The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew: Vol. 3.

• Author: Fitzmyer, Joseph A.
• Position: Review

[Hebrew Text Omitted]. Edited by DAVID J. A. CLINES. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS, 1996. Pp. 242. [pounds]65, $100.

This projected eight-volume dictionary of "classical" Hebrew continues to be published at a regular pace. The third volume now covers the letters zayin, het, and tet, thus recording all the words that so begin in the Hebrew Bible, Ben Sira, the published Qumran Hebrew texts, and Hebrew inscriptions. In effect, it covers all known Hebrew writings from the emergence of the language down to the codification of the rabbinical tradition in Mishnaic Hebrew. A description of the editorial aims of this linguistically oriented lexicon has already been given in the review of vol. I in JAOS 116 (1996): 283-85.

As was noted in the review of vol. II (JAOS 118 [1998]: 437-39), the work of drafting the articles has now been divided up among the editor, D. J. A. Clines, and his associates, K. D. Davis, J. Elwolde, F. Gosling, and D. Stec. Clines edited and proofread the entire volume. The more one uses this dictionary, the more one appreciates the tremendous amount of work that has gone into its compilation, especially into the grammatical analysis of the Hebrew words that are booked in it. The meaning of the words in their various relationships enables the reader to see at a glance the different subjects and objects with which the verbs are used, as well as the verbs employed with each noun. If one looks up the same word in this dictionary and in W. Baumgartner, Hebraisches und aramaisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament, 6 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967-96), or W. Gesenius and U. Rutersworden, Hebraisches und aramaisches Handworterbuch zum Alten Testament (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1987-), one easily realizes the difference that this dictionary makes. It may lack the information on cognate Semitic languages that they supply, but it gives the idiomatic usages that the others invariably lack or present only in brief. In this way it goes far beyond what one can find in the woefully out-of-date Hebrew and English Lexicon of E Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), on which so many students depend today. Another great advantage of Clines's Dictionary is its inclusion of words from Qumran and related texts, as well as from Hebrew inscriptions.

One of the innovative features of this dictionary is the tabulation of words in the order of their frequency of occurrence. Each volume so far has such a list (vol. I...