HEBREWS. - People of the descendants of Abraham and Jacob, chosen by God with a particular "covenant," in preparation for the economy of universal salvation. In the Bible it is commonly called Israel (v.) or bānā Jīrā'el (children of Israel). Its history and language are outlined here. For religion and philosophy, v. JUDAISM; for law, v. MOSAIC LAW and TALMUD.
I. HISTORY
The name "E." is preferred in the Hebrew Bible when Israel is placed in relation to other peoples; «Bhrim ("E.") is considered by some to be a gentilic name, with reference to «Ebher, a descendant of Shem and remote progenitor of the Terahites, to whom the patriarch Abraham belongs. Others think of «abher "beyond," a people come from beyond (the Euphrates river). The connections of the name "E." with the «pre» (Aperu), mentioned in Egyptian documents, or with the name of the Habiru of el-'Amāmah, are debatable.
The country that the E. called "land of Israel" bore the name Canaan (v.); the Egyptians called it «t-n (retenu)»; the Assyrians, with reference to the Hittite conquerors, "land of the Hatti," or else, already in the ancient Babylonian period, Amurru, "western region"; the Romans, Judea, then Palestine. The peoples who inhabited it did not constitute an ethnic unity. The language spoken in the region from the 2nd millennium B.C. onward is called Canaanite.
The E. came from Chaldea, where Thare (Tērah), the father of Abraham (v.), had been born. Thare emigrated to Haran, whence Abraham set out toward Canaan. The conquest of Canaan takes place in the period when the Arameans (v.) are on the move: one group of them expands along the banks of the Euphrates and toward Assyria; shortly afterward another moves toward southern Syria, where it comes into conflict with the E.
The second patriarch is Isaac (v.), the son of Abraham; the third is Jacob (v.), the father of the 12 heads of the 12 tribes of Israel; one of them, Joseph (v.), became high commissioner for supplies in Egypt, and there the aged father with his brothers reached him; the land of Goshen (Gāfen) was assigned to them. The E. suffered mistreatment there, and the Lord, through Moses (v.), led them out of that land. In the third month after the exodus, they encamped at Sinai and the promulgation of the Decalogue (v.) took place; the Tablets of the Law were placed in the Ark (v.) specially constructed, which followed the people in all their wanderings. In this period the revolt of Korah (v.) occurs. The E. took possession of their territory by armed force, defeated Moab, despite Balak, king of Moab, resorting to the magical arts of Balaam (v.). Moses, shortly before dying, concerned for the dangers that the religion of his people might run among idolatrous peoples, repeats, on the plain of Moab, before Jericho, the ancient legislation in a new act of covenant. As successor of Moses, by order of the Lord (Num. 21, 18 ff.) Joshua (v.), son of Nun, an Ephraimite, was chosen, who, together with Caleb, was the only survivor of the desert generation; with him the war of conquest continued, until the complete defeat of the enemies of Israel (cf. Judg. 5: the song of Deborah).
The period that follows that of Joshua is called that of the Judges (v.), a series of charismatic leaders called to save the people from enemies, to conquer their territory, thus doing the work of God's justice. The political organization of this period may be compared to that of the Greek amphictyonies; the various groups found their common center in the sacred place, where the Ark was. The first resting place of the Ark was Shiloh (Judg. 20, 26; I Sam. 1, 3); when this city was destroyed by the Philistines, the Ark was transferred to Nob. Perhaps not all the tribes were under the same leader, so that sometimes the simultaneity of two "judges" would result. The Judges (v.) were Othniel, Ehud (Ebdh), Shamgar, Barak with the prophetess Deborah (v.), Gideon, whose son sought to found a monarchy at Shechem, Tola, Jair, Jephthah (v.), Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, and the popular hero Samson (v.).
To the times that prelude to the monarchic period in Israel belong the priest Eli (v.) and the prophet Samuel (v.). The latter personally was at first opposed to the monarchic institution, insofar as it differed from the purely theocratic regime (I Sam. 8, 5.18), but preferred to second the will of a part of the people, attracted by the example of the neighboring peoples already monarchic; the pressure exerted by the Philistines, inhabitants of the coast, favored the idea of concentrating the national forces in a single hand.
The first king was Saul (v.), in whom the theocratic idea and the monarchy meet and clash. The failure to observe the law of the hērem (sacred extermination of the enemy and of the spoils of war) alienates from him the moral support of the prophet Samuel, and after the latter's death, the priestly class ranged itself against him, while on the horizon the bold figure of the young David was taking shape. Saul was constantly engaged in fighting against the Philistines, and on Mount Gilboa (v.) he sought a voluntary death, unable to withstand the dishonor of the defeat suffered at their hands and the grief for the extermination of his own. David (v.) was first anointed king of the tribe of Judah, and only later of all Israel. He then conquered Jerusalem and transferred his residence there. He had to fight against the Philistines, the Ammonites and the Arameans; after defeating the latter, he occupied their territory; despite this, the Aramean Rezon organized guerrilla warfare and succeeded in having himself elected king of Damascus. David perfected liturgical chant and composed psalms. Conflicts over his succession bloodied the last years of his reign; he had Solomon anointed king.
Solomon (v.; 971-931) had a peaceful reign. He opened the country to commerce, and revealed to the Hebrew mentality the interest of universal human experience; the sapiential literary genre was then born. Jerusalem took on the appearance of an international city and saw the Temple rise.
The succession between north and south and the rise of two distinct Kingdoms were determined principally by two factors, of a material order (the heavier burden of taxes on the tribes of the north) and a moral one (the occasional departure of the Davidic monarchy from rigid Mosaism, of which the priests of Shiloh considered themselves the depositaries). At the death of Solomon he was succeeded by his son Rehoboam (933-917), who was unanimously recognized by the tribes of the south, where the dynastic idea was stronger, while Jeroboam, son of Nabat, an Ephraimite, supported by the prophet Ahijah, dwelling at Shiloh, was proclaimed king at Shechem; around him the tribes of the north gathered. His reign took the name Kingdom of Israel, with its capital first at Shechem, then (under Omri) at Samaria; Rehoboam's kingdom was called the Kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem. The northern kingdom soon abandoned Mosaism for political reasons and returned to Canaanite paganism, thereby losing the support of the prophets. Idolatrous infiltrations also occurred in Judah. Frequent disputes flared up between the two kingdoms, from which the enemies of both profited, especially the Kingdom of Damascus.
Rehoboam was succeeded by his son Abijah (917-915), and he by Asa (915-875); Jeroboam by Nadab (912-911). In Israel, after various succession struggles, Omri (887-889) ascended the throne; he settled accounts with the Philistines once and for all, checked the invasion of the Arameans of Damascus, and formed an alliance with the Phoenicians, an alliance that proved beneficial to both sides. He was succeeded by Ahab (875-853), who married Jezebel, daughter of the king of Tyre. He fully introduced idolatrous worship, which provoked the reaction of the prophet Elijah (v.). Together with Jehoshaphat king of Judah (885-851), despite the warnings of the prophet Micaiah (v.), he attacked Damascus and was killed in battle. Jehoshaphat was again an ally of the king of Israel Jehoram (852-843) against Moab, and this time too with adverse fortune. The dynasty of Omri, which had established the Phoenician idolatrous cult in the land of Israel, ended in a horrible massacre, organized by a general named Jehu, who was anointed king by a prophet sent by Elisha (v.).
In the slaughter of which Jehu was the author, however, the king of Judah Ahaziah, son of Athaliah, former queen of Judah, also perished. Athaliah took the reins of government (843-837), establishing the religion of Tyre in Judah as well; she killed all the males of the royal family. Nevertheless one of them managed to escape: the young Joash, who was proclaimed king (837-798) by the people, according to the plans of the high priest Jehoiada.
In Israel Jehu soon lost the favor of the puritan party, and under him and under his son Jehoahaz (816-
800) the Kingdom of Israel saw very sad times. The kings of Damascus, Hazael and Ben-hadad, inflicted heavy defeats upon it, unleashing against it also the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Philistines, and the Tyrians, who plundered a great part of the country; the king of Judah himself saw Jerusalem in danger, and bought the enemy's retreat with gold. Finally Assyria came to the aid of the E. and the Arameans of Damascus had to give back a great part of the territory they had occupied. Israel and Judah breathed again under Assyrian protection.
When Jehoahaz died in Israel, Jehoash was elected king (800-785), who broke off good relations with Judah and, during the reign of Amaziah (798-780), son of Jehoash of Judah, entered Jerusalem and stripped the temple of its treasures.
From the reign of Uzziah of Judah (780-740) and of Jeroboam II in Israel (785-745) a fifty-year period of peace began. The great powers, Assyria and Egypt, found themselves in a period of reorganization, which foreshadowed a great awakening. Damascus grew weak under repeated Assyrian blows. The period of peace brought great prosperity, culture spread, luxury increased, riches were great but badly distributed, which provoked the reaction of the prophets Amos (v.), Hosea (v.), Isaiah (v.).
In correspondence with the awakening of the two great powers, two opposing parties developed in Syria-Palestine: the pro-Assyrian and the pro-Egyptian. When the latter reached its greatest diffusion, a coalition of states was formed (Israel, Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, several Philistine cities) which made war on the states that inclined toward Assyria. The army of the league invaded Judea. The king of Judah Ahaz (735-720) invoked the help of Assyria; Damascus was subjugated and the kingdom of Israel experienced the first act of the deportation to Assyria. But the Kingdom of Judah too was practically a vassal of Assyria. In 722 Assyria, after having conquered proud Babylon (729), made Israel one of its provinces. A great number of notables was deported to Nineveh; from the foreign settlers transplanted by the victor into the region a hybrid race was born: the Samaritans (v.). The principal sanctuary was Bethel, and an Israelite priest taught the new arrivals the religion of Yahweh.
In Judah the picture is now dominated by the prophet Isaiah (v.). The pious king Hezekiah (720-692) sought to centralize worship in Jerusalem and to purify it of idolatrous elements; contrary to the advice of Isaiah, he let himself be dragged along by the anti-Assyrian party, so that Judah saw the army of Sennacherib come against it, which had already beaten the Phoenician cities from Sidon to Acre, while Ammon, Edom and Moab sued it for peace. Sennacherib, having encircled Jerusalem with a siege, withdrew from it suddenly through the work of a destroying angel (II Kings 19:35). Judah nevertheless remained subject to Assyria. In spite of this the prophets Nahum (v.) and Zephaniah (v.) saw the end of Nineveh coming: Egypt, which had had to abandon Memphis (671) and Thebes (666) to the victor, was rebelling, while Assyria was engaged in Elam and threatened by the Medes. Nineveh fell in 612 under the blows of the Babylonians, the Scythians and the Medes.
Before Judah there then arose the Egyptian danger. The pious king Josiah (d. 609) completed the reforms begun by Hezekiah and abrogated by his successor Manasseh (629-638); among the supporters of the restoration of pure Mosaism was Jeremiah. Josiah was mortally wounded at Megiddo, a battle in which the Judeans who attempted to oppose the advance of the Egyptians were beaten. The Egyptian danger, however, was short-lived: once the Egyptians had been beaten at Carchemish (605) by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar and by the Medes, the Babylonian danger arose instead. The policy of Judea oscillated between the two opposing poles: Babylon and Egypt. In 598 the pro-Egyptian party prevailed, but Nebuchadnezzar himself appeared beneath the walls of Jerusalem; the king Jehoiakim surrendered immediately. In 597 the first deportation to Babylon took place; among
Among the deportees was the prophet Ezekiel (v.). Nebuchadnezzar placed King Zedekiah on the throne of Judah. Despite the warnings of Jeremiah, he allowed himself to be drawn into a coalition of states (Edom, Ammon, Moab, Tyre and Sidon) against Babylon, and then it was the end: in 587 Jerusalem was destroyed, the sacred vessels carried off, the Temple burned. The Babylonian general who had conducted the campaign formed a community with the Judeans who had been supporters of Babylon; some Israelites from the northern Kingdom joined them. The governor of this community was Gedaliah (v.). But the king of Ammon had Gedaliah assassinated, and then the population — including Jeremiah — fled to Egypt, where Jewish colonies, established for commercial reasons, had existed since the times of Solomon.
In 539 Cyrus (v.) took Babylon and granted the E. freedom to return to their homeland. The territory assigned to them was very small: it included Jerusalem and its surroundings as far as Mizpah and Jericho to the north, Keilah and Beth-zur to Thecus to the south. At the head of the E. was a governor, assisted by a council of elders.
Zerubbabel (v.), the second governor after the return, was urged by the prophet Haggai to rebuild the Temple and to hold himself ready to assume royal dignity, while the prophet Zechariah advised the election of two leaders. The rebuilding of the Temple was begun in 520 and completed in 515. The conditions of the reborn community were, however, very sad: poor harvests, invasions of locusts, and heavy taxes impoverished the country, while Edom, Ammon and the Samaritans, who inhabited the northern Kingdom, looked upon it with disfavor. The community of Babylon then sent the priest Ezra (v.), who arrived in Jerusalem in 458. What struck him most was the great number of mixed marriages, and their abolition was brought about. The measure greatly offended the Samaritans above all. It was then that Ezra, fearing some attack, decided to rebuild the walls; but the governor of Samaria denounced him to the Persian government, which ordered the destruction of what had been built. Nehemiah (v.) then asked to be sent to Jerusalem as governor (445). He urged the rebuilding of the walls, and together with Ezra worked so that the Török might truly penetrate into everyday practice, and so that worship might be purified.
The Judeans remained loyal to Persia until Alexander the Great passed through their territory (331). At the death of Alexander (323) his general commanding Egypt, Ptolemy, took Jerusalem without resistance on a Sabbath day; while another general, Seleucus, occupied Babylonia and Syria. Judea then passed to Antiochus II, who married Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy; after various vicissitudes Antiochus in 200 could call himself master of the territory. The country internally was divided between the supporters of Antiochus and those who supported Egypt, hoping for liberation from it; between the Hellenizers, spirits open to the new currents, and the pietists (ḥadīthim), devotees of the ancient religion and national civilization. When Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164), an admirer of Greek civilization, was at the head of Palestine, he had the support of the Hellenizers. He, however, went beyond their wishes, because he wanted to impose the Greek pagan cult, suppressing the religion of Yahweh; returning from a campaign in Egypt, he had the inhabitants of Jerusalem massacred during a Sabbath day and abandoned the city to plunder. In 168 the image of the "Lord of heaven" was placed on the altar of Jerusalem, and the temple of M. Gerizim was dedicated to Jupiter.
The Hellenizing party took refuge in a quietist attitude, while active resistance was upheld by Judas Maccabeus, one of the five sons of Mattathias the Hasmonean. Judas organized the struggle and succeeded in occupying the hill of the Temple, which he found in deplorable condition; on 25 Kislev 165 its new dedication (v.) took place. The governor Lysias, in agreement with the young prince Antiochus V (Eupator), granted religious freedom. The struggle did not cease for all that: the Idumeans made common cause with the Hellenizing party, while the Nabateans ranged themselves with Judas; the Ammonites were preparing to exterminate those Judeans who had entrenched themselves in the fortress of Ramoth-Gilead; but Simon Mac-
Maccabeus was winning successes in Galilee. In 163 Lysias resumed the war against Judas and Eleazar, the fourth of the Maccabees, died in battle; but in 162 Lysias and his royal ward had to give way to Demetrius I, son of Seleucus IV. The latter continued the war against Judas, but his general Nicanor was defeated. Judaea was recognized as a nation by Rome; despite this, Demetrius resumed the war with favorable outcome, and Judas Maccabeus met his death in battle. The Jewish nationalists rallied around Jonathan, the youngest of the Hasmoneans, who supported Alexander I Balas (v.), a claimant to the throne against Demetrius. In Syria the discontented people went over to Tryphon, an officer of the king; he was at first a friend of Jonathan, then, made jealous, took him prisoner by treachery and killed him. The last of the brothers, Simon, entered into negotiations with Demetrius, the legitimate king of Syria, who granted him independence (142). He was appointed prince, general and high priest for life. He renewed the treaty of friendship with Rome, and his reign was a happy period for the people. But soon the king of Syria changed policy and war broke out again; Simon was killed by treachery (135), together with his wife and children, through the agency of Ptolemy (v. MACCABEI). From 135 to 63 B.C. Palestine was governed by the dynasty of the Hasmoneans (v.): John Hyrcanus I (134-104), Aristobulus I (104-103), Alexander Jannaeus (103-76), Alexandra Salome (76-67), Aristobulus II (67-63). In 63 Pompey subjected Judaea to Rome. Through the astute machinations of Antipater (the "Idumaean"), his son Herod the Great (35-4 B.C.) received the power of king granted him by the Romans, to whom he bowed servilely, carrying out a program of Hellenistic culture that at times unsettled the Jewish conscience.
From as early as 722 B.C., and especially from the Babylonian exile (6th century B.C.), Israel was reduced to the tribe of Judah alone; the Israelites therefore called themselves "Jews" (Jer. 40, 11-15; 44, 26; Zech. 8, 23; Esth. 2, 5; 3, 6; 9, 29, etc.; Ezra 4, 12, etc.; Neh. 4, 2; 5, 17; 6, 6, etc.; very often in I-II Macc. and in the New Testament).
Bibliography11 works
With the death of Herod the Great, the power of Rome over the Jews was exercised through procurators (v.) and also through the various descendants of Herod (v. ANTIPA, AGRIPPA I and II).
At the rise of Christianity there occurred the opposition between the Pharisees (v.) and the leaders of the people (v. SADDUCEI) on the one hand and the doctrine of Jesus on the other, principally regarding the interpretation of the messianic hope (v. MESSIA) and of the antiquity of the law (v.) messianic. The Apostles, and especially St. Paul, concluded the process of separation between Christianity and Judaism, through the exclusion of circumcision and of the law and the admission of gentiles (v.), which was begun by Peter (v. CORNELIO CENTURIONE), then sanctioned by the Council of Jerusalem (v.) and vindicated by St. Paul against the Judaizers (v.), especially in Galatia (v.).
From 66 to 70 took place the Jewish war, which marks the end of the political unity of the Jews, unless one wishes to prolong it until the messianic uprising of Bar Kokhba (v.). The fall of the unique Temple of Jerusalem in the year 70 brought about the cessation of the priesthood and of worship. There was affirmed, however, the study of the law, already held in honor after the Babylonian exile by the scribes (v.); in the synagogues (v.) this study acquired its center. Since the entire people after 70 had fallen into dispersion or diaspora (v.), the synagogue became, with the related reading and study of the law, the only visible religious bond among the Jews. The era of the rabbis ("masters") opened. The principal initiators of the new spiritual phase of Israel were R. Johanan ben Zakkai, R. Aqiba and with the tannaim (v.). The fruit of the work of the tannaim is the Mishnah (v.), edited by R. Jehudah, the Holy, which sets forth principally, citing the masters, the legal doctrine (halakhah, v.), while the moral-exhortative part is gathered in the midrashim (v. MIDHRAS). The commentaries on the Mishnaic text of the later masters (3rd-5th centuries), called amoraim (v.), form the gemara; the union of the gemara with the Mishnah constitutes the Talmud (v.).
When the "generations" of the western and eastern amoraim came to an end, there followed the succession of the savoraim (v.), while the masoretes carried on critical work on the biblical text. From the 8th century the succession of the geonim became established, who guided the Jews culturally and socially amid the Arab world. Of the highest importance was then Moses Maimonides (v.; 1135-1204), who resolved the religious doubts that had arisen through Jewish-Arab philosophical speculation and formulated the 13 articles of faith (iqqarim). More than the great exegetes, the "decisors" were important for the life of the people. A synthetic collection of the ritual and legal tradition of the preceding centuries is, in the 15th century, the Shulhan arukh of Joseph Caro.
From as early as the flourishing period of their activity under the Umayyad caliphs of Cordoba, and especially under Abd ar-Rahman III, the Jews came to be characterized in two groups: the sephardim and the ashkenazim (v. ASKENAZ), with certain traditions of their own in rites and customs.
Currents contrary to the Pharisaic-rabbinic tradition arose with the Karaites, who established themselves even among the Khazars, whose king converted to Judaism in 1140. They also had distinguished exegetes.
The origins of the cabbala (v.), which established itself in the Middle Ages, seem already ancient. In the 16th century Isaac Luria gave it new vigor, which manifested itself among other things in the various messianic explosions of David Reubeni, of Sabbatai Zevi and of Frank.
With Moses Mendelssohn the "liberal" tendency was openly inaugurated within the Jews, who began to emerge from their traditional isolation and tended to assimilate with the Gentiles. At the same time, however, the tendency of the haridim asserted itself in the opposite sense, especially in the communities of Eastern Europe. The emancipation, officially granted to the Jews in 1791 during the French Revolution, favored assimilation and therefore liberalism and modernism. The moderns or liberal Jews follow the traditions of their people from a more national than doctrinal point of view. One could also speak of a split with regard to Zionism (v.), which has however been reduced today with the constitution of the State of Israel, which remedies, at least symbolically, the galuth.
Antonino Romeo
II. LANGUAGE
Represented, before the Christian era, by the Bible and by rare extra-biblical texts, the Hebrew language is not exhausted in biblical Hebrew. In fact, biblical Hebrew, that is, that body of Hebrew texts that came down to us in the Masoretic Bible, represents only one stage of that language, on account of a "planning" to which the biblical texts were subjected over the centuries down to the time of the Masoretes (v. MASORA E MASORETI, 8th-10th centuries A.D.).
It was a curious opinion of rabbis and of some Fathers of the Church that the Hebrew language was the language of primitive humanity; from it the other languages would have derived. Today, however, it is known that Hebrew has its place in the Western Semitic stock; it is the development of the Canaanite language spoken by the Semites (?) who, before the Hebrews, occupied Palestine.
The first traces of the language of Canaan (v.) are known from the so-called Canaanite glosses contained in the letters of el-'Amārnah, from the copious linguistic materials discovered at Rās Samrah, from other Phoenician inscriptions, and from the great inscription recently discovered near Karatepe (though only from the 9th-8th century B.C.).
The letters of el-'Amārnah (v.), addressed by Phoenician and Palestinian princes to the pharaohs Amenophis III and IV (15th century B.C.), add to the Babylonian text in which they are written certain explanations (glosses) in the language of the country. These glosses are precious documents, which reveal the forms that lie at the basis of the biblical Hebrew language. Thus, for example, the gloss jazkur (letter 228, 19) represents the primitive form of the Hebrew jizkār, which is arrived at by a mode, common to biblical Hebrew, of treating the primitive short vowels.
Rās Šamrah (v.) likewise provides notable indications of the stage (15th-14th century B.C.) of the Canaanite-Phoenician language in the pre-Israelite era. One finds, for example, in these texts a significant use of the so-called inverted tenses, which constitute such a characteristic trait of biblical Hebrew syntax.
From these findings one may deduce that the Hebrew language was not introduced by the E. when they occupied the land of Canaan, but pre-existed. If one wished to make a hypothesis about the spoken language of the E. at that time, one could think of Aramaic (perhaps a hint in Deut. 26, 5 "a wandering Aramean was my ancestor": thus must the Israelite say when offering the firstfruits to the Lord; cf. also Gen. 31, 20. 24. 47) or of Amorite (an eastern Canaanite dialect, known especially from the texts of Mari [v.]). It is not unknown in the history of peoples that the invading people, while suppressing the invaded people, inherits their language. This would have happened for the E. Entering the land of Canaan they adopted, evidently slowly, the pre-existing language, and with the contribution of their own linguistic heritage they transformed the language of Canaan into proto-Hebrew. This proto-Hebrew, a typical result of a linguistic mixture, at whose base stood Canaanite (so much so that Jer. 19, 18 could speak of a language of Canaan) developed during the following centuries. But one does not possess much material to follow this development. Extrabiblical texts are very few (inscriptions of Siloam, Mesha, the letters of Lachish, and other brief documents). Now these texts, which are more or less from the golden period of Hebrew prose (9th-6th centuries B.C.), do not show notable differences from biblical Hebrew: this holds especially for the letters of Lachish, contemporary with the prophet Jeremiah. It is certain, however, that the pronunciation and vocalization were often different from that fixed by the Masoretes, and that within the same linguistic period there were dialectal differences (cf. šibbāleth and sibbāleth, Judg. 12, 6; the relative pronoun in the north was še-, while in the south 'āšer).
Among the characteristics of this language at least the following should be noted: 1) in phonetics, the long proto-Semitic a is rendered in Hebrew by a long o (Arabic salām = Heb. šālām); 2) in morphology: the ending of the masculine plural is -šm (whereas in Aramaic and Arabic, indeed even in the stele of Mesha one has -šn); 3) in syntax: the classic use of the "inverted tenses," whereby a narrative of past events is begun with a so-called perfect or continued with verbal forms that externally are futures, while the sense is that of a perfect; and vice versa for the narration of a future matter one begins with a future or continues with an apparent perfect.
The spoken Hebrew language received a mortal blow from the events of the Babylonian exile (6th-5th centuries B.C.). On the return, the slow process of transition to the Aramaic language had already begun. There remained, however, the Hebrew of the sacred texts, read weekly in the liturgy. Around this Hebrew (which for its preservation could be compared to the Latin of the Roman liturgy) all the care of the scribes was lavished, then of the rabbis in the Christian era. The "planning," that is, the conscious or unconscious linguistic adaptation, of the texts, especially the most ancient, to current usage, had its last and definitive act in the vocalic pointing by the Masoretes (v.). The Masoretic vocalization has very great authority, but it represents only one branch of the linguistic tradition, the Tiberian one. It is known that there also existed other traditions, the Babylonian one, with its own system of vocalic pointing, and the Palestinian one: witnesses also of different traditions are the Greek version of the Septuagint (in the transcriptions) and St. Jerome.
Noting the characteristics and degrees of linguistic planning, as it results from the Masoretic text, one observes that, in treating the sacred text, the aim seems to have been to attune it to the speech of Jerusalem. Given then the very long historical period over which the different books of the Bible are to be distributed, one notes: 1) maximum
(from H. Töncyner, The Lachis Letters, Oxford 1906, p. 21) EBREI - 2nd Letter of Lachish (6th century B.C.).
uniformity in vocalization (hence maximum planning intervention); there follow then in decreasing order of uniformity: 2) consonantal variations; 3) morphological variations; 4) syntactic variations; 5) lexicographic variations. For example: the construct plural of dābhār from the Mosaic writings down to the last biblical writing is given as dābhrē; instead it is known from St. Jerome that still in his time one had dābhrē.
After Hebrew ceased to be a living language, it continued to receive the care of scholars. Works destined for the educated class were composed in a language that was to imitate the classical Hebrew of the Bible. Thus arose (perhaps still under the influence of the spoken language?) the collection of writings that contain the extrabiblical religious code: the Mišnah, the Tōsephtā' (collection of traditions not preserved in the Mišnah), and other texts. This is rabbinic Hebrew, whose tendency is to reproduce the biblical language: but many Aramaisms, Grecisms, Latinisms have entered into it. From the grammatical aspect it suffices to recall that the inverted tenses are no longer used, that in the masculine plural one has the ending -šn (no longer -šm): a nitpa'el is formed (instead of the biblical hitpa'el).
In the Middle Ages the rabbinic Hebrew language has a notable development: from this long period come valuable works of rabbis: there are liturgical poems (called pējūš from the Greek ποδῆτα), scientific treatises, especially exegetical or philosophical. From this period comes the creation of Hebrew grammar and lexicography (v. ΗΑΠΌΗ [10th century], who discovered the law of triliterism also in Hebrew; ΟΙΜΗΗ, family of distinguished philologists [12th century]).
From this Hebrew language so lovingly cultivated, neo-Hebrew has finally arisen.
The Zionist movement, which today has led to the constitution of the State of Israel, had to confront the question of the common language to be imposed on the E. who have "ascended" (this is the word used by them to indicate immigrants) from all parts of the world and who speak different languages. And it returned to the language of the fathers: Hebrew. Since, however, Hebrew had been a dead language for two millennia, one had to think of updating it to the needs of modern civilization. The imposing work of a Jew of Odessa, Eliezer Ben Iebūda (1858-1922), with the vast Thesaurus totius Hebraitatis (Berlin 1908 and following), bent the idiom of the Bible to the needs of the 20th century. And thus one can today say in the Hebrew language "electric light," "radio,"
"aviation," etc. In this way a new fruitful period of the Hebrew language, become living again, opens.
Hebrew literary activity is by now notable for scientific publications (especially centered on the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and publications of a popular nature in Tel Aviv.
Dim.: Introductions of Hebrew grammars of a scientific nature, especially by F. Bauer-P. Leander, Historische Grammatik der hebräischen Sprache des Alten Testaments, Halle 1918, and by G. Bergsträuser, Hebräische Grammatik, I, Leipzig 1918. Cf. furthermore: W. Baumgartner, Was wir heute von der hebräischen Sprache und ihrer Geschichte trüsen, in Anthropos, 35-36 (1940-1941), pp. 305-316 (with biblical emplasma).
More accessible grammars: J. Tonnard, Grammaire hébréisme abrégée, Paris 1905, new reduced ed. by A. Robert, ibid. 1949; I. Passi, Elementa grammaticae hebraicae, Turin 1909; F. Scorbo, Gramm. della lingua ebraica, Florence 1909; P. Jolion, Grammaire de l'hébreu biblique, Rome 1923, reprint 1947 (options especially for syntax). On post-biblical Hebrew literature: U. Cassuto, Storia della letteratura ebraica posibiblica, Florence 1938.
Pietro Boccaccio