Almost 3,000 books have been shipped and two of them have now hit two hundred sales. These are my First Hebrew Reader (218 sales) and my Psalms reader: 212 sold, including 26 large print, 16 pocket sized! My first Septuagint reader has fallen behind with only 130 sold! All across the world people have been reading this book, from the United States, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia, even Japan! People are using it to read Jonah, Ruth, and Esther in Hebrew, the first books that I read cover-to-cover in Hebrew. I hope it is helping many of you learn Hebrew, revise your Hebrew, and develop an enjoyment in reading Hebrew!

We have just produced a series of Latin Vulgate Readers! These are fully macronized, have all the rare words glossed, and difficult forms parsed. In addition, we supply copious paradigm tables, a glossary, and maps in Latin. We hope this resource will be a huge help to anyone learning Latin and wanting to read the Vulgate. For more info and samples visit https://timothyalee.com/latin

Ya están disponibles los primeros lectores del hebreo bíblico:

• “Lector Inicial del Hebreo Bíblico”, con contenido especial para facilitar la lectura en caracteres paleo-hebreos y texto consonántico.
• “Torá: Un Lector del Hebreo Bíblico”.

Ambos libros son una excelente herramienta para estudiantes que, teniendo solo un vocabulario básico del hebreo bíblico, quieren que su lectura se solidifique y de ahí pasar a textos más complejos.

I’ve corrected an issue in Malachi chapters 1-2. Huge thank you to J. David Pleins, Professor Emeritus, Santa Clara University for spotting this mistake! Malachi only contains three chapters in the Hebrew Bible, but four in the Vulgate and English Bibles. An error mean that previously chapters one and two only glossed words also found in chapter three.

For those who already purchased a copy of the Twelve Prophets Reader, you may download and print this updated text.

I thank all my readers for feedback on my books. Recently I updated the footnotes in my Hebrew reader for 1–2 Samuel in order to correct several minor mistakes. Most were minor changes, or mistagged words. One of them, however, stood out as far more interesting.

וְֽהָיְתָ֞ה הַפְּצִ֣ירָה פִ֗ים לַמַּֽחֲרֵשֹׁת֙ וְלָ֣אֵתִ֔ים וְלִשְׁלֹ֥שׁ קִלְּשׁ֖וֹן וּלְהַקַּרְדֻּמִּ֑ים וּלְהַצִּ֖יב הַדָּרְבָֽן׃

and the charge was two-thirds of a shekel for the ploughshares and for the mattocks, and a third of a shekel for sharpening the axes and for setting the goads. (1 Samuel 13.21)

The hapax פִּים (pîm) in 1 Sam. 13.21 is an interesting word. The classic Hebrew dictionary Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) records פִּים as a corrupt form of פֶּה (peh, mouth). Therefore, given פֶּה is a common word it was not previously glossed in the footnotes of my Hebrew reader. However, a more plausible explanation for פִּים was possible with the archaeological discovery of an ancient coin in 1907 (the year after the publication of BDB). On that coin are inscribed to letters פים which refers to a weight 2/3rds of a shekel.^[1] It’s an example of the assistance that archaeology can bring to understand details within the scriptures.

I thank the Charlie Skrine for his feedback and observation that this gloss differed from English translations and other dictionaries. He has been working through and teaching 1 and 2 Samuel while using my readers.

The Bible Readers are being translated into Welsh. The Gospel of John (Efengyl Ioan) has just been released! Thank you to Gwilym Tudur for translating this! You can find it here.