Skip to content

Learn Hebrew

Read the Old Testament in the language God first gave it

Many of the studies on this site turn on a Hebrew word. In The Almond, God shows Jeremiah an almond branch, שָׁקֵד (shaqed, H8247), and says He is "watching," שֹׁקֵד (shoqed, H8245), over His word to perform it (Jeremiah 1:11-12). In Hebrew the two words sound alike, and the promise is heard in the tree's name. A translation tells you what God said. Reading the Hebrew lets you hear how He said it.

You can learn to read it, and it costs nothing. The course this site recommends is Aleph with Beth.

Aleph with Beth

Aleph with Beth is a free video course in Biblical Hebrew, made by Andrew and Bethany Case of Betheden Ministries, who live and work in Oaxaca, Mexico. Their motto is "Free Hebrew. Forever.": no sign-ups, no trials and no paid tiers. Their aim, in their own words, is that "the biblical languages can and should be the new normal for discipleship."

How it teaches

You learn Hebrew the way a child learns a first language, by seeing and hearing it. Each lesson is taught in Hebrew, with pictures, objects, gestures and repetition carrying the meaning, so it works for speakers of any language. You will meet words before you can explain their grammar, and that is the method working: comprehension comes first, and the explanations come later.

  • The lessons run in order, more than 150 of them, with quiz videos along the way so you can answer out loud and check yourself.
  • The alphabet waits until you understand some spoken Hebrew. The first lessons use no Hebrew text at all, so when the letters arrive they attach to words you already know.
  • The grammar is optional. A set of grammar lessons explains what each video has been showing you, for those who want the rules spelled out.
  • The goal is to read the Hebrew Bible itself.

The course explains why it teaches this way: the method is called Comprehensible Input, after the linguist Stephen Krashen's finding that a language is acquired by understanding messages in it, without "tedious drills."

Start here: the lessons

Lesson 1 is the first video in the playlist below. Watch it through, then come back the next day for Lesson 2.

The full Aleph with Beth playlist, from Lesson 1. Video: Aleph with Beth, embedded from YouTube. Open it on YouTube to save it to your library.

Keep a steady pace: the learning schedule

A short lesson most days does more than a long session once a week. Aleph with Beth publishes a learning schedule that lays out the lessons as a checklist:

  • Digital tracker

    Tick off each lesson as you watch it and see your progress on any device.

    Open the tracker

  • Printable schedule

    Generate a schedule to print and keep beside your Bible, and cross off each lesson as you go.

    Make a schedule

Read along: the books

Every word spoken in the videos is written out in the transcripts. Reading along while you watch ties the sounds to the letters, and rereading a lesson's transcript is a quick review. The transcripts are free online, and Bethany Case has also published them in print.

  • Transcripts in print

    Aleph with Beth Biblical Hebrew: Transcripts, in three volumes: Lessons 1-50, Lessons 51-100 and Lessons 101-150.

  • Grammar lessons in print

    Biblical Hebrew Grammar Lessons for Aleph with Beth, Lessons 1-152, by Andrew Case: the optional grammar notes, keyed to each video.

    Print edition

  • Free to read online

    The same transcripts, typeset PDFs, the grammar lessons as a Google Doc, and Easy Stories in simple Hebrew, all on the course's resources page.

    Course resources

  • Quizzes and flashcards

    Interactive quizzes for each lesson on BibleLing, with flashcard decks for the Anki app listed on the resources page.

    BibleLing quizzes

Getting started this week

  1. Watch Lesson 1 in the playlist above.
  2. Open the digital tracker and tick it off.
  3. Watch one lesson a day, and when a lesson feels hard, watch it again the next day before moving on.
  4. Once the letters begin, read the lesson's transcript alongside the video.

Alongside it: Lingua Deo Gloria

Lingua Deo Gloria ("language for the glory of God") is a free, donation-funded ministry teaching Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek to the church. It teaches by the same method as Aleph with Beth, comprehensible input through stories, pictures and conversation, and its own resources page sends beginners to Aleph with Beth: "Aleph with Beth's free Hebrew video lessons are a great place to start." Its Hebrew instructors trained in Jerusalem, at the Whole Word Institute and the Hebrew University.

Use it when you want to read more Hebrew at your level, or to learn alongside other people:

  • An online course

    Biblical Hebrew in six levels so far, each a twelve-week curriculum, running in the browser with nothing to install. Level 1 assumes no Hebrew.

    Start Hebrew

  • Illustrated readers

    Every page illustrated and every book free to read: Ruth and Jonah as visual readers, The Way: A Hebrew Story, Beit Av, and A Child's Book of Biblical Hebrew.

    Publications

  • Live online classes

    Free twelve-week cohorts in small groups, taught mostly in Hebrew. Registration opens for each new cohort.

    Live instruction

  • Free downloads

    A Hebrew handwriting workbook, and the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed in Classical Hebrew, as PDFs.

    Resources

The same ministry teaches Koine Greek for the New Testament; see Learn Greek.

On this site

  • Hebrew Alphabet — the letters, their names, sounds and transliterations, for reference while you learn.
  • Every Hebrew word tagged on a study (for example shaqed, H8247) opens a word card when you tap it, with its meaning and where else it occurs.

Other resources