“THE SPLENDOR OF THIS EDITION”

In 1587, Hutter produced a Hebrew edition of what is commonly called the Old Testament. This edition was entitled Derekh ha-Kodesh, taken from Isaiah 35:8 and meaning “The Way of Holiness.” The beautiful typeface elicited the comment that “every thing bespeaks the splendor of this edition.” But what made this Bible especially valuable was the way students could use it as an effective tool for learning Hebrew.

To understand why Hutter’s Hebrew Bible was so helpful, consider two challenges that a learner faced when trying to read the Bible in Hebrew. First, it is in a different and unfamiliar alphabet, and second, the attached prefixes and suffixes make the root words hard to recognize. For example, consider the Hebrew word נפשׁ (transliterated ne’phesh), meaning “soul.” At Ezekiel 18:4, it is preceded by the prefix ה (ha), meaning “the,” thus forming the compound word הנפשׁ (han·ne’phesh), or “the soul.” To the untrained eye, הנפשׁ (han·ne’phesh) could appear to be a totally different word from נפשׁ (ne’phesh).

To help his students, Hutter used an ingenious printing technique​—a typeface with Hebrew letters in both solid and outline form. He printed the root of each word in solid letters. For the prefixes and suffixes, he used outline (hollow) letters. This simple device made it easier for students to identify the root of a Hebrew word, helping them in the process of learning the language. The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures​—With References uses a similar practical approach in its footnotes.a The transliterated root is in bold type, and the prefixes and suffixes are in regular type. The highlighted portions of the illustrations show the typeface used in Hutter’s Hebrew Bible at Ezekiel 18:4 and that used by the Reference Bible in its footnote to the same verse.