First-Year Biblical Hebrew the language of the Old Testament
A complete first-year course in Biblical Hebrew, organized in six units across thirty lessons: reading the script, nouns and modifiers, pronouns and sentences, the Qal verb system, the derived stems (binyanim), and reading the Hebrew Bible. Built around the pedagogical sequence of Pratico/Van Pelt's Basics of Biblical Hebrew but restructured with original prose and supplemented with public-domain reference material.
The Hebrew Bible — what Christians call the Old Testament — was written almost entirely in Biblical Hebrew, with a few short passages in Aramaic (parts of Daniel and Ezra). Hebrew is a Semitic language: it shares features with Arabic, Aramaic, and the ancient languages of Israel's neighbors. Its consonant-based structure, root system, and triliteral verbs are different from anything you've met in English or Greek.
Don't be discouraged. Three thousand years of readers have learned this language; you can too. A few hundred high-frequency words plus the basics of the verb system give you reading access to most of Genesis, Ruth, Jonah, and the Psalms. The grammar is less elaborate than Greek in some respects (fewer cases, fewer verb tenses) but more conceptually distinct in others (the seven binyanim, the construct chain, the verbless clause).
This course follows the standard pedagogical order taught in seminaries — alphabet → vowels → nouns → verbs → reading — drawing on the methodology of Pratico/Van Pelt's Basics of Biblical Hebrew (Zondervan, 2007). Each lesson has the grammar to learn, the vocabulary to memorize, paradigms to drill, and exercises drawn from the Hebrew Bible itself.
By the end of Unit VI you will be reading בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים — the opening words of Genesis — in the original.
Each lesson has three parts: a slide deck overview (~22 slides), a longer written exposition with examples and tables, and a daily drill plan. Watch the slides first to get the framework, then read the prose to deepen understanding, then drill until recognition is automatic.
Pace yourself. Two lessons per week across about four months gives you the whole course at a comfortable seminary pace. Or aim for one lesson per day if you're working intensively; many students get through the full 30 in 6–8 weeks of focused study.
The course works best with a real Hebrew Bible open beside it (the BHS — Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia — is the standard scholarly edition). After Lesson 5 you can begin spotting words you know in any open Hebrew page. The work pays off.