Journal: Conspectus
Volume: CONSPECTUS 33:1 (Apr 2022)
Article: Book Review: "A Book-By-Book Guide To Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary"
Author: Dustin Burlet

Conspectus 33:1 (April 2022) p. 116

Book Review: A Book-By-Book Guide To Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary

Dustin Burlet

Osborne, William R. and Russell L. Meek. 2020. A Book-by-Book Guide to Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary. Peabody: Hendrickson. Paperback. vi + 194 pp. CDN $26.95 (approx. R415). USD $19.95 (approx. R307). ISBN: 978–1- 68307–086–3.

Typically, upon successful completion of their first year of Hebrew studies, many individuals (rightly) believe that they have a relatively firm grasp on the basics of the language, as a whole. At the same time, while many students will, undoubtedly, know a “significant portion of the Hebrew lexicon” (usually words that occur 100 times or more in frequency) they will, most likely, find themselves “awash in unfamiliar vocabulary” upon turning to the Prophets, many sections of Hebrew poetry, or even an unfamiliar narrative passage (2020, 1). William R. Osborne and Russell L. Meek, authors of A Book-by-Book Guide to Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary, state:

We created this volume to help students who have studied Hebrew for at least one year transition effectively toward reading the individual books of the Hebrew Bible by increasing their knowledge of the less frequently occurring words specific to each book. We do this by providing users with an alternative method of moving beyond the vocabulary they acquired in a first-year course…. The book-specific nature of the vocabulary lists found in this volume allow teachers and students—as well as those who are no longer engaged in formal study of the language—to focus their time and energy on whatever biblical book they currently wish to read, study, or teach. (p. 1)

Incontrovertibly, Osborne and Meek succeed in reaching their intended goal(s) for this text. The question remains, how, specifically, this book differs from the plethora of other volumes that also seek to provide guidance with respect to Hebrew vocabulary acquisition and retention.

To be clear, while A Book-by-Book Guide to Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary does begin with a frequency-based list of the 418 words that occur more than 100 times in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (for easy review, these four hundred eighteen words are also divided into twenty-one sub-lists of twenty words each, except for the last list, which contains only eighteen words), each subsequent chapter is devoted to the vocabulary of a single biblical book. Exceptions to this include the twelve so-called Minor Prophets (i.e., the Book of the Twelve), which are grouped together into one chapter, and also Samuel, Kings, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles, which are each also treated as being just one book. For each book, except a handful of the shorter ones, namely the five Megillot (see below), fifteen lists of twenty...