Book Review: Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew

Fluency in Biblical Hebrew is a worthy goal for any student of the Bible, but especially for those who are called to preach or teach it vocationally. I’ve been studying Hebrew for approximately 13 years now and I can say that I’ve found Hebrew much more difficult to attain reading fluency than Koine Greek. The downside of my quest for fluency is that I’ve had to buy various grammars along the way. But the upside is that I’ve been able to see what works and what doesn’t.

Enter Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew. I came across this volume published in 2006 as part of the Teach Yourself series of books. I’ve had the opportunity to work through its 20 units and want to share my findings with all those who are looking for the best resource to learn Biblical Hebrew for the first time, or to sharpen their skills with a refresher course.

Pros:

The book is small making it very easy to throw in my backpack and take to the library every day. The font is clear and easy to read. The paperback format means the book won’t lay open on its own which is somewhat inconvenient, but for me the portability was worth it.

The book only has 20 units which gave me the psychological boost of believing that completion was achievable. My aim was to go through approximately a unit per day, which isn’t a problem through the early chapters but did became increasingly difficult as the book progressed. Nevertheless, I appreciated the way the book had the feel of constant forward movement covering significant ground every day. There was nothing frivolous in this book. If the author saw fit to include it, you can be certain that it’s important and you should do your best to learn it (with the exception of some of the vocabulary). Many of the details that bog down other grammars (and may still be necessary to learn at some point in the journey to fluency) are left out of this grammar and I appreciated that personally.

The exercises included in the book are brief and to the point. They give you the opportunity to immediately put into practice whatever skill or concept was just taught. Along with this, I found it extremely helpful to have the answer key available in the back of the book. Some grammars require you to buy a second book to get the answers or to search them out online, but these answers were readily accessible and provide immediate feedback to the learner.

Finally, I personally enjoyed the translation exercises at the end of each chapter. The texts chosen were straight from the Hebrew Bible and give the learner a taste of the end result they’re using this course for: to be able to read the Bible in its native tongue. Additionally, the author has included a sort of annotated translation for these exercises which is extremely helpful when trying to figure out why something is translated one way and not another. These translation exercises as well as the author’s annotations and tips for translating were probably the highlight of the book for me.

Cons:

While there is much to appreciate about this book, there are certainly some aspects that could be significantly improved. For starters, while the exercises included in each chapter are often helpful, sometimes they’re downright puzzling. For example, in Unit 13 after introducing the very difficult concept of weak verbs in the Perfect tense, an exercise is given where the reader can practice parsing Perfect weak verbs. One would assume that the example question and answer given would be the parsing of a Perfect weak verb. But it’s not! The author gives an example parsed form of an Imperfect weak verb. I’m still scratching my head on why this would be chosen.

A chapter or at least a section on syllabification would have been a helpful addition. Unfortunately, it would have added to the length and complexity of the book slightly, but it’s absolutely essential for learning how to properly read and pronounce the text.

Another issue with the book is the way vocabulary is introduced and learned. Everyone who studies Hebrew knows that you want to learn the words with the most frequent occurrences in the Bible first so that when you’re starting to read the Biblical text, you are able to identify the most common words. Certainly much of the vocabulary included in this book are high-frequency words. But you wouldn’t know that from the book itself. Instead, right alongside the high-frequency words you’ll also find words that are far less common in the Bible and may not be worth memorizing until one is much further down the road in learning Hebrew. This is particularly the case with the vocabulary words introduced before the translation exercises. To be clear, introducing new vocabulary lists before the translation exercises is helpful, but rather than saying “Most of the new words are very common…” (p. 138), it would be even more helpful to actually notate which ones are common so that the student can spend his or her time focusing on those most commonly used words.

Finally, the biggest issue I have with the book, and the one that gives me the most reservations in recommending it to others are the Hebrew typos. This book is replete with typos. At one point I started cataloging them, but eventually stopped because it was taking too much time. Let me share just a few brief examples to illustrate:

• 1. On page 71 the translation given is “I have no enemy” whereas the Hebrew text actually says “We have no enemy.”
• On page 113 when dealing with the already difficult concept of how a Perfect verb is translated as an Imperfect when you add a waw to the beginning of it and how an Imperfect is translated as a Perfect when a waw is added to it…in the first exercise, the example answers are incorrect! To make matters worse, when I got to this chapter I was already aware of various typos and I didn’t trust the book. So when I came across this concept of Vayyiqtol and Veqatal (and I didn’t remember it from my seminary days) it seemed so strange to me that I thought it was a mistake. Then I became convinced that it was true after seeing all the examples of it on page 112, only to then have it all turned upside down on page 113. When you’re already struggling with the difficulties and complexities of a difficult language, you don’t want the added stress of thinking you may be learning it wrong or that the answers you’re consulting might be incorrect. It largely negates the benefit gained by having answers available if you can’t trust them.
• Another example of this is when the paradigm of ya-SHAV given on page 128 does not include a dagesh in the nun of the 1st common plural form, but in the exercise on page 131 the answers for both of these forms, that are supposed to be patterned on ya-SHAV, include a dagesh in the nun. The student is left wondering: 1) is there a typo in the paradigm? 2) is there a typo in the answers to the exercise? 3) is this a case where sometimes the nun takes a dagesh and sometimes it doesn’t? Because of the other typos in the book, it’s hard to come to a firm conviction on number 3, and in my experience, this kind of thing tends to demoralize a student who is already struggling with the language.
• On page 132 the first, twelfth, thirteenth and twenty-seventh vocabulary words listed are either missing vowel points or have incorrect root consonants. The seasoned student of Hebrew will likely recognize these as typos, but if you’re just starting out learning the language, you might wonder if there’s any significance to the absence of the vowels or if these are appropriate variations in spelling.
• On page 143 the exercise requires filling in the gaps in the table. The table lists the root verb for ya-SHAV but in actuality, the author wrote the participial form rather than the root. Again, when dealing with difficult concepts very quickly and only a few examples, the details are exceptionally important. In that same exercise, the paradigm is given for sh-KHAT to fill in the blanks. Then when you turn to the answer key the paradigm is given for ka-TAL
• On page 146 there are two simple and less harmful typos mentioning the “Pe aav” and “Ayin aav” forms, which should be “Pe vav” and “Ayin vav.” Probably even the beginning student can recognize this, but the point is they shouldn’t have to recognize it; an editor should have.

While there are many things to commend about the book as I wrote above, the cons are significant. Particularly because of the errors in the book and the likelihood that it would frustrate a new learner, I cannot recommend this book for beginning Hebrew students. Despite the series this book belongs to, I would definitely not recommend this book for someone to teach themselves Biblical Hebrew. Having said that, there is a newer addition of this book available which is linked to in the picture above. If the editors addressed the typos, this book would be significantly better. (Unfortunately, in the pages I was able to view for free on Amazon, the pages looked exactly the same.) Even if the typos were corrected, this probably still is not the ideal book for a beginner.

On the other hand, if you are a person who has studied Hebrew in the past and you’re looking for a tool to help you refresh your memory and brush up on your skills, this book is a great buy. The errors in the book are regrettable and they are distracting, but they won’t demoralize someone who’s already basically familiar with Hebrew and you will appreciate the quick pace of the book. Shalom, and happy reading!