Lesson 5 Article and Conjunction

To comprehend Biblical Hebrew, we must identify the definite article and the conjunction Vav whenever we see them in a word.

As we say often, our focus with Hebrew GRAMMAR Quest is not to write or speak Biblical Hebrew but to read and comprehend Biblical Hebrew. In this lesson, the sections that deal with meaning are more important than those that deal with the specific spelling65.

It is unlikely you will ever need to write the article or the conjunction with the correct vowel. We discuss these spelling details because you must know how to recognize them in the Bible when you encounter them.

LESSON ITINERARY

  1. Translate the Vav Conjunction
  2. Identify the Vav Conjunction
  3. Understand why the Dagesh Forte is your friend
  4. Translate the Article
  5. Identify the Article
  6. Understand the concepts of definiteness and indefiniteness in Hebrew
  7. Discuss what makes a noun definite

EQUIPMENT CHECK

Before continuing, can you describe the following concepts?

  • Identifying the lexical form of a noun
  • The “rule of Sheva,” including what happens in different combinations of two contiguous reduced vowels
  • How vowels can shift when the number of syllables changes
  • The masculine and feminine plural endings
    • MP: ים ִ FP: וֹת

  1. In contrast, Basics of Biblical Hebrew places significant emphasizes on learning the spelling rules. This is not wrong; it is just not our approach.↩︎