H.W.F. Gesenius (mid 1800's) is acclaimed as the Noah Webster of Old Testament Hebrew lexicons (dictionary). He brings to the Old Testament a wonderful blend of Christian/Jewish background and insight.

Students who wish to advance their Hebrew studies face a daunting choice in terms of lexicons. Only three are worth mentioning for advanced study:

First is BDB which is beginning to show its age, and is principally flawed in that the English definitions in it are often in need of English translation. That said, BDB remains one of the finest ever scholarly achievements, and one would be naive to think it is a work that can be ignored or bypassed. I have found it to contain superior articles on many Hebrew words, especially on the particles. The quality of scholarship is of the highest order and created a legacy that looms large over the world of Hebrew scholarship, and can be felt in more recent works like Clines, see below. BDB also has an advantage over other lexicons in that it is only one contained volume, making it easy to look up words. Many scholars, including a well known international scholar with whom I recently corresponded, still prefer BDB over other works. The edition printed by Oxford is of the highest order in terms of publication standards.

Second, is the four volume lexicon translated by M.E.J. Richardson: The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT). This work is now available in two editions, and is printed by Brill: a costly four volume set which just happens to be one of the most beautifully printed set of books I have ever seen, and a cheaper student's edition in two volumes. The font size of the two editions differs, including the quality of publication. Those who can afford it should buy the more expensive set, but those who cannot afford it, will find the smaller edition adequate. This lexicon extensively uses comparative philology for its definitions and is a translation of a German work that took many years to complete. Many regard it as the finest Hebrew lexicon today. The translation by Richardson is outstanding, and I have not as yet read a review anywhere which contested his renderings. However, because the work comes via German, I have found many of the definitions in HALOT to be unnatural English. I also wonder whether the English speaking world ought to depend for its knowledge of Hebrew on the translation by one individual of a German set--regardless of the quality of that set.

The third lexicon worth consideration is the incomplete set (only six volumes have been published) by Clines, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. This dictionary is printed by Sheffield Academic Press and has also been very well printed, although the quality of publication does not quite match the Brill set. The only caveat is the price, but it is no more expensive than the four volume set of HALOT. Clines approaches his definitions in a way quite different from HALOT in that there is no comparative philology. Clines believes that the meaning of words are determined by their use in a given context (in the tradition of James Barr). Some see this as a disadvantage. (Notably, Richardson, in a critical review in JSS.) The great advantage though of DCH over HALOT, is that it is careful in every instance to set words in their syntactical relations, making it easy to locate a word, and to understand how it functions in a sentence. Students who want to know more than just a word's meaning will greatly benefit from this. In this respect, DCH is a hundred miles ahead of its competitors. Also, the glosses given under each entry make it a treasure trove for students, who wish to learn basic definitions. There are no such glosses in HALOT, where the ordering of words also, is not in terms of frequency of use, but in terms of concreteness. In addition one finds statistical analysis of words in DCH, which is not the case consistently in HALOT. Another advantage of Clines over HALOT is that every word and phrase in DCH is translated into English. Finally, one should say that the definitions offered in DCH, have a natural English flow, always makes sense, and stand in the great tradition of English Bibles and that of BDB (the definitions in BDB and Clines often correspond). If one wants definitions that stand wholly outside this tradition, one ought to turn rather to HALOT. In an ideal world, one would like to own both HALOT and DCH. But if one cannot afford both, the choice, as far as this reviewer is concerned, is clear.