The Consonants, Part 1

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, and it is built on the alphabet. It has twenty-two stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order, and each stanza has eight verses that all begin with that letter. Verses 1-8 all begin with א (aleph), verses 9-16 with ב (bet), and so on to the last stanza, verses 169-176, which all begin with ת (tav). Many English Bibles print the letters' names above the stanzas, which is the only way a translation can show you the structure. A reader of the Hebrew sees it at a glance down the right-hand edge of the page.

Your anchor verse begins the fourteenth stanza. In the Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC) it reads נֵר לְרַגְלִי דְבָרֶךָ (ner leragli devarekha, a lamp to my foot is your word), and then וְאוֹר לִנְתִיבָתִי (ve'or lintivati, and a light to my path). Every verse from 105 to 112 begins with the letter נ (nun), and the poet chose ner, lamp, to open the stanza. Notice two small things the interlinear shows you. Hebrew puts 'lamp' first, where English puts 'your word'. And 'my foot' is singular. The BSB rightly says 'feet', because that is what English says, but the Hebrew pictures a small clay oil lamp held low in a dark place, lighting the ground for the next step and not much more. The psalmist does not ask to see the whole road. He asks for enough light to put one foot down.

That is also a good description of learning an alphabet. You do not need to see the whole of Hebrew grammar today. You need the next ten letters. Hebrew has twenty-two letters, all of them consonants. This lesson teaches the first ten, aleph to yod, and the next lesson teaches the other twelve and the five special forms some letters take at the end of a word. Lesson 4 then teaches the vowels, which were added to the text as small dots and dashes long after the books were written. By the end of the module you will be able to sound out any word in the Hebrew Bible, slowly, with the tools beside you to check.

The method is the one that works for every alphabet. For each letter, do three things. Write it by hand in your notebook ten times, saying its name and sound aloud each time. Find it in a real word. And come back to it the next day before you learn anything new. Fifteen minutes a day for two weeks will give you the whole alphabet. Do not try to learn it by staring at a chart; your hand and your mouth remember what your eyes forget.

Hebrew is written and read from right to left. A Hebrew Bible therefore opens from what an English reader thinks of as the back, and on every line your eye starts at the right-hand margin. When a Hebrew word stands inside an English sentence, as it will throughout this track, read the English up to it, jump to the right-hand end of the Hebrew word, read leftwards, and then jump back. It feels awkward for a week and then it does not.

Hebrew has no capital letters. Each letter has one shape, though five letters take a different shape at the end of a word, as Lesson 3 explains. The printed letters are mostly square, built from heavy horizontal strokes and thinner vertical ones, and they hang from an imaginary line at the top rather than sitting on a line at the bottom. Most letters are the same height; a few are narrow, one rises above the line, and a few drop below it. That top line matters for reading, because several letters differ only in a small corner or a little projection at the top. Write your letters large and square at first. Modern Israelis also use a rounded handwriting called cursive, which looks quite different; ignore it for now, and learn the printed letters you will see in the tools.

Every letter is a consonant. Ancient Hebrew writers wrote only consonants, and a reader supplied the vowels from knowing the language, much as an English reader can manage 'Yr wrd s lmp t my ft'. In time scribes began to use three of the letters, ה, ו and י, to hint at some vowels, and much later, between about AD 600 and 1000, the Jewish scholars called the Masoretes added a complete system of vowel signs above and below the letters. In this lesson and the next you will learn the consonants, and you will see the vowel marks on the words without yet knowing what they mean. Ignore them for now, except for one dot inside some letters, called a dagesh, which this lesson explains when it meets it.

Transliteration means writing Hebrew in English letters, and you will meet several systems: in commentaries, in Strong's dictionaries, in the free tools, and in this course. This track uses a simple system that you can type on a phone. Academic books use a more exact one with dots and hooks under some letters, such as ḥ for the eighth letter and ṭ for the ninth, and ʾ and ʿ for the two letters that have no English sound. Blue Letter Bible and STEP Bible each have their own system too, so you will see the same word spelled two or three ways. That is not an error. It is a reason to learn the Hebrew letters themselves and not to rely on anybody's transliteration.

One more fact. The letters of the alphabet also served as numbers in later Jewish usage: aleph 1, bet 2, and so on to yod 10, then by tens and hundreds. You will see Hebrew letters used as numbers for psalm and chapter numbers in printed Hebrew Bibles. The biblical writers themselves write their numbers out as words. And the Greek alphabet you may have met in the Koine Greek track was borrowed from the same family of alphabets, which is why alpha and aleph, beta and bet, gamma and gimel, delta and dalet sound alike.

Each entry gives the letter, its name, the transliteration this track uses, its sound, and a warning where you need one. Say each letter's name aloud as you write it.

א, aleph, transliterated with an apostrophe ' (academic ʾ), or not shown at all. Aleph has no sound of its own. It is the tiny catch in the throat you make before each vowel in English 'uh-oh'. In practice you sound the vowel that goes with it and nothing else, so אוֹר (or, light) is simply 'or'. Write it as a slanting stroke from top left to bottom right, with a short arm above it on the right and a short leg below it on the left. Warning: beginners expect aleph to be the vowel a, because it became the Greek alpha. In Hebrew it is a consonant that carries whatever vowel is written with it.

ב, bet, transliterated b or v. With a dot in its middle, בּ, it is sounded b as in boy; without the dot, ב, it is sounded v as in very. That dot is called a dagesh, and it hardens six letters, of which bet is the first; Lesson 3 explains when it appears. Write bet as a square open on the left, with a flat floor whose right end sticks out a little past the upright. Warning: bet looks like כ (kaph), which you will meet next lesson. Bet has a sharp corner at the bottom right and that little foot; kaph is rounded all the way round and has no foot.

ג, gimel, transliterated g. Sounded like the hard g in go, never like the g in gentle. Write it as an upright stroke with a short foot kicking out to the left at the bottom. Warning: gimel looks like נ (nun), which you met at the start of Psalm 119:105. Nun's foot runs to the left along the bottom like a floor; gimel's foot is a short separate kick.

ד, dalet, transliterated d. Sounded like the d in dog. Write it as a horizontal roof with an upright coming down from near its right end, so that the roof sticks out past the upright at the top right, making a sharp corner. Warning: dalet looks like ר (resh), the twentieth letter, which is a rounded roof with no corner sticking out. This is the most important look-alike in the alphabet, and the scribes knew it. In Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema, the WLC prints the last letter of the last word large: אֶחָד (echad, one). Jewish tradition gives more than one explanation for that large letter; one is that it guards against anyone misreading the dalet as a resh, which would turn echad, one, into אַחֵר (acher, another), the word behind 'any other god' in Exodus 34:14. Whatever the scribes intended, the lesson for a beginner is plain: look at the top right corner.

ה, he, pronounced hey, transliterated h. Sounded like the h in house. At the end of a word it is usually silent, marking a vowel, as in יְהוּדָה (yehudah, Judah), where the final he is not sounded. Write it as a roof with an upright down its right side, and a short separate leg on the left that does not reach the roof; there is a gap at the top left. Warning: he looks like ח (het), which you will meet in a moment, and like ת (tav), the last letter. He has the gap at the top left. Het has no gap at all. Tav has a little foot at the bottom of its left leg.

ו, vav, transliterated v (academic w). In ancient Hebrew it was sounded w as in way, which is why scholars transliterate it w and why some books call it waw; modern Hebrew sounds it v, and so do most classrooms. It is a single upright stroke with a small head turning to the left at the top. Vav also has two other jobs, as a vowel letter for o and u, which Lesson 4 explains, and it is one of the commonest letters in the Bible, because the word and is a vav fixed to the front of the next word: וְאוֹר (ve'or, and a light) in your anchor verse. Warning: vav is easily confused with three letters. ז (zayin) has a head that sticks out on both sides; י (yod) is a short vav, hanging high and stopping halfway down; and ן (final nun), which you will meet next lesson, is a vav whose leg drops well below the line.

ז, zayin, transliterated z. Sounded like the z in zoo. Write it as an upright with a short bar across the top that sticks out on both sides, a little like a nail. It is one of the less common letters, but it begins זָהָב (zahav, gold) and זְכֹר (zekhor, remember), the first word of Psalm 119:49.

ח, het, pronounced like the ch in Scottish loch, transliterated ch in this track (academic ḥ). It is a rough sound made in the throat. In ancient Hebrew it was probably made deeper in the throat than the soft kaph you will meet next lesson, as the matching letter is in Arabic today; most modern speakers sound the two alike, and so may you. Do not sound it like the ch in church. Write it as a roof with two uprights, one at each end, closed at the top. Warning: het looks like ה (he), which has a gap at the top left, and like ת (tav), which has a foot. Het is a closed doorway. The eighth stanza of Psalm 119 begins with it: חֶלְקִי יְהוָה (chelqi YHWH, my portion is the LORD) in 119:57, which the BSB renders 'The LORD is my portion'.

ט, tet, transliterated t (academic ṭ). Sounded like the t in top. In ancient Hebrew it was a different t from the last letter, tav, probably made with the back of the tongue raised, but most speakers today sound the two alike. Write it as a rounded cup, open at the top, with one side curling inward over the opening. It is one of the few round letters in an alphabet of squares, and it is quite distinctive; look at it in the tools and copy the curl exactly as your Bible prints it. It begins טוֹב (tov, good), and the ninth stanza of Psalm 119 opens with that very word in 119:65.

י, yod, transliterated y. Sounded like the y in yes. It is the smallest letter of the alphabet, a short hook that hangs from the top line and stops halfway down, like a raised comma. Almost every commentator takes this to be the jot of Matthew 5:18: 'not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law.' Jesus chose the smallest letter there was to say that no part of God's word is too small to stand. Like vav, yod also works as a vowel letter, for i and e, which Lesson 4 explains. Warning: a careless yod looks like a vav. Keep yod short, and keep vav long.

Here, then, are the ten letters in order, right to left as Hebrew is written: א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י. Say their names aloud: aleph, bet, gimel, dalet, he, vav, zayin, het, tet, yod. Then say their sounds: silent, b or v, g, d, h, v, z, ch, t, y. Do both every day this week.

Before you read, fix the traps. Write these pairs and triples in your notebook, large, one row each, and under each row write how to tell them apart. ב and כ: bet has a corner and a foot at the bottom right; kaph is round. ג and נ: gimel kicks, nun has a floor. ד and ר: dalet has a sharp corner sticking out at the top right; resh is rounded. ה, ח and ת: he has a gap at the top left, het is closed, tav has a foot. ו, ז, י and ן: vav is a plain upright with a small head, zayin has a head on both sides, yod is half height, final nun drops below the line. You have not learned kaph, nun, resh or tav yet, but learn the difference now and the next lesson will be easier.

Now read. Every word below is a real Old Testament word, made only of the ten letters you have learned. Ignore the vowel marks under and over the letters; read the consonants from right to left, and check your reading against the transliteration. Cover the answers with your hand if it helps.

טוֹב: tet, vav, bet, and the bet has no dot, so it is v. Read it tov. It means good, as in 'And God saw that the light was good' (Genesis 1:4), where the WLC has כִּי טוֹב (ki tov, that it was good). Here the vav is a vowel letter for o, as Lesson 4 will explain. יְהוּדָה: yod, he, vav, dalet, he. Read it yehudah. It is Judah, the tribe and the kingdom whose language Nehemiah 13:24 spoke of; the final he is silent. Notice how many of the letters you have learned this one name uses.

דָּוִד: dalet, vav, dalet. Read it david: David. Here the vav is a consonant, v, between two vowels. In Psalm 23:1 the WLC has לְדָוִד (ledavid, of David, for David), with a lamed in front that you will learn next lesson. Now a surprise worth noticing. In the books of Chronicles, written after the exile, the name is usually spelled with a yod added, דָּוִיד, as in 1 Chronicles 11:1. Same name, same sound, a slightly different spelling, because later scribes used the vowel letter yod more freely. Spelling in the Hebrew Bible varies a little from book to book, and the tools record it faithfully.

אֶחָד: aleph, het, dalet. Read it echad. It means one, and it is the last word of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4, 'The LORD our God, the LORD is One', where the dalet is written large. Look at the corner of that dalet. Then look again at the word for and, וְ, a vav with a vowel mark under it, which begins hundreds of verses, and at הוּא: he, vav, aleph. Read it hu. It means he. The aleph at the end is silent, and the vav is a vowel letter for u.

Last, four letters you will meet nearly seven thousand times in the Old Testament: יהוה, yod, he, vav, he. This is the personal name of God, which the BSB translates LORD, in capitals. Every letter of it is one you learned this week. How the name was pronounced, why Jewish readers do not pronounce it, and why it appears in your Bible as LORD is the subject of Lesson 4. For now, simply learn to recognise it. Once you can, you will see it in the interlinear on almost every page of the Old Testament.

Turn to the second page of your Hebrew notebook, which you left blank in Lesson 1. Head it The consonants. Down the right-hand side of the page, because that is where Hebrew begins, write the ten letters you learned in this lesson, one per line. Beside each, write its name, its transliteration and its sound in a word you know: aleph, silent; bet, b as in boy or v as in very; and so on to yod. Leave room under yod for twelve more lines and five final forms, which you will fill next lesson. Under the list, write the look-alike rows from section 5.

Then make flashcards. Cut a sheet of paper into small pieces, or use the backs of old envelopes. On one side of each card write a Hebrew letter; on the other, its name and sound. Make bet twice, with and without its dot. Carry the cards in your pocket and go through them whenever you wait, saying the sound aloud if you can, and put the ones you get wrong at the front. If you would rather use your phone, photograph each card, front and back, and keep the photographs in an album you can swipe through at the bus stop.

Next, open the first verse of the passage you chose in Lesson 1 in the Blue Letter Bible or STEP Bible interlinear. Copy the Hebrew of that verse onto your My passage page, starting at the right-hand margin and writing leftwards, as carefully as you can. Then go through it letter by letter and circle every letter from aleph to yod that you can now recognise. Under each one write its sound. Do not try to read whole words yet. Count how many letters you circled out of the total and write the number in the margin with today's date. Look especially for vav at the front of words, meaning and, and for the four letters of the divine name. If your verse has the name of God, LORD, you will find it.

Finally, take the two sentences you wrote in the last inquiry question, about the next step and Psalm 119:105. Copy them under the verse in your notebook. Above them, write the first three Hebrew letters of the verse's first word that you can, and the word נֵר (ner, lamp), whose nun you will learn next week. Pray the verse aloud, in English or in your own language. You are learning the alphabet the psalmist used to build his poem about God's word, and you are asking for the same thing he asked: enough light for the next step.