Hebrews

Hebrew is a biblical designation for Abraham and his descendants, especially Israel, and also for their language and for a Hebrew-speaking group in the early church. The text calls Abram “the Hebrew” (Genesis 14:13), and Joseph speaks of “the land of the Hebrews” (Genesis 40:15). In Exodus, Pharaoh is told of “Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews” (Exodus 3:18; 10:3), and the term qualifies “Hebrew women” (Exodus 1:16) and a “Hebrew servant” (Exodus 21:2). The Philistines are urged not to become servants to “the Hebrews” (1 Samuel 4:9), and Jonah says, “I am a Hebrew” (Jonah 1:9).

The New Testament uses the term in more than one sense. Luke’s inscription is written in “Greek, Latin, and Hebrew” (Luke 23:38), where the word names a language. Acts 6:1 speaks of a complaint by “the Hellenists against the Hebrews” (Acts 6:1); Scripture does not define the difference there, but historically it is commonly read as a distinction between Greek-speaking and Hebrew- or Aramaic-speaking Jewish believers. Paul uses “Hebrews” alongside “Israelites” and “offspring of Abraham” (2 Corinthians 11:22) and calls himself “a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Philippians 3:5), placing the term within a stack of ancestral and religious identifiers.

Christian traditions read the term’s significance differently. Some treat “Hebrews” mainly as an ethnic and ancestral name for Israel, stressing continuity with Abraham (Genesis 14:13; 2 Corinthians 11:22). Others emphasize the linguistic or cultural sense in Acts 6:1 and Luke 23:38, seeing it as a marker of language or custom rather than a separate people. Still others read Paul’s “Hebrew of Hebrews” (Philippians 3:5) as a claim about Torah observance and Pharisaic identity, while others read it as rhetorical pedigree. These are interpretive emphases; the biblical text uses the term in several overlapping ways and does not reduce it to one.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.