A. The Englishman's Concordances (Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament) are different from the more commonly used English concordances in that they allow you to look up Hebrew or Greek words--irrespective of the ways they might have been translated into English (in the KJV).

1. When you look up a Hebrew word you are able to see all the passages where it occurs in the Hebrew text.
2. For every occurrence of a word the author provided a short excerpt from the King James Version to enable the reader to see and then determine its usage. The part of the phrase that is the translation of the Hebrew word is set in italics.
3. The concordance groups verbs according to their verb patterns: (a) Perfect and Imperfect; (b) Kal (Qal), Niphal, etc.
4. When appropriate, an entry will refer the reader to the root of the word or to alternate spellings (references are given in Strong's numbers).

B. This concordance allows the reader to get a comprehensive view of the use and range of meanings of a given word. This can be helpful for validating (or invalidating) the definitions of a lexicon, and for determining the frequency of various meanings.

The Value of a Comprehensive View of the Use & Range of Meanings

• It is helpful for validating (or invalidating) the definitions of a lexicon.
• It tells you the frequency of each definition of a word.
• It lists all of the occurrences of a particular Hebrew word throughout the entire OT (verbs are sub-categorized according to pattern). This enables you to see differentiations  in meaning at a glance and even subtle variations of nuance according to (a) each individual author's use, (b) each genre of literature, and (c) each period of OT history.

Pros and Cons of the English to Hebrew Index

Some editions also have an invaluable English to Hebrew Index at the back.You look up a word in English--such as "joy" and the listing will tell you all the Hebrew words translated "joy" in the KJV.

PROS:

1. It gives the student a helpful supply of Hebrew synonyms for further study.
2. It approaches an English to Hebrew Biblical Dictionary, giving the Hebrew student quick access to the Biblical Hebrew vocabulary.
3. It gives the page numbers on which the all the various Hebrew words are to be found (as well as the Hebrew words).

CON:

1. This listing does not list all possible Hebrew synonyms; only the ones that the KJV translated as the English (the word you looked up).

©1999 Peter Wise. Anyone is free to reproduce this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author's consent.