Bob Griffin

This book shows a clear understanding of the subject. These writers really understand their subject. You would have thought that all books on a subject would understand their subject but this is not what I have found in Biblical Hebrew). E.g. This book explains that the Piel verb stem is more about a state and a description of the person (adjectival). This is different to the Hiphal that is about a person causing something to happen that is not related to that person (e.g.causing an event to happen). I might not have explained what the author says perfectly accurately but I hope you get the idea that the authors have a very clear idea about what the Piel is doing and how it is different to the Hiphal. All my other top books that I have read have vague ideas about the differences in these stems or they don't include all of them and none of them get to the bottom of the differences. All other subects that this book covers are done in the same way as the explanation of the Piel. They explain things clearly in simple to understand English (some books don't explain things in simple English e.g. Gesenius - a very good book if you can understand it (very difficult to do in many places in the book) and if you can forgive it at times making points about things that have no significance at all). This book never avoids the point of explaining things like some other books do. I get the feeling that the writers of some books (I am talking about some well respected books) don't actually understand what they are writing about. That is why they avoid writing clear explanations like this book always does. I am told that this book includes all the latest research in it. From what I have read of the book so far it looks like this is true. In summary this is an excellent book in every way. Other books that are highly respected are merely good. You will learn from these other books but this book will give you a complete understanding of the subjects that it covers. This an intermediate book so it will not cover every detail but what it does cover it covers better than any advanced grammar book that I have got. I have about 6 of the "best" grammars there are in existance in the English language (I have Gesenius, Invitation to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar (1st & 2nd Editions), Walke & O'Connor (difficult English), Kelley (very good as an introduction but it is not an intermediate grammar) etc. I would trust this book more than any of these books. However, I will still have to use these other books for subjects that this book does not cover. Do not get the Kindle copy of this book. It makes a terrible mess of the Hebrew. It puts the vowels in the wrong place for over 50% of the book according to reviews on Amazon (I have looked inside the book on Amazon and I can see Hebrew with the vowels in the wrong place in many places). The paper copy has the vowels in the right place and is good. I have looked at a paper copy and I did not find any bad Hebrew.