1. Biblical Hebrew Starter Kit
© 2018 Michael Carasik

2. Do you know any Hebrew. You do
Do you know any Hebrew? You do! Our English word hallelujah is really a Hebrew word …
And over to the left, you can see what it looks like at the end of Psalm It is the last word in the book of Psalms.
This Starter Kit will show you how to read it.
But first, a little introduction to the Hebrew writing system.
הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ

3. A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Our alphabet has 26 letters.
Some are vowels and some are consonants.
One letter, Y, is used for both.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

4. א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת
Hebrew has 22 letters, and all of them are consonants.
The vowels are written with other symbols, usually (but not always) underneath the letters.
Oh, yes — Hebrew is written and read from right to left.
א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

5. א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת
So א (aleph) is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet …
א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

6. א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת
… and ת (tav) is the last.
א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

7. It may not look obvious, but our alphabet and the Hebrew alphabet are related to each other.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

8. For example …
The Hebrew letters כ-ל-מ-נ (kaf, lamed, mem, and nun) have the same sounds, and occur in the same order, as our letters K-L-M-N.
כ K ל L מ M נ N

9. ק Q ר R ש S ת T And at the end of the Hebrew alphabet …
The letters ק-ר-ש-ת (quf, resh, shin, and tav) are the equivalents of our letters Q-R-S-T.
ק Q ר R ש S ת T

10. The other letters are also related to each other, and are also in more or less the same order — not bad, considering that they have had 3,000 years of history to grow apart.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

11. הללו יה So these are the consonants of our word hallelujah in Hebrew.
It wasn’t until later — not much more than 1,000 years ago — that the Hebrew writing system added …
הללו יה

12. First, vowels.
הַלְלוּ יָה

13. הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ And then, other symbols, to mark … punctuation,
accent, and
cantillation (telling you how to chant the word).
הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ

14. Our one English word is really a compound word in Hebrew, “praise-Lord
It is spelled with 6 letters, but two of them are repeated:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z הללו יה א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

15. ה (hey), the equivalent of our English H …
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z הללו יה א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

16. … and ל (lámed), the equivalent of our English L.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z הללו יה א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

17. The other two letters, ו (vav) and י (yud), have a more complicated story.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z הללו יה א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

18. The letter י sounds like Y, but its place in the alphabet is where our letters I and J are found.
That’s why hallelujah is spelled with a J but pronounced with a Y sound.
י is the Hebrew equivalent of our consonant Y, but it is also used (like Y) to indicate some vowel sounds.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z הללו יה א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

19. And finally there is ו.
Nowadays, it is pronounced like a V, but it may have been pronounced more like W in biblical times.
Its place in the alphabet is where we keep the letter F. Do you spell it Romanov or Romanoff? Those two sounds are very similar.
And ו is used in the Hebrew writing system — like י — not only as a consonant, but also to mark certain vowels — including the oo sound of hallelujah.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z הללו יה א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת

20. And now let’s start to read.
הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ

21. הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ הַֽ Remember to read … 1) from right to left, AND …
2) first the consonant, and then the vowel underneath it.
ה is an H sound, and the vowel sign [ַ] indicates a short ah vowel — so the first syllable of our word is ha.
To the left of the vowel is a short, vertical line: an accent mark. In most Hebrew words, the main accent falls on the last syllable; the one on this syllable is a secondary accent. (When it’s crowded underneath, remember that the accent mark is always to the left of the vowel it’s marking.)
הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ הַֽ

22. ל is the L sound, of course
ל is the L sound, of course. (Look at the top of the letter and you will see an L.)
Underneath it is a mark that indicates the shortest vowel sound you can make — like the first a in Maria or the first e in Jerusalem. Its Hebrew name gives us our English word schwa.
When Hebrew is transliterated into our alphabet, that vowel is sometimes written as a short e and sometimes it’s just marked with an apostrophe.
So now we have ha-le or ha-l’.
הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ לְ

23. הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ לוּ Next comes another ל, another L sound.
But in this case, the vowel after the consonant is not underneath it, because it is spelled with a ו. ו can indicate one of two different vowels:
oh when it is marked וֹ, with a dot on top …
and oo when it is marked וּ, with a dot in the middle.
So this syllable is loo, and the first part of our compound word is hallelu. This is the Hebrew command form “praise!” (The first L is doubled in our English spelling for reasons you don’t need to learn right now.)
הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ לוּ

24. The two parts of our Hebrew compound word are linked by the Hebrew equivalent of a hyphen. Its Hebrew name is maqqef.
Our hyphen is centered in the middle of the line, but a maqqef is always written at the very top of the line.
Hebrew spelling — especially in the Bible — does not always follow strict rules. You will usually see hallelujah written with a maqqef, but sometimes there isn’t one.
And in one verse both parts of the compound are just jammed together as if they were a single word: הַֽלְלוּיָ֨הּ. (Notice that there’s a different accent mark over the י of this example, from Psalm 106, than there is under the י of ours, from Psalm 150.)
הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ ־

25. הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ יָֽ Now our י, the Y sound.
Underneath it is the sign [ָ], which indicates a long ah vowel — so this syllable is pronounced ya.
The little line to the left of the vowel is the accent mark on this word. Just as it does on the ה at the beginning of the word, it can mark a secondary accent. But it is always the mark used for the main accent on the last word of every biblical verse. That’s what it is here.
So unlike our English halle-LU-jah, these Hebrew words are pronounced ha-le-lu-YAH.
הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ יָֽ

26. Finally, we have another הּ at the end, another H sound
Finally, we have another הּ at the end, another H sound. But what is that dot inside the הּ?
Remember that Hebrew was written for thousands of years before the vowel signs were invented. For most of that time, it was common to write ה at the end of the word to show that you were supposed to pronounce an ah vowel there. And you will still find many “silent” הs of that kind in Hebrew writing.
But this הּ is not a vowel marker. The dot inside it tells us that this הּ is a consonant, an actual H sound.
Some people go so far as to breathe heavily when they see a הּ like this. My advice: Make you sure notice it, but you don’t need to pronounce it differently than we normally do with H at the end of a word.
הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ הּ

27. הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ So that is our Hebrew word: ha-le-lu-yah.
It’s the equivalent of our English word hallelujah.
And it means “praise the Lord.”
הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ

28. Can you read this word? (Of course you can.)
Challenge!
Can you read this word? (Of course you can.)
There’s an extra accent mark over the first ה, and the main accent is over the second ל — but the first 4 letters and their vowels are the same as in הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ.
The last two letters are different. But we’ve already learned how they should sound.
So this word is pronounced … ?
הַֽ֝לְל֗וּהוּ

29. But don’t stop learning!
ה is an H sound.
וּ with a dot in the middle is oo.
So this word is pronounced ha-le-LOO-hu. (The accent has moved.)
It’s in verse 1 of Psalm 150, and it means “praise Him.”
So now you can read some Hebrew.
! הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ
Hallelujah!
But don’t stop learning!
הַֽ֝לְל֗וּהוּ

30. When You’re Ready to Learn More
Go to hebrew-learning-a-sacred-language.html for my course “Biblical Hebrew: Learning a Sacred Language.”
I am looking forward to learning with you!
Michael Carasik