Brief History

Ancient (Classical) Hebrew, as we know it today, is estimated to be about 3200 years old. The earliest evidence we have of distinct Hebrew is found on the Gezer calendar, which dates to about the 10th century B.C..

Adoption and Development

Hebrew was spoken in the Canaan (Palestine) territory and adopted by the Israelite settlers.

Hebrew in the Bible

Old Testament

The entire Old Testament is written in Biblical Hebrew, except for parts of the following books, which are written in Aramaic:

• Various parts of the book of Ezra which quotes official documents1
• Jeremiah 10:11
• Daniel 2:4b-6:28

Genesis 31:47 also contains an Aramaic proper noun. Aramaic—also a Semitic language—is related to Hebrew and at some point replaced Classical Hebrew as the spoken language of the average Israelite.

New Testament

It has been proposed that the book of Matthew and/or the book of Hebrews were originally written in Hebrew, but there is no concrete evidence of this.

Hebrew and the Hebrews

Hebrew is the traditional language of the Jews. Jewish thought, culture, law, language and religion have all be tightly interwoven for thousands of years.

Biblical Traditions

The word Hebrew (in the Hebrew language) means to pass over or to traverse. The Hebrews, as a people, are all the descendants of Eber (Gen 10:21)2. Abram is the first person in the Bible to be called a Hebrew (Gen 14:13) and is listed as a descendant of Eber, although Abraham, rather than Eber, is known as the "Father of the Hebrews".

Abraham (Gen 17:5-7) had two sons: Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael went on to become the forefather of the Arab peoples. Isaac also had two sons: Esau and Jacob. Esau was the forefather of the Edomites (Gen 25:29-30). Jacob was also called Israel (Gen 32:27-28). It was Jacob's descendants who became God chosen people and through which God would fulfil His covenant promises to Abraham. It is this group of people who became known as the Israelites, whose primary language was Hebrew.

Jacob had 12 sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph was the father of Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Jacob adopted as his own (Gen 48:5). The descendants of these men became the twelve tribes of Israel. After the death of King Solomon, the kingdom of Israel was split into a northern and a southern half. The northern kingdom contained the territories assigned to the tribes of Dan, Ephraim, Asher, Gad, Reuben, Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun and Naphtali. This kingdom continued to be known as the "Kingdom of Israel". The southern kingdom contained the territories of Judah, Benjamin and Simeon. This kingdom became known as the "Kingdom of Judah", after the tribe which held the vast majority of the land in this kingdom. It is from the word Judahite (inhabitants of the "land of Judah") that we get the word "Jew".

It should thus be clear that, following the explanation above, that Hebrew the language, which today is nearly exclusively associated with Jews and Judaism, is only typical of a small subset of the peoples who can be called "Hebrews".

From the Exile to the Present

After the Assyrian invasion of the northern kingdom, most of the people of that land was deported and disappeared from the historical record. The Jews (of the kingdom of Judah) were deported from their land by the Babylonians, but a portion of the deportees were allowed to return under Persian rule. These Jews strictly adhered to racial purity (Ezra 10:2-3) and the land of Palestine remained predominantly Jewish until the Romans scattered the Jews in 70 A.D. following a failed revolt. Even after this exile, the diaspora remained largely distinct from the nations amongst which they went to live. This allowed sizeable communities to remain distinguished even after a period of 2000 years after which persecution either caused many Jews to either forsake their roots or move to the Jewish state of Israel which was established in 1947.

Citizens of the modern state of Israel (comprised largely of people of Jewish descent) are called Israeli's to distinguish them from the ancient people.

Extra-Biblical References to Hebrews

Paraphrased from the NIV Study Bible:

Within the Bible, the name Hebrew was used by non-Hebrews in a derogative manner (see Genesis 39:17). Outside the Bible, the word Habiru/Apiru may be related to the name Hebrew. It denoted a propertyless, dependent, immigrant social class. Negative descriptions of them can be found in the Amarna letters.

Modern Hebrew

Hebrew underwent a revival during the Haskalah: a period (18th and 19th centuries A.D.) of enlightenment for the modern Jewish people. The resulting movement saw a renewed interest in the language, which had effectively ceased to be a spoken language around the third century A.D. A result of this movement was the eventual efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who was the primary proponent of the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language and mother tongue. He saw Hebrew as being an integral part of the Zionist movement and existence of a sovereign Jewish state. In the 19th century, Hebrew underwent a major "update" and modernisation to allow it to accommodate ideas, technologies and concepts of the modern world.

Today, Hebrew (along with Arabic) is the official language of the state of Israel.

References

• Hebrew, Encyclopedia Americana, 1971
• NIV Study Bible
• Wikipedia

• 1. Aramaic was the lingua franca of the ancient near east, especially during the period of the exiles of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
• 2. The word "Eber" is the root of the word Hebrew.