So You Want to Improve your Hebrew?

I remember as a second semester Hebrew student wishing that I could have my professor present while I worked through Hebrew texts at home. Unfortunately, my professors rarely made house calls, even when the syntax of a adversative clause lay on the line. Along with many others, my translation technique consisted of simply looking up words in BDB and mashing them together into a wooden translation, leaving aside the complicated question of syntax and structure. If only I had someone to take me through a text line by line.

Amos handbook

Although there are many resources that can help improve your reading of Hebrew, one that I have recently benefited from is the Baylor Handbook on the Hebrew Bible Series. I have been working through the volume on Amos authored by a professor of mine, Duane Garrett. In the book, Garrett walks through every stanza, strophe, and line of Amos, describing the syntax and function of each grammatical construction, with a little commentary. This book does not address the text-critical problems of Amos, except where necessary for intelligibility, but focuses on the present form of the text.

By working through this book, students who have had a couple semesters of Hebrew can learn to read grammatically on a discourse level with a Hebrew Bible professor at their beck and call. I have not had a chance to reference any of the other volumes in the series, but have heard mostly positive reports from others.

One word of caution with the Amos volume: occasionally, words are missing or misspelled in the text. As you working through the book, I recommend having your Hebrew Bible open, for the simple purpose of verifying the text. With that caveat, I cannot recommend this work more highly.

You can read a review of the book here.

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