The Priestly Blessing in Hebrew
At just 15 words, this is about the shortest complete text you can read in Hebrew, and it is still used in synagogues and churches today. A version of it was found on two tiny silver scrolls from around 600 BC, among the oldest biblical words ever discovered.
Learn to read this in Biblical Hebrew
No account needed. Your first line takes about three minutes.
The text and translation
יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ׃
‘Yahweh bless you, and keep you.
Word by word
- יְבָרֶכְךָ
- to bless
- יְהוָה
- Jehovah
- וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ
- to keep
יָאֵר יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶּךָּ׃
Yahweh make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you.
Word by word
- יָאֵר
- to be light
- יְהוָה
- Jehovah
- פָּנָיו
- face
- אֵלֶיךָ
- to, toward
- וִיחֻנֶּךָּ
- to shew favour
יִשָּׂא יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם׃
Yahweh lift up his face toward you, and give you peace.’
Word by word
- יִשָּׂא
- to lift
- יְהוָה
- Jehovah
- פָּנָיו
- face
- אֵלֶיךָ
- to, toward
- וְיָשֵׂם
- to put
- לְךָ
- to, for
- שָׁלוֹם
- peace
What to notice
- יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה means “Yahweh bless you”. The -ְךָ at the end of the first word means “you”, and it comes back in the blessing again and again.
- The lines grow as they go: three words, then five, then seven. It is a blessing built like a widening stair.
- לְךָ שָׁלוֹם means “to you, peace”, the blessing's last word. Shalom means more than the absence of war: wholeness, and things being as they should.
Read it yourself
Urling teaches the words in this text first, so that when you reach it you can read it in Biblical Hebrew. It uses short lessons, and nothing has to be memorised from a list.
Learn to read this in Biblical Hebrew
No account needed. Your first line takes about three minutes.
Sources
Westminster Leningrad Codex with Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology (Num 6:24–6:26). English: World English Bible.
Text licence: Text public domain; morphology CC BY 4.0 (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project).
Language pack licence: Text public domain; data CC BY 4.0 (credit the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project).
Text: Westminster Leningrad Codex (public domain). Morphology and lemmas: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project (CC BY 4.0). Glosses: OSHB Hebrew Lexicon index of Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906, public domain; index CC BY 4.0), Strong's (1890) as fallback, with AI-written corrections (marked "ai"). English: World English Bible (public domain, eBible.org).
The introduction and notes on this page were written by Claude (AI). Word glosses are AI-assisted, and so is the English unless the source above names another translator.