The 7 Best Books for Learning Hebrew Vocabulary

Few would dispute that all students of biblical languages must prioritize learning vocabulary.¹ As Jennifer E. Noonan asserts, “One of the most essential parts of language fluency in general, and reading fluency in particular, is vocabulary acquisition.”² Incontrovertibly, aside from the basic necessity of mastering the fundamentals of grammar (including syntax!),³ there are few things that students of the biblical languages require more than cultivating a high degree of proficiency in vocabulary acquisition and retention. Miles V. Van Pelt and Gary D. Pratico poignantly state,

Few things will hinder a student’s proficiency and enjoyment of a language more than an inadequate stock of basic vocabulary. In fact, those who would minimize the issue of vocabulary memorization will almost certainly struggle with proficiency in the language and find it difficult to fully realize the benefits of studying and reading Hebrew. Stated plainly, vocabulary memorization is vitally important.⁴

To that end, this guide covers some of the best resources for effectively building one’s Hebrew vocabulary.⁵

1. Landes, George M. Building Your Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary: Learning Words by Frequency and Cognate. Society of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study 41. Society of Biblical Literature, 2001.

This volume is actually an extensive revision of Landes’s 1961 Scribner volume, entitled A Student’s Vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew. Expressly designed with the uninitiated in mind, this book shows which words occur the most frequently within the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.

It contains three lists and two appendices:

• List I: Verbal Roots Occurring Ten or More Times, and Their Most Frequently Attested Nominal and Other Cognates
• List II: Nominal and Other Cognates Occurring Ten or More Times, with Their Less Frequently Attested Verbal Roots
• List III: Nouns and Other Words Without Extant Verbal Roots in the Hebrew Bible
• Appendix I: Proper and Place Names That Occur Seventy or More Times in the Hebrew Bible
• Appendix II: The Forms and Meanings of the Hebrew Pronominal Suffixes

I found List I (verbal roots) to be exceptionally helpful. As a commenter, under the alias “Logosed,” astutely observes,

[S]ince Hebrew is a language that depends far more substantially on roots than, for example, does Greek, in the long run it is much better to learn Hebrew words by root than by frequency. This way one can see how Hebrew words are formed, and how they relate semantically to one another. One also gets into the habit of learning groups of words rather than individual words. With the other approach [i.e., arranging words by frequency] one may never learn that one word is related to another. If one learns roots, one is also less likely to mistranslate a word that looks like another word. If one knows that this root only has two or three words based on it, one can know that word X cannot mean Y.

Vocabularies are kept to a manageable size. For example, List I has 52 “vocabularies” (usually averaging between 20 to 25 words or so), which span seven parts:

1. verbs occurring more than 500 times (vocabularies 1–4),
2. verbs occurring 200–499 times (vocabularies 5–8),
3. verbs occurring 100–199 times (vocabularies 9–15),
4. verbs occurring 70–99 times (vocabularies 16–20),
5. verbs occurring 50–69 times (vocabularies 21–24),
6. verbs occurring 25–49 times (vocabularies 25–36), and
7. verbs occurring 10–24 times (vocabularies 37–52).

Glosses take their cues from the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT).⁶ Extensive cross-references document where words appear frequently with different meanings.

There is also a helpful outline of Hebrew grammar concerning “How Hebrew Words Are Formed”⁷ which is mostly derived from Waltke and O’Connor’s superb volume, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Eisenbrauns, 1990), alongside some useful tips⁸ on how one can best leverage mnemonics (making various associations in one’s mind).⁹ Landes also recommends color coding—would that more publishing houses/educators leveraged his recommendations!¹⁰

2. Mitchel, Larry A. A Student’s Vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic: Frequency Lists with Definitions, Pronunciation Guide, and Index. Updated edition. Zondervan, 2017.

Initially published in 1984, for over forty years Mitchel’s work has been a trusted aid for students learning biblical Hebrew and Aramaic.

The book has six major sections. Five are devoted to Hebrew and one to Aramaic:

1. Hebrew words occurring more than 500 times,
2. Hebrew words occurring between 500 and 200 times,
3. Hebrew words occurring between 199 and 100 times,
4. Hebrew words occurring between 99 and 50 times,
5. Hebrew words occurring between 49 and 10 times, and
6. Aramaic vocabulary.

Within each major section are smaller subsections that are also divided according to word frequency. For instance, section 1 has a total of 106 words that are divided into four smaller subsections, each of which contain between 25 and 28 words. Each entry provides concise technical information, including parts of speech and basic meaning, while alphabetical indices allow for quick reference.

My primary reservation is that the updated edition still relies heavily on William L. Holladay’s A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1972).¹¹ That said, the definitions remain adequate for most uses.

Due to its affordability, conciseness, and ease of use, it remains a great resource for beginners.¹²

Logos currently sells the first edition (1984).

3. Pleins, J. David, and Jonathan Homrighausen. Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary by Conceptual Categories: A Student’s Guide to Nouns in the Old Testament. Zondervan, 2017.

Pleins and Homrighausen offer a distinctive approach to Hebrew vocabulary acquisition and retention by organizing nouns according to semantic fields rather than frequency. The authors argue that vocabulary is learned most effectively through meaningful associations. Accordingly, this volume is designed to help students build those connections instead of relying primarily on rote memorization.¹³

The book is arranged around four broad categories—the created, human, social, and constructed orders—with numerous related subcategories beneath each.¹⁴ As one reviewer notes, “this book has an accessible format, and a pragmatic approach (e.g., short lists, arranged alphabetically or in another way, e.g., ‘Human Anatomy’ from head to toe).”¹⁵

Entries present the Hebrew word in a clear, well-sized font, provide concise glosses that reflect up-to-date lexical scholarship, and include a biblical verse (or two) illustrating usage. Rare words and hapax legomena are also identified, making the resource useful beyond the most common vocabulary.¹⁶ One drawback is that there are no pictures.¹⁷ Since no other comparable resource exists right now, Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary by Conceptual Categories is a truly unique and invaluable book.¹⁸

4. Van Pelt, Miles V., and Gary D. Pratico. The Vocabulary Guide to Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. Zondervan Language Basics. Second Edition. Zondervan, 2019.

Initially published in 2003, VGBHA consists of a number of different vocabulary lists.

1. The first (and most important) one is titled “Hebrew Words Arranged by Frequency.” It contains all the Hebrew words which occur ten or more times in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (excluding proper nouns). It begins with the most frequent Hebrew words and progresses to those that occur only ten times.¹⁹ The entries in this list are sequentially numbered from 1 to 1903, providing a helpful point of reference and a convenient system for breaking the words into discrete groups for memorization.²⁰
2. The second major list is an alphabetical listing of words that share a common root, that is, words that are etymologically related to one another (sometimes called a cognate list).
3. The third major list (and one that is new to the second edition of VGBHA) contains all Aramaic words, including proper nouns.

Individually numbered and boasting an impressive 705 entries (in contrast to Mitchel’s volume, which contains only 648 entries), verbal roots are listed without vowels.²¹ Unlike Mitchel’s volume, however, these words aren’t alphabetized but instead are ordered by frequency.

Following these three major word lists are three appendices:

1. Hebrew Homonyms (formerly “Identical Words with Different Meanings”),
2. Hebrew Nominals, and
3. Hebrew Verbs.

Notably, this volume is keyed to the author’s grammar.²²

VGBHA is (bar none) the most comprehensive book of its kind. Period.²³

5. Van Pelt, Miles V., and Gary D. Pratico. Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary in Context: Building Competency with Words Occurring 50 Times or More. Zondervan Language Basics. Zondervan, 2019.

The distinguishing feature of this book is its emphasis on strengthening and reinforcing one’s vocabulary within the context of Scripture itself. That is to say, Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary in Context collates into 195 verses (and/or verse fragments) all 642 words of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (HB/OT) that occur 50 times or more (excluding proper names, which are, however, helpfully written in gray shaded text when they appear). It is of interest to note that once one has mastered all 642 words contained in this volume, one will have access to “approximately 90 percent of the Old Testament in the original language.”²⁴

The book is divided into two primary sections.

1. The first contextual vocabulary list functions much like a workbook. Each (pointed) Hebrew text (nos. 1–195) is accompanied by a “wooden” English translation. Lined space is also provided so that there is sufficient room to parse verbs, gloss words, identify syntactical constructions, and/or comment on morphology. Words occurring fewer than fifty times are glossed, and all proper names are identified in gray text.
2. The second section of the book provides the same biblical verses (in the same order, with the same numbering) as the first section, but with minimal room for notes and no translation. In this section, the student is encouraged to practice sight reading without supplements, that is to say, without recourse to grammars, lexicons, and/or translation(s).

Pratico and Van Pelt state, “The ultimate purpose and design of this resource is to facilitate a student’s ability to sight-read all 195 texts that appear in the contextual vocabulary lists.”²⁵

This volume also includes a Hebrew–English lexicon which is derived from the second edition of Pratico and Van Pelt’s Vocabulary Guide to Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic (Zondervan, 2019) and is also helpfully keyed to the second edition of their Old Testament Hebrew Vocabulary Cards (Zondervan, 2019). This lexicon often contains important statistical information and, at times, certain special grammatical information (such as the particulars of an assimilated nun, for instance, or how a certain word might be inflected within a specific corpus, such as the Pentateuch). It even includes special metaphorical usages.²⁶ Most welcome, also, is the fact that the lexicon distinguishes between each of the different Hebrew stems with respect to meaning. In this way, it is free from the all-too-common exegetical fallacies (such as the “root fallacy” or “basic meaning fallacy”) that often plague language studies.²⁷

The exceptionally adept design also makes it especially amicable to self-study, while teachers will also appreciate the opportunity to create

vocabulary quizzes that depart from the traditional presentation of a simple lexical form requiring a generic translation from a student. Because the lists are numbered, instructors can assign texts and quiz from appropriate blocks of material that suit the particular needs of various classroom contexts and environments.²⁸

If I had to choose just one book for vocabulary, this would be it!²⁹

6. Osborne, William R., and Russell L. Meek. A Book-by-Book Guide to Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary. Hendrickson, 2020.

This book begins with a frequency-based list of the 418 words that occur more than 100 times. For easy review, these words are also divided into 21 sub-lists of 20 words each, except for the last list (which contains only 18 words).

Each subsequent chapter is devoted to the vocabulary of a single biblical book. Exceptions to this include the twelve Minor Prophets, that is, the Book of the Twelve, which are grouped together into one chapter, and also Samuel, 1–2 Kings, Ezra–Nehemiah, and 1–2 Chronicles, all of which are also treated as one book. For each individual book, except a handful of the shorter ones, namely the five Megillot, fifteen lists of twenty words each are included. Osborne and Meek clarify:

For the longest biblical books, the lowest-frequency words presented in this volume occur three times in the books in question. For shorter books, the lowest frequency words … occur either two times or one time in the biblical book in question. For books of this kind, however, we have only included in our lists words that also occur between three and 100 times in the Hebrew Bible as a whole. In other words, no words that occur either two times or one time in the Bible as a whole are found in this volume. We have excluded such words from our lists for two reasons: First, the meanings of rare words (such as hapax legomena) are sometimes unsure or even unknown. Second, for words that occur only once or twice in the Bible, as a whole, we believe that it is most efficient not to memorize them in the context of a vocabulary list but rather to learn them by encountering them in the passages in which they occur.³⁰

Reviewer Philip Johnston comments on this approach,

Verb stems are glossed variously: in the initial lists, for stems with 10 or more occurrences; in the separate book lists, for all stems that occur in that book. The limit of 15 lists per biblical book seems arbitrary, and means the shorter books have every Hebrew word included whereas longer ones do not—for Isaiah and Psalms, no terms occurring fewer than 5 times are listed. Nonetheless, this is a good pedagogical tool for weekly vocabulary learning.³¹

Linguistically speaking, Osborne and Meek ably distinguish between each of the different Hebrew stems with respect to their sense and meaning. The authors also judiciously note that by providing “book-specific glosses,” they not only help readers develop the ability to read a given biblical book “more quickly and proficiently, they will also help students learn more about the semantic ranges of words for which they may have memorized only a basic gloss in their first year of study.”³² Alongside this, the authors utilize and leverage many of the standard lexicons. A small but much appreciated detail is how glosses for non-verbs are in italics. The effective use of shading, white space, bold face type, and the like are also much appreciated.

This one-of-a-kind tool by Osborne and Meek is difficult to improve on. It is highly recommended.³³

7. Scheumann, Jesse R., and Merissa Scheumann. According to Their Kinds: A Biblical Hebrew Picture Dictionary. Ha’Arets Hebrew & Aramaic Accessible Resources for Exegetical and Theological Studies. Glossa House, 2019.

Meeting the lack of resources with images or graphics is According to Their Kinds. This work presents all vocabulary words that occur 100 times or more in the Hebrew Bible (470 words in total). The illustrations consist of the “Picture Hebrew Flashcards” (3rd ed.), along with 50 extra words to round out the sections.

This innovative resource assists users in three stages of learning, with English transliterations, simplified verb phrases, and sentences taken from biblical verses. There is also an alphabetized Hebrew–English glossary and an English index. As something of an aside, perhaps, this resource is endorsed by quite a few notable scholars.

Additional resources

More tools, of course, could also have been added to this list. Digital (and other media) versions of vocabulary acquisition remain an integral part of the learning process and ought not to be dismissed.³⁴

I have thoroughly appreciated Old Testament Hebrew Vocabulary: Learn on the Go, by Jonathan T. Pennington (Zondervan, 2004). This audio product enables those taking biblical Hebrew to work on (by ear) all vocabulary words that occur in the HB/OT twenty times or more, and all the names of people in the Old Testament which occur a hundred times or more. I find that the “tracks” are a good length (always important!), and the ability to learn on the go is quite beneficial.

For other digital ways to learn the vocabulary of biblical Hebrew, like Quizlet and such, see “3 Lifesaving Tools for Learning Biblical Hebrew” on Bite Size Seminary with J. C. Schroeder. See also “How to Memorize Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary with These 3 Hacks,” by Frank Hartmann, a YouTube video on the Biblical Mastery Academy channel.

Conclusion

As Jennifer E. Noonan cogently states: “When it comes down to it, students who have only strong vocabulary knowledge can achieve at least a basic comprehension of a text, but the same cannot be said for students with only strong grammar knowledge.”³⁵

Veritably, “we live in a golden age of language resources.”³⁶ In light of this abundance, it is easy to appreciate the unique strengths of each resource listed above:

1. Landes’s Building Your Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary is the only resource I know of that includes a helpful morphological mini-grammar.
2. Mitchel’s A Student’s Vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic has the added bonus of including Aramaic (and a pronunciation guide!).
3. Only Pleins and Homrighausen’s Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary by Conceptual Categories organizes the nouns of biblical Hebrew into logical categories of related words, making more perceptible connections between words.
4. We can appreciate the extreme thoroughness of Van Pelt and Pratico’s The Vocabulary Guide to Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic.
5. Van Pelt and Pratico’s Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary in Context allows readers to improve their sight-reading of biblical Hebrew without a BHS/BHQ on hand.
6. Osborne and Meek’s A Book-by-Book Guide to Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary‘s specific format makes it especially amicable to self-study, while many educators will also appreciate the volume’s unique book-by-book approach for teaching exegesis courses.
7. With its illustrations and use of examples, According to Their Kinds aims to make learning Hebrew vocabulary easy to memorize and even fun.

We truly suffer from an embarrassment of riches! Nonetheless, one must always remember that the ultimate goal of Hebrew vocabulary study is not mere slavish memorization but being shaped by the entire Scriptures. Ad fontes!³⁷

Related content

• What Are the Best Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicons? Your Ultimate Guide
• Best Biblical Greek Lexicons & Dictionaries: Your Complete Guide
• The Best Septuagint (LXX) Translations in Logos: A Comparison Guide
• How to Teach the Languages—& Actually Help Students Learn

1. To this end, see Douglas K. Smith’s stellar video, “Tips for Learning Vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, and Biblical Greek,” Studying the Biblical Languages, February 5, 2024, YouTube, https://youtu.be/9CSBXxlSTWk?si=2XSSIrBVLCYtJ0RL.
2. Jennifer E. Noonan, A Handbook of Second Language Acquisition for Biblical Studies: Insights of Modern Language Instruction for Teaching Biblical Languages (Glossa, 2022), 138. Hebraist William D. Barrick says similarly: “As long as people study … Hebrew, vocabulary building will be a necessary component of learning the language.” William D. Barrick, “Review of Landes,” Master’s Seminary Journal 18 (2007): 125–26.
3. For a clear guide to what I consider to be the best Hebrew (syntax) grammars, see my forthcoming article on this blog, Word by Word.
4. Miles V. Van Pelt and Gary D. Pratico,The Vocabulary Guide to Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, Zondervan Language Basics, 2nd ed. (Zondervan, 2019), x.
5. I am indebted to David J. Fuller for his invaluable help in the writing of this article. I also would like to thank Jorin Green, Joy Kaut, Amy Hancock, Matthew Hamilton, Joël Benoit Lacroix, and Edgar Camargo for their support and encouragement. I dedicate this article to my esteemed professors, Dr. Mark J. Boda and Dr. Stanley E. Porter.
6. Again, user Logosed comments, “Landes, however, adds his own expertise as a Hebrew scholar and does not follow Baumgartner [HALOT] slavishly.” Do heed the words, though, of esteemed scholar J. Tropper in his own review of Landes in Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 114 (2002): 314, wherein he (rightly) opines: “Problematisch findet der Rez. jene Einträge der Vokabelliste II, wo der Verf. (im Anschluß an HALOT oder auf eigene Faust) versucht, Nomina, die man gewöhnlich als Primärnomina betrachtet, von Verbalwurzeln herzuleiten, etwa, wenn ʾiššāh »woman« und ʾĕnôš »mankind« mit ʾnš »(Ni.) to be sickly« oder ʿam »people« mit ʿmm »to amaze; cause trouble« (etc.) verknüpft wird. Herleitungen dieser Art sind linguistisch nicht zu begründen (sie sind oft definitiv falsch); sie sind darüber hinaus nicht notwendig und aus didaktischer Sicht nicht sinnvoll. Oder sollen sich Studierende etwa einprägen, daß das Hebräische Frauen als kranke Wesen bezeichnet? Abgesehen von solchen etymologischen Irrläufern ist das Buch solide erstellt und zweifellos sehr nützlich.”
7. Landes, Building Your Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary, 7–39.
8. Landes, Building Your Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary, 1–6.
9. A quick engine search will indicate there are not a few websites specially dedicated to this key aspect of learning.
10. To be specific, Landes himself leveraged “white” cards with his own Hebrew students for verbal and nominal roots occurring more than 500 times, “yellow” cards for those lexemes occurring either 200–499 (verbs) or 300–499 (nouns) times, “green” cards for occurrences 100–199 times, “pink” for 70–99 times, and “blue” cards for all words occurring fewer than 70 times; see Landes, Building Your Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary, 5. Concerning digital media, Landes also suggests (same page) that “the frequency ranges might be represented by differing colors of the backgrounds of the screen on which the words appear, or the words themselves could be typed in different colors coordinated with their respective frequency ranges.” Personally, I think this is über creative of Landes and has much untapped potential. While there are plenty of physical and digital flashcards (some of which will be noted below), I am, most regrettably, unfamiliar with any system that intentionally leverages these components in quite the colorful way Landes has recommended.
11. Jim Wilson also notes: “like the original edition, each verbal root is listed in the Qal stem, even if that form is unattested in the Qal (e.g., the entry * צוה [Pi] command [sa/wa *] 494 [p. 32]).” Jim Wilson, “Review of Mitchel,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 27 (2017): 539. In my opinion, this is the only major problematic feature of the original edition that should have been revised in the updated edition. It does students a disservice to list verbal roots according to a format in which they never appear. It would have been more helpful to list these verbs in their primary stem(s) (e.g., piel, niphal, hiphil) or perhaps to have retained the unattested form(s) and to have included the primary stem form (e.g., * צוה [Pi: [צוה] command [si/wâ]).” See also Ron Lindo Jr.’s review in Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry 15 (2018): 100–01; and ’Ivrit Student, “Book Review: A Student’s Vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic,” Classical Hebrew Studies (blog), October 21, 2019, https://classicalhebrewstudies.wordpress.com/2019/10/21/book-review-a-students-vocabulary-for-biblical-hebrew-and-aramaic/.
12. A good portion of this paragraph has been cribbed from Dustin G. Burlet’s review of Mitchel in McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry 18 (2016–2017): R32–35.
13. However, Stephen D. Campbell rejoins that there is “one major weakness [to this approach], namely the lack of verbs. Given the flexibility of verbal categories, and the greater number of nouns, this emphasis is understandable. On the other hand, being able to associate verbs with a list of conceptually organized nouns would prove quite helpful, in my opinion. To overcome this deficiency, I would simply suggest that the serious student would be benefited by having Landes close at hand in order to learn the verbal roots of the nouns in Pleins and Homrighausen.” Stephen D. Campbell, “Review of Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary by Conceptual Categories,” Center for Research of Biblical Manuscripts and Inscriptions (blog), July 20, 2018, https://www.textualcriticism.org/post/review-of-biblical-hebrew-vocabulary-by-conceptual-categories.
14. As Paul D. Wegner asserts: “Overall, these categories function fairly well, except that the first category overlaps significantly with the second; perhaps a better descriptor for the first category would be ‘The Physical World Order.’ Then under these broad categories appear smaller word-groups; for example, the smaller word-groups under ‘The Social Order’ include ‘Immediate Family,’ ‘Worship/Cultic,’ ‘Ark of the Covenant,’ and ‘Menorah/Lampstand.’ It can be challenging to create categories that people typically associate with particular word-groups, but ‘Colors’ under ‘The Created Order’ seems particularly out of place. One solution would be to create a broad category simply called ‘Other,’ which would include word-groups such as ‘Colors,’ ‘Numbers,’ and so on. Another example, ‘Animal Husbandry Tools,’ might be better placed in a category called ‘Tools,’ rather than its current placement as a sub-category of ‘Animals.’” Paul D. Wegner, “Review of Pleins and Homrighausen,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 28, no. 2 (2018): 261. Another scholar notes something similar, stating: “The categories are contestable (e.g. ‘Worship/Cultic’ within ‘Social Order’), as are some translations, inevitably.” Hywell Clifford, “Review of Pleins and Homrighausen,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 42 (2018): 258.
15. Clifford, “Review,” 258.
16. That said, as Clifford states, “The student is wisely advised by the authors to turn to specialist literature to take matters further.” Clifford, “Review,” 258.
17. In contrast, see Jesse R. Scheumann and Merissa Scheumann, According to Their Kinds: A Biblical Hebrew Picture Dictionary, Ha’Arets Hebrew and Aramaic Accessible Resources for Exegetical and Theological Studies (Glossa, 2019).
18. This paragraph (for the most part) is predominantly an edited (i.e., trimmed) version of Dustin G. Burlet, “Review of Pleins and Homrighausen,” McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry 19 (2017–2018): R10–13.
19. Van Pelt and Pratico, Vocabulary Guide, x.
20. Van Pelt and Pratico, Vocabulary Guide, xi. For the sake of clarity, “Those who learn the 1,903 vocables that occur in the core list of this book (all the vocables which occur more than ten times in the Hebrew Bible) will know 90% of the words appearing in the Hebrew text of the Bible. Learning the 641 vocables that occur more than fifty times will result in recognition of 80% of the words in the Hebrew Bible. (By the way, there are 8,679 different vocables in the Hebrew Bible. The grand total of words is 49,914.)” John F. Brug, “Review of Miles V. Van Pelt and Gary D. Pratico’s The Vocabulary Guide to Biblical Hebrew,” Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly 101 (2004): 240. See also Robert Reed Lessing, “Review of Landes,” Concordia Journal 29 (2003): 110–11.
21. See Van Pelt and Pratico, Vocabulary Guide, xiii.
22. As one reviewer (judiciously) notes, “The grammar and workbook are great resources in their own right, but … this vocabulary guide rounds out the collection well. Additionally, using this vocabulary guide in unison with the grammar and workbook consolidates all necessary information for an introductory education in Biblical Hebrew into one convenient set.” Michael Kolby Pinkston, “Review of Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar,” Stone-Campbell Journal 25 (2022): 130. See also Aulikki Nahkola’s comments in their review of Van Pelt and Pratico’s work (in toto—including this book) in Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 44 (2020): 143–44.
23. Much of this paragraph has been derived from Dustin G. Burlet, “Review of Van Pelt and Pratico’s Vocabulary Guide to Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic 2nd ed.,” Canadian American Theological Review 8 (2019): 104–07.
24. Van Pelt and Pratico, Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary, xi.
25. Van Pelt and Pratico, Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary, x. Of all the books of the HB/OT, the only ones that are not represented within this brief volume are Song of Songs, Ezra, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Incontrovertibly, Pratico and Van Pelt are to be commended for their inclusion of such a wide diversity of canonical texts, and their intentional inclusion of texts with specific vocabulary terms (such as Eccl 4:7 or Ps 3:9). That being said, one might quibble concerning the conspicuous absence of Song of Songs due to the heavy concentration of the (rather unique) term דּוֹד (“beloved, uncle”) (NB: the term itself has 61 occurrences in the HB/OT; 39 of these appear within Song of Songs).
26. Somewhat surprisingly, while the lexicon contains many standard abbreviations for Hebrew stems (Q, Ni, Pi, Pu, Hi, Hith, Hoph) and most parts of speech (adj., prep., conj., etc.), there is no general or specific list of abbreviations. Although this is unlikely to cause many users much grief, there were a few abbreviations that might cause the uninitiated to scratch their heads without having recourse to another grammatical aid. Further assistance regarding collocations would also have proved helpful in some cases. For more details, see any of the standard concordances.
27. For more details concerning this, see Dustin Burlet, “What Are the Best Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicons?,” Word by Word, Logos (blog), September 8, 2025, https://www.logos.com/grow/nook-best-hebrew-aramaic-lexicons/.
28. Van Pelt and Pratico, Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary, x. As one reviewer also (astutely) notes, “Few have the propensity—or patience—to wade perpetually through vocabulary cards. Nor is this necessarily the most natural way to learn Hebrew well. It is much more enjoyable and fruitful to read passages from Scripture.” B. D. C., “Review of Miles V. Van Pelt and Gary D. Pratico’s Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary in Context,” Westminster Theological Journal 82 (2020): 211.
29. Generous portions of this part of my article (including much exact wording) have been adapted from Dustin G. Burlet, “Review of Pratico and Van Pelt’s Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary in Context,” McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry 22 (2020–2021): R62–64.
30. Osborne and Meek, Book-by-Book Guide, 2.
31. Philip S. Johnston, “Review of Osborne and Meek,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 48 (2024): 136–37.
32. Osborne and Meek, Book-by-Book Guide, 2.
33. The gist of this paragraph on this volume finds its origins in Dustin G. Burlet, “Review of Osborne and Meek,” Conspectus 33 (2022): 116–18.
34. See Johnston, “Review of Osborne and Meek,” 137.
35. Noonan, Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, 138.
36. B. D. C., “Review,” 211.
37. “Borrowed from Renaissance humanism, ad fontes is a well-known refrain from the Reformation in which the Reformers pushed for biblical studies to move back to the original sources, the ‘fountainhead’ of knowledge and revelation.” See Meredith Lee Myers, “5 Reasons to Study the Biblical Languages,” Tabletalk Magazine (online), September 14, 2022, https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/5-reasons-to-study-the-biblical-languages/.