Hebrews


 * This article refers to the Hebrew people; the descendants of Eber. For the language, see Hebrew. For the specific descendants of Jacob, see People of Israel. For all uses, see Hebrew (disambiguation).

The Hebrews ("Name means::ones from beyond") are descendants of Biblical patriarch Eber, the great-grandson of Shem, son of Noah. The ethnonym "Hebrew" thus is derived from the name "Eber" which means, "to traverse or cross over." The Biblical word ʻIḇrī —the plural form is ʻIḇrīm —is usually rendered as Hebrew in English, from the ancient Greek (Hebraīos) and Latin  and is intended to denote the people who came "from the other side of the river" (i.e. the Euphrates) from the region of Haran. In Canaan, Abraham was known to the inhabitants of the land as the stranger from beyond the river. "Hebrew" means, simply, an "Eberite," a "descendant of Eber."

Israelites are defined as the descendants of Jacob, son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham. Eber was a direct ancestor of Abraham. Eber is a distant ancestor of many peoples, including the Israelites, Ishmaelites, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, Midianites, and Joktanites. The name "Hebrew" is found in Genesis and Exodus more than in all the other Books of the Bible, for it was the international name linking Jacob's descendants with the other nations; Israel is the name that separates them from the nations. After the constitution of Israelites as a separate people usage of "Hebrew" rarely occurs; in the national poetry and in the prophets the name does not occur as a designation among themselves.