Biblical Hebrew

Martin Luther once wrote: "As dear as the Gospel is to us all, let us as hard contend with its language. For God did not allow his Holy Scriptures to be written alone in the two languages without reason, the Old Testament in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek." There are indeed several reasons that God selected Hebrew and Greek to be the original languages of the Old and New Testaments. However, we who speak English find ourselves at a disadvantage when it...
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Martin Luther once wrote:

"As dear as the Gospel is to us all, let us as hard contend with its language. For God did not allow his Holy Scriptures to be written alone in the two languages without reason, the Old Testament in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek."

There are indeed several reasons that God selected Hebrew and Greek to be the original languages of the Old and New Testaments. However, we who speak English find ourselves at a disadvantage when it comes to the original Hebrew Bible. In this textbook on Biblical Hebrew we are going to cover the very simple basics. You are not going to be trained to be a Hebrew scholar! But we are aiming at certain goals: you will be able to read Hebrew words, identify a few hundred of the most common words in the Bible's vocabulary, and follow along in the simple sentences of Biblical stories.

The whole point of studying Hebrew is so that we can read the Bible in its original language. It's true that most translations will give us a careful and adequate understanding of the original. But the excitement we find when we read Moses' actual words - the fact that we can listen in on the prophets themselves, and David as he offers prayers to God in his native language - will make the effort of studying Hebrew worthwhile.