‎, tīšbī ) and "settlers" ( תֹּשָׁבֵי ‎, tōšāḇē ) are strikingly similar, some scholars have questioned whether tīšbī

9030-527: The similarity between the ancient Hebrew name and the Arabic name, "el-Istib", but the 1915 International Standard Bible Encyclopedia refutes the identification because el-Istib has only been established during the Byzantine period. The ruins of Listib are located 13 kilometres north of the Jabbok River in Gilead, known in Arabic as the Zarqa River , just west of biblical Mahanaim , a short distance beyond

9135-774: The south of Kedesh Naphtali in Upper Galilee , above Asher toward the west, and north of Phogor". Neviim The Nevi'im ( / n ə v i ˈ iː m , n ə ˈ v iː ɪ m / ; Hebrew : נְבִיאִים Nəvīʾīm , Tiberian : Năḇīʾīm 'Prophets', lit.   ' spokespersons ' ) is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh ), lying between the Torah ( lit.   ' instruction ' ) and Ketuvim ( lit.   ' writings ' ). The Nevi'im are divided into two groups. The Former Prophets ( Hebrew : נביאים ראשונים Nevi'im Rishonim ) consists of

9240-485: The southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among

9345-468: The spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in

9450-465: The term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and Judah , perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia , Phoenicia or Transjordan (with the river referred to being perhaps the Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare

9555-591: The text is indicating Elijah hailed from a place called Tishbe, or that he originated from amongst settlers in the Gilead. 1 Kings 17:1 indicates that Elijah was from Tishbe in Gilead , which is a historical region located east of the Jordan River in present Jordan . The Jewish ancient historian Josephus supposed that Tishbe was in Gilead. The eastern half of the Israelite Tribe of Manasseh and, possibly also,

9660-423: The text was edited into its present form. The Book of Ezekiel ( Yehezq'el [יחזקאל]) contains three distinct sections: The Twelve are: The Haftarah is a text selected from the books of Nevi'im that is read publicly in the synagogue after the reading of the Torah on each Shabbat , as well as on Jewish festivals and fast days. There is a special cantillation melody for the haftarah, distinct from that of

9765-580: The upper class of Jerusalem , while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north. Many scholars have pointed out that Hebrew continued to be used alongside Aramaic during Second Temple times, not only for religious purposes but also for nationalistic reasons, especially during revolts such as

9870-455: The word Habiru or cognate Assyrian ebru , of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as " Ivrit " is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach , from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people; its later historiography, in the Book of Kings , refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit " Judahite (language)". Hebrew belongs to

9975-579: The world today; the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. As a non- first language , it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations , and by theologians in Christian seminaries . The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from

10080-560: The writing. In the first eight chapters of this book of comfort, Isaiah prophesies the deliverance of the Jews from the hands of the Babylonians and restoration of Israel as a unified nation in the land promised to them by God. Isaiah reaffirms that the Jews are indeed the chosen people of God in chapter 44 and that Hashem is the only God for the Jews (and only the God of the Jews) as he will show his power over

10185-421: Was a spoken language , and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language . The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and were written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of

10290-406: Was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew

10395-487: Was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea." This nationalist aspect was further emphasized during periods of conflict, as Hannah Cotton observing in her analysis of legal documents during the Jewish revolts against Rome that "Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State." The nationalist use of Hebrew is evidenced in several historical documents and artefacts, including

10500-553: Was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria , Italy) in 1475. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of a modern version of the ancient language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda . Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine , and subsequently

10605-618: Was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Ha-Me'assef (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad ) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. Hamagid , founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky ; there were also novels written in

10710-527: Was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes ). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being

10815-540: Was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Bernard Spolsky , by the beginning of the Common Era, " Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in

10920-408: Was to a certain extent a pidgin . Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of the national revival ( שיבת ציון , Shivat Tziyon , later Zionism ), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of

11025-570: Was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Judah ha-Levi , Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra , in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative or strophic meters. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to

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