(1) A member or descendant of one of a group of northwestern Semitic peoples, including the Israelites, Edomites, Moabites and Ammonites According to Genesis 10: 21-31 and 11: 15, the Hebrews were descended from Eber, great-grandson of Shem (1 Chron 1: 18; Luke 3: 35), and apparently belonged to an Aramean (ancient Syrian) branch of Semites who had originally migrated from Arabia The Israelites' Aramean ancestry is referred to in the famous creed of Deuteronomy 26: 5 (see also Gen 25: 20; 28: 5) (2) The Semitic language spoken by the Israelites
The language of the Old Testament Israelites and the language in which most of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible was written See Introduction, Chapter 3
one of the closely related group of languages, known as Semitic, which includes among others Arabic, Aramaic, and Syriac It was the classical language in Israel, in which the Old Testament, except for certain chapters in the Books of Ezra and Daniel, was written (Cross, The Oxford Dictionary Of The Christian Church)
Hebrew is the ancient language of Israel and of the Jews It is the language, in which the vast majority of the Old Testament or the Tenakh is written There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet - all consonants - and it is written and read from right to left