The Blue Letter Bible staff has completed the task of displaying Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon on our website.
This lexicon was originally written by Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (1786–1842) in the German language. Gesenius's influence as a master of Hebrew is widespread. The editors of the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon refer to him as the father of modern Hebrew Lexicography. Gesenius first published a work on Hebrew grammar in 1817 before turning his efforts on lexicography.
There have been various versions of Gesenius's work in English. We have chosen to use the version translated by Samuel P. Tregelles (1813-1875). Tregelles is most famous for his version of the Greek New Testament, though he also wrote hymns and worked with Hebrew grammar in addition to textual criticism.
As mentioned in the section called To the Student, Gesenius was a known rationalist, or neologian as Tregelles refers to him. Though some of these rationalistic expressions are found in the lexicon, Tregelles was faithful to make corrections, which are enclosed in brackets. We would be appreciative of any actual examples of doctrinal error, so they can be marked with "caution" tags.