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Basics of Biblical Hebrew
491 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2019
About the author
Gary D. Pratico
19 books12 followersDr. Gary D. Pratico is Senior Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew Language at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. Dr. Pratico holds a Bachelor of Arts from Berkshire Christian College, a Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Theology from Harvard University with concentration in Hebrew Bible, Ancient Near Eastern History and Syro-Palestinian Archeology. Dr. Pratico was curator of archaeological collections at the Harvard Semitic Museum from September 1982 until December 1993. He has participated in archaeological projects in North Africa, Cyprus, Israel and Jordan. He has also directed dozens of archaeological study tours of Israel, Jordan and Egypt. Dr. Pratico’s most recent book is entitled, Nelson Glueck’s 1938-1940 Excavations at Tell el-Kheleifeh: A Reappraisal. He has co-authored numerous articles with Dr. Cooley on the western cemetary at Tell Dothan and has published many articles on topics concerning biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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August 12, 2022It is finished.
March 30, 2026
TL;DR: This is an introduction to Hebrew, and it has introduced me to Hebrew. 👍👍
Since this is my first time learning Hebrew, and I'm certainly not done learning Hebrew, I don't have anything to say about how this compares to other books. So instead, here are some random opinions based on my experience with this book and some of the related materials.
•••
This book:
I learned to read Hebrew! So at minimum, the book is a success.
The extra bits at the end of chapters were a bit unpredictable. Sometimes it was a useful example of what you just learned, sometimes it was a whole category of super helpful grammatical information that totally could have had its own chapter, sometimes it was a mini devotion with a ton of (unnecessary) parsing. I kinda wish that was handled differently.
The diagnostic system was helpful. It meant the hardest part of the book was when verbs were introduced and kept changing, but once you got a couple stems in, the rest got easier (imo).
•••
Related Material:
Workbook: 4/5. I'm not done with the workbook yet, but it was alright. I found there were a lot more words you had to look up in comparison to the Basics of Biblical Greek workbook (when I did that five years ago), but I acknowledge that could be a difference in the testaments. It made the workbook more tiring to work through, but still very useful.
Compact Guide: 5/5. I love it, just as I loved the Greek one. It's practically all the same info as the big book, but all the explanations and examples trimmed out. Just raw rules, paradigms, and definitions. So easy to thumb through, so helpful in a pinch.
Vocabulary Cards: 2/5. I have a lot of complaints against these cards.
— First off, they're arranged in order of frequency, so I had to manually sort through all 1,000 cards to find what I needed for any given chapter. This imperfect hassle led to me missing a word or two.
— Secondly, the fronts of the cards contain extra info. All of them have the card number (which is also on the back), some nouns have a plural form, and unique phrases are also put there sometimes. While that can be helpful for identification when reading a text, it means that you're given hints on your flashcards that you won't be given on tests. Inconvenient.
— Thirdly, not every word you would hope for is among the 979 most frequent words and 21 proper names. For instance, when my class learned numbers, I had to make my own vocab cards in order to learn 1-10, because only a couple of those numbers appear frequently enough to be included among the cards.
Ultimately, the vocab cards were still a timesave, but they could easily have been made much better.
Since this is my first time learning Hebrew, and I'm certainly not done learning Hebrew, I don't have anything to say about how this compares to other books. So instead, here are some random opinions based on my experience with this book and some of the related materials.
•••
This book:
I learned to read Hebrew! So at minimum, the book is a success.
The extra bits at the end of chapters were a bit unpredictable. Sometimes it was a useful example of what you just learned, sometimes it was a whole category of super helpful grammatical information that totally could have had its own chapter, sometimes it was a mini devotion with a ton of (unnecessary) parsing. I kinda wish that was handled differently.
The diagnostic system was helpful. It meant the hardest part of the book was when verbs were introduced and kept changing, but once you got a couple stems in, the rest got easier (imo).
•••
Related Material:
Workbook: 4/5. I'm not done with the workbook yet, but it was alright. I found there were a lot more words you had to look up in comparison to the Basics of Biblical Greek workbook (when I did that five years ago), but I acknowledge that could be a difference in the testaments. It made the workbook more tiring to work through, but still very useful.
Compact Guide: 5/5. I love it, just as I loved the Greek one. It's practically all the same info as the big book, but all the explanations and examples trimmed out. Just raw rules, paradigms, and definitions. So easy to thumb through, so helpful in a pinch.
Vocabulary Cards: 2/5. I have a lot of complaints against these cards.
— First off, they're arranged in order of frequency, so I had to manually sort through all 1,000 cards to find what I needed for any given chapter. This imperfect hassle led to me missing a word or two.
— Secondly, the fronts of the cards contain extra info. All of them have the card number (which is also on the back), some nouns have a plural form, and unique phrases are also put there sometimes. While that can be helpful for identification when reading a text, it means that you're given hints on your flashcards that you won't be given on tests. Inconvenient.
— Thirdly, not every word you would hope for is among the 979 most frequent words and 21 proper names. For instance, when my class learned numbers, I had to make my own vocab cards in order to learn 1-10, because only a couple of those numbers appear frequently enough to be included among the cards.
Ultimately, the vocab cards were still a timesave, but they could easily have been made much better.
January 20, 2022
Got me through basic and advanced Hebrew courses
August 1, 2021
I loved the grammar lessons. I did not remember all of it. I disliked the vocab. Vocab is hard. I like the language a lot, but vocab aquisition is not beneficial in a context like this. I would suggest having someone read through this and work through a living language method so that they can have both the knowledge of the language in a technical sense, while getting practical hands-on work with vocabulary in sentences that allow people to have a better comprehensive and intuitive knowledge of Ancient Hebrew. I highly suggest Aleph with Beth for that purpose. Having this grammar, or Mark Futato's grammar (Daily Dose of Hebrew, where they give lessons for free and they work through a portion of Scripture every week day) or other tools to help immerse you in the language are essential to get a basic comprehension where you feel equip to work with the language (I am admittedly not there yet, but I'm far far far better than I was even 4 months ago when I started this grammar)
April 24, 2023
I've interacted with a number of textbooks and this is by far the best. If you're stepping into a Hebrew course you should pray this is your textbook! Provides thorough explanation of major components without drowning you in unnecessary details. This book absolutely "majors on the majors" and "minors on the minors" in a very practical way. Pratico and Van Pelt have created tons of auxiliary resources such as flashcards, a summary chart, vocab in context book, etc. that are all wildly helpful in study. Make sure to get their laminated Hebrew chart for a helpful summary of the whole book.
November 18, 2025
I am not a fan of the Grammar-Translation method for several reasons. I had to use this book as a textbook for my Hebrew classes in Seminary. I prefer a Living Language approach which aims for meaning and mastery in speaking, writing, reading, and listening whereas in the Garmmar-Translation method you would be lucky to get one.
For a Grammar-Translation method this textbook is considered the gold standard. However, Kutz newer Grammar-Translation is attracting a lot of eyes and is another great Grammar-Translation that I hope to go through soon.
For a Grammar-Translation method this textbook is considered the gold standard. However, Kutz newer Grammar-Translation is attracting a lot of eyes and is another great Grammar-Translation that I hope to go through soon.
abandoned_
February 15, 2024I've decided to take up The First Hebrew Primer: The Adult Beginner's Path to Biblical Hebrew, Third Edition by Ethelyn Simon (FHP) instead of Basics of Biblical Hebrew (BBH) as it seems more geared to student success rather than completeness as BBH. Cons for FHP are its price and it is softcover. Additional con for BBH is the continual Evangelical Christian propaganda.
August 13, 2021
Phenomenal resource for the biblical language student.
July 15, 2023
Van Pelt and Practico have done an exceptional job in creating a remarkably accessible and invaluable guide to Biblical Hebrew. I am grateful for the abundance of resources provided by the authors. Additionally, I want to express my gratitude to Dr. Tyler Sykora for his guidance and support in helping us study the Lord during our studies at MBTS.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews