The name Hebrew is not applied by the OT to its own language, although the NT does use the name that way. In the OT, Hebrew means the individual or people who used the language. The language itself is called “the language of Canaan” (Is. 19:18), or “the language of Judah” (Neh. 13:24). [Some modern translations render 2 Kings 18:26, 28 "the language of the Jews," some "Hebrew."]

Origin and History

In the Middle Ages, a common view was that Hebrew was the primitive language of humankind. Even in colonial America, Hebrew was still referred to as “the mother of all languages.” Linguistic scholarship, however, has made any such theory untenable.

Hebrew is actually one of several Canaanite dialects, which included Phoenician, Ugaritic, and Moabite. Other Canaanite dialects (e.g. Ammonite) existed but have left insufficient inscription for scholarly analysis. Such dialects were already present in the land of Canaan before its conquest by the Israelites.

Until about 1974, the oldest witnesses to Canaanite language were found in the Ugarit and Amarna records, dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries BC. A few Canaanite words and expressions appeared in earlier Egyptian records, but the origin of Canaanite has been uncertain. Between 1974 and 1976, though, nearly seventeen thousand tablets were dug up at Tell Mardikh (ancient Ebla) in northern Syria, written in a previously unknown Semitic language. Because they date back to 2400 BC (perhaps even earlier), many scholars think that language may be the “Old Canaanite” that gave rise to Hebrew. By 1977, when another one thousand tablets were unearthed, only about one hundred inscriptions from Ebla had been reported on.

Languages change over a long period. The English used in the time of Alfred the Great (ninth century AD) seems almost like a foreign language to contemporary English speakers. Although Hebrew was no exception to that general principle, like other Semitic languages it remained remarkably stable over many centuries. Poems such as the Song of Deborah (Jdgs. 5) tend to preserve the language’s oldest form. Changes that toook place later in the long history of the language are shown in the presence of archaic words (often preserved in poetic language) and a general difference in style. For example, to a linguistic scholar the book of Job clearly shows a more archaic style than the book of Esther.

Various Hebrew dialects probably existed side by side even in Bible times. Variations in pronunciation, as with the word shibboleth, seem to have developed during the period of the judges (Jdgs. 12:4-6). Some features of the language seem to indicate dialect differences between the northern and southern sections of the land.

Family

Hebrew belongs to the Semitic family of languages used throughout southwestern Asia. Semitic languages were spoken from the Mediterranean Sea to the mountains east of the Euphrates River Valley and from Armenia in the north to the southern extremity of the Arabian Peninsula. Semitic languages are classified as Southern: Arabic and Ethiopic; Eastern: Akkadian; and Northwestern: Aramaic-Syriac and Canaanite (Hebrwe, Phoenician, Ugaritic, and Moabite).

Character

Hebrew, like the other early Semitic languages, concentrates on observation more than reflection. That is, things are generally observed according to their appearance as phenomena, not analyzed as to their inward being or essence. Effects are observed but not traced through a series of causes.

Hebrew’s vividness and simplicity make the language difficult to translate fully. It is amazingly concise and direct. For example, Psalm 23 contains fifty-five words; most translations require about twice that many to translate it. The first two lines (with slashes dividing the Hebrew words) read:

The Lord/(is) my shepherd/

I shall want/ nothing. (NEB)

Thus nine English words are required to translate four Hebrew words. Hebrew does not use separate, distinct expressions for every nuance of thought.

Hebrew is a pictorial language in which the past is not merely described but verbally painted. Not just a landscape is presented but a moving panorams. The course of events is reenacted in the mid’s sight. (Note the frequent use of behold, a Hebraism carried over to the NT.) Such common expressions as “he arose and went,” “he opened his lips and spoke,” he lifted up his eyes and saw,” and “he lifted up his voice and wept” illustrate the pictorial strength of the language.

Many profound theological expressions of the OT are tightly bound up with Hebrew language and grammar. Even the most sacred name of God himself, “the Lord” (Jehovah or Yahweh), is directly related to the Hebrew verb “to be” (or perhaps “to cause to be”). Many other names of OT persons and places can best be understood only with a working knowledge of Hebrew.