Bibliography of Standard Hebrew Tools
- Armstrong, Terry A., Douglass L. Busby, and Cyril F. Carr. A Reader's Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.
This work lists and defines all the words that occur less than 50 times in the OT in verse-by-verse order. (All words that occur 50 times or more are listed and defined in the appendix.) Nouns and adjectives are spelled as they occur in the passage you look up; the spelling for verbs is root (lexical) form only. Alongside each word is the meaning for the passage given by BDB and the page number where that information was found. The authors also included some helpful statistical details for each word. A very handy volume to own.
- Beall, Todd, S., and William Banks. Old Testament Parsing Guide (Genesis-Esther). Chicago: Moody Press, 1986.
This work lists and defines all the First of 2 volumes covering the entire OT. See comments on next entry.
- Beall, Todd, S., William A. Banks and Colin Smith. Old Testament Parsing Guide (Job-Malachi). Chicago: Moody Press, 1986.
Analyzes words of the Old Testament in verse by verse order, gives the page number in BDB, and an English translation, but unfortunately does not provide the Hebrew roots (lexical forms). Four large size volumes-not handy to carry around.
- Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. (Reprinted with Strong's numbering system by Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Mass.)
Standard tool used by most schools. Many reference works have been keyed to this lexicon. Cons: Very poor typesetting, not user friendly, and contains little information that would be enlightening to the average user. Do not expect to find this volume a rich source of "nuggets." Liberal work: the authors subscribe to the "JEPD" authorship theory.
- Davidson, A. B. The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon. Reprinted by Hendrickson Publishers.
Parses and analyzes every word in the Hebrew Old Testament (and gives the root). Words must be looked up in Hebrew alphabetical order, which makes for slow and tedious translating. Also contains a good, but brief lexicon based upon Gesenius and several other scholars. Only the new edition by Hendrickson Publishers has page numbers.
- Einspahr, Bruce (compiler). Index to Brown, Driver & Briggs Hebrew Lexicon. Chicago: Moody Press, 1976.
Lists the roots for OT words (not just verbs) in verse-by-verse order, but without any parsing or analyzing of words. Indexed to BDB and Strong's Numbers; gives one or two word meanings. Not comprehensive (some words missing)--perhaps later editions will correct this problem.
- Even-Shoshan, ed. A New Concordance of the Old Testament. Jerusalem: Kiryat-Sefer Lmtd., 1989. Distributed by Baker Book House.
Technical work for the advanced student only. Wonderful tool for looking up Hebrew words broken down into categories according to every possible grammatical form (every conjugation: 1st, 2nd, 3rd person masc./fem. forms, etc., and every noun and adjective form occurring in the OT). A short excerpt from the Hebrew Bible is provided for each word (no translation). Definitions of words are in Modern Hebrew (without vowels), but this is only a minor flaw because the definitions are not the reason why a serious Bible Student would buy or use this volume. Author is Jewish (non-Christian) but the work remains valuable because of the way it indexes Hebrew words. This book is helpful for looking up all possible spellings and forms of Hebrew words (i.e., various prefix or suffix forms, construct or plural form(s) and frequency and context of each, etc. No other Hebrew tool provides this kind of detailed information.
NOTE: No English translation; everything but the location of the verses is in Hebrew.
- Girdlestone, Robert Baker. Synonyms of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, reprint.
Classic work that groups Hebrew words according to significant theological topics: words for God, man, worship, prayer, praise, sin, atonement, etc. A bit wordy and tedious, but contains much valuable information. Every serious Hebrew student should own a copy of this book (and should mark it up).
- Harris, R. Laird, Gleason L. Archer, Jr., and Bruce Waltke, eds. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 2 vols. Chicago: Moody Press, 1980.
A helpful and relatively non-technical work useful to a wide range of readers. Wherever possible, Hebrew words (including nouns and adjectives) are listed under verbal roots. This work was written by a team of scholars, and as a consequence the work is of uneven quality. The quality of the article depends on the author . Frequently helpful for finding synonyms and antonyms (opposites), etymologies, key texts, good definitions, related Hebrew words, and theological discussions. Indexed to Strong's, but you must convert Strong's numbers to TWBOT numbers using a chart at the back of vol. 2.
- Owens, John Joseph. Analytical Key to the Old Testament, 4 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.
Analyzes words of the Old Testament in verse by verse order, gives the page number in BDB, and an English translation, but unfortunately does not provide the Hebrew roots (lexical forms). Four large size volumes--not handy to carry around.
- Wigram, George. The Englishman's Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance of the Old Testament. One edition is now coded to Strong's
While not a lexicon, this work is helpful for finding Hebrew words under various topics (you look up an English word and it gives you Hebrew or Greek words)--without, however, any Hebrew vowels. And because a team of authors contributed to this set, there is some unevenness to the quality of various articles. Overall, the set contains much worthwhile information.
©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.