Modern Hebrew

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As we have seen, Hebrew is a very ancient language, going back at least 6000 years. All the other languages spoken that far back in history have long since died out. Languages such as ancient Egyptian, Akkadian, Canaanite or Ethiopic have all been contemporary with Hebrew at different times but they have all become extinct. Hebrew has outlived them all. Most people, in fact, have never even heard of those languages, just as their writing systems - hieroglyphics and cuneiform, for example - remain a mystery to most people today. Hebrew, however, is no ordinary language. It did not fade into obscurity, but something very remarkable happened...

The Jewish people had always looked longingly at chapters in the Tanakh such as Ezekiel 37, which foretold of a time when the almighty hand of the LORD would gather his people from the four corners of the earth to which they had been scattered, and bring them back into their own land again. This started to happen with the Zionist movement at the end of the 19th century, but it was not until 1948 that the United Nations gave the Jewish people the Land of Israel as their homeland again, ending years of persecution and uncertainty. With this new land in which Jews from all countries could re-gather and make their home, a new common language was needed. What better choice than Hebrew?
 

And so, in parallel with the birth of the State of Israel, was the birth of the Modern Hebrew language. Eliezer ben Yehuda pioneered the work that was needed to bring Hebrew from the simple lifestyle of the ancient world of the Tanakh, into the 20th century with its fast food, computers and modern inventions. Within a relatively short period of time, the Hebrew language became simultaneously the world’s oldest and youngest languages. The enthralling story of how that happened is told in the classic book Tongue Of the Prophets.

The Tanakh, of course, was the basis of the new language. In Israel today, all the everyday words and expressions which occur over and over again have been taken from the pages of the Tanakh. It is truly a miracle to think that, if Abraham or Moses were in Israel today, they would very quickly feel at home with the language they spoke 4000 years ago. Indeed, after the resurrection, Elijah will return to his people and speak to them in the language he spoke many millennia before.
 
Ben Yehuda scrutinised Hebrew down through the centuries. If the vocabulary of the Tanakh was not sufficient, he took words from the Mishnah, the Talmud and other sources. After his death, the work has been continued by others, and in Israel today the Vad HaLashon (Language Institute) discusses the usage of new and existing Hebrew words. The result is that Modern Hebrew blends seamlessly with Hebrew down through the centuries.

A large number of words in Modern Hebrew are international words; words such as mathematics, radio and television have found their way almost unchanged into languages all across the world. In most other cases, however, Hebrew words for these modern concepts have been created from Biblical roots. Let us look at a few examples from Modern Hebrew.
 

These brief examples illustrate how Modern Hebrew has adapted the root meanings of words in the Tanakh to form new words for new concepts. Truly, Hebrew down through the centuries blends perfectly into Modern Hebrew as spoken in Israel today. Fresh life has been breathed into the Holy Language, just as fresh life has been breathed into the Jewish people as they return to the Land of Israel again, ready for the fulfilment of the things spoken by the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures and the coming of the Messiah. Am Israel chai! The people of Israel live!


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