Hebrew Dictionaries & Parsing Guides of the Bible & Rabbinic Literature

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Subsection

Exegetical & Theological Dictionaries on the Bible

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Order of Contents

Start
Dictionaries

English to Hebrew
For KJV
Synonyms

Rabbinic Dictionary


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Start Here

Beginner

Holladay, William – A Concise Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Based upon the Lexical Work of Ludwig Koehler & Walter Baumgartner  Buy  (Eerdmans & Brill, 1988)  445 pp.

Most Hebrew dictionaries list words according to their root, which can sometimes be difficult for the beginner to use.  This dictionary includes the form of the word as it is found in Scripture, is not bulky, is easy to read and is based on modern scholarship.

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Parsing Guides

Davidson, Benjamin – The Analytical Hebrew & Chaldee Lexicon, Consisting of… Every Word & Inflection Contained in the Old Testament… with a Grammatical Analysis of Each Word  Buy  (1855)

Most Hebrew dictionaries lay out the Hebrew words according to their roots.  But how does one know what is the root of the word in question?  This work fully parses out each Hebrew word.  Each Hebrew word, as it is found in Scripture, is listed in alphabetical order.

Beall, Todd, Colin Smith, William Banks – Old Testament Parsing Guide, vol. 1 (Gen-Esth), 2 (Job-Mal)  Buy  (Moody, 1986)

All the verbs, and only the verbs, of the Old Testament are fully parsed, laid out in the order of the books of the Bible (which ordering is very convenient for finding the word in question).

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Advanced

Brown, Francis, S.R. Driver & Charles Briggs – A Hebrew & English Lexicon of the Old Testament  (1906 / 1939)  Buy  based on Gesenius, tr. Edward Robinson  Known as Brown-Driver-Briggs or BDB

This was the best and most standard Hebrew dictionary of the older scholarship.  A wealth of information.  Words are listed by their roots, which can sometimes make finding words tricky; use the parsing guides above. The three editors were liberals (though this does not affect the dictionary’s usefulness much, if one ignores the J.E.P.D. references).

Koehler, Ludwig & Walter Baumgartner – The Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 2 vols.  Buy  (Brill, 2002)

The best dictionary for the latest scholarship as it has advanced since Brown-Driver-Briggs, though it is terribly expensive.


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More Dictionaries

1800’s

Parkhurst, John – A Hebrew & English Lexicon  8th ed.  (1823)

Frey, Joseph – A Hebrew & English Dictionary  (1842)

Lee, Samuel – A Lexicon, Hebrew, Chaldee & English, compiled from… Buxtorf, Taylor, Parkhurst & Gesenius  (1844)

Roy, W.L. – A Complete Hebrew & English Critical & Pronouncing Dictionary… containing all the Words in the Holy Bible… together with their Derivation & Etymological Meaning… & Illustrated by Numerous Citations from the Targums, Talmud & Cognate Dialects  (1846)

Gesenius, William – A Hebrew & English Lexicon of the Old Testament  trans. Edward Robsinson  (1854)

Tregelles, Samuel – Gesenius’s Hebrew & Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, with Additions & Corrections…  (1857)

Fuerst, Julius – A Hebrew & Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament  trans. Samuel Davidson  (1867)

Davies, Benjamin – Student’s Hebrew Lexicon: A Compendious & Complete Hebrew & Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, Chiefly Founded on the Works of Gesenius & Furst  (1872)

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1900’s

Harkavy, Alexander – Students’ Hebrew & Chaldee Dictionary to the Old Testament  (Hebrew Publishing Co., 1914)

Koehler, Ludwig & Walter Baumgartner – Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros  (1953; Brill, 1958)

In this scholarly work, first German definitions are given of the Hebrew word, then English.  The more recent four volume, and then two volume, The Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament was a translation and updating of this work.

Klein, Ernest – A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English  (University of Haifa, 1987)


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English to Hebrew

1800’s

Newman, Selig – An English & Hebrew Lexicon, composed after Johnson’s Dictionary, containing 15,000 English Words Rendered into Biblical or Rabbinical Hebrew  (1832)

Robinson, Edward – An English-Hebrew Lexicon: Being a Complete Verbal Index to Gesenius’ Hebrew Lexicon  (1877)


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How Hebrew Words are Translated in the KJV

Strong, James – The Hebrew Bible; with their Renderings in the Authorized English Version  (1890)


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Synonyms

Kennedy, James – Studies in Hebrew Synonyms  (London: Williams & Norgate, 1898)  150 pp.  ToC

This gives the various Hebrew words for the English words:

Flee, wall, wash, lion, sleep, fool, folly, coal, flood, oil, old, weariness, hide, conceal, poor, pour out, rain, rock, cliff, crag, rod, stick, staff, ashes, dust.

Girdlestone’s Synonyms of the Old Testament

The synonyms are alphabetically organized in English.


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A Rabbinic Dictionary

Jastrow, Marcus – A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli & Yerushalmi & the Midrashic Literature  (Philadelphia: 1803-1903)  at Sefaria  See also the print edition, 1967, vol. 1, 2.

Jastrow (1829-1903) was a German-born American Talmudic scholar and a progressive, early reformist rabbi.

This is the standard, comprehensive dictionary to rabbinic literature and is very useful in seeing trajectories of Hebrew words after the writing of the Old Testament, and comparing them with usages in the Old Testament, especially where the word is used infrequently therein.

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“The Greek mind was abstract, the Hebrew concrete.”

John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan

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Related Pages

The Bible

Old Testament Commentaries

Old Testament Background, Survey, Authenticity & Introduction

Old Testament Theology

Hebrew Vowel Points

Bible Dictionaries

Bible Chronology

Textual Criticism