Hebrew search question

[Eric]

I normally do Greek searches, but had the need to do a Hebrew search. I used the WTT and enabled the vowels. I searched עֹלָה (for burnt offering) and remembered that there could be a prefix. So, I tried to enter עֹלָה* but I can't figure out how to enter an asterisk. When I try, the Hebrew keyboard tries to insert a vowel. This doesn't happen when I search the BGT because the Greek keyboard allows the asterisk.

I know there is a simple answer that I've forgotten, but I cannot come up with it.

Any help would be appreciated!

[Mark Eddy]

You can't use wildcards in Hebrew for WTT searches with vowel-sensitive searching. There are just too many keys used up for the vowels. If you want to do wildcard searching (using * or ?) you have to use WTM. And, of course, such lemma searches are not vowel-sensitive. In vowel-point sensitive searches, you find exactly the form you type onto the command line, nothing else.
Mark Eddy

[Eric]

Thanks for your help, Mark.

Just curious though... if you were going to search for the Hebrew word for burnt offering, how would you go about it? Wouldn't the lemma be far too broad? And wouldn't using the WTT without vowels produce hits that are not the same word?

Would it not be possible to refine the search to a single word? I know just enough Hebrew to be dangerous, so there might be a very obvious answer that I simply don't know, but would appreciate any insight.

[Adelphos]

Just curious though... if you were going to search for the Hebrew word for burnt offering, how would you go about it? Wouldn't the lemma be far too broad? And wouldn't using the WTT without vowels produce hits that are not the same word?

Lookup how to search using Strong's numbers in the help file. You can use this technique to keep your search narrowed to a particular word as numbered in Strong's.

[Mark Eddy]

If you know the Hebrew word you want to search, use WTM as the search version and either a) type in the lemma OLAH (in Hebrew) or b) right click on the WTT word in your browse window (assuming you found a verse in which this word for "burnt offering" occurs), and choose "search on lemma". If you do the latter, the search will be done immediately, but you will need to narrow down the search (the search also found verbs, etc. with the same spelling). So, click on the arrow to the right of the command line, and choose your last search. That will place it back on the the command line. Then type the @ sign, follwed by "n" (without quotation marks) for "noun," then type the asterisk * (wildcard for all forms of the noun). Then click the "enter" key. And this will give you all the nouns for the Hebrew word OLAH (burnt offering).
This is a little more complicated than doing a search on Strongs numbers, but it allows you actually to search the Hebrew, and not Strong's opinion about the Hebrew.
Mark Eddy

[Yaku Lee]

Well, try this with vowel point sensitive WTT. On CL, first enter <.>. Depress “Insert” key and when you see a little red square blinking on the upper right corner of CL, enter <*> and depress “Insert” key one more time. Move the cursor to the left of “*” and enter <עֹלָה>. Now depress “Enter” key. I get 141 verses and 148 hits, with all the prefixes included. And for <עוֹלָה>, I get 36 verses and 37 hits.

[Eric]

Thank you Yaku! That is it.

The insert key allows you to enter the keys that are taken up by the Hebrew vowels. I also found it in the help file and it specially says that this is the solution for the search I was trying to do.

It seemed like this was very limiting compared to Greek searches, but the insert key makes the same kind of Greek searches possible in Hebrew...

Thanks a lot!

[ISalzman]

Well, try this with vowel point sensitive WTT. On CL, first enter <.>. Depress “Insert” key and when you see a little red square blinking on the upper right corner of CL, enter <*> and depress “Insert” key one more time. Move the cursor to the left of “*” and enter <עֹלָה>. Now depress “Enter” key. I get 141 verses and 148 hits, with all the prefixes included. And for <עוֹלָה>, I get 36 verses and 37 hits.

Yaku, that is an excellent tip to know. Thanks for providing that. My only hope is that I remember this in the future when attempting these types of searches!

Upon further reflection, seeing as you had to conduct two different searches to return all hits for 'olah - i.e., both defective and full spelling occurrences - wouldn't it be nice if BW could somehow intuitively search for all occurrences of a word regardless of whether it was spelled in full or defectively? In this case 'olah can be spelled with a cholam or a cholam vav. Similarly, David, in Hebrew, can be spelled 'dawiyd' or 'dawid.' (By the way, how come there are no Hebrew fonts in the drop down box of available fonts when posting forum messages?)

[Yaku Lee]

(By the way, how come there are no Hebrew fonts in the drop down box of available fonts when posting forum messages?)

Oh yes, it is very difficult to include some Hebrew characters in the post message, especially because I cannot figure out how to manipulate the Hebrew type face and its size on the post window. Also it is a big headache when an unexpected line break occurs in the middle of the Hebrew material. I normally prepare the post message with MS Word where I feel somewhat comfortable with SBL Hebrew. But when I copy and paste the prepared material of mixed languages onto the post window, everything seems to go out of control. Could it be that things could have been made easier for us? Maybe I only have a lot of things to sort out yet.