Re: Hebrew cognates. While I agree with the spirit of what Fred said, it is not exactly true. There are some (though VERY few) Hebrew cognates with English (none of which, as far as I know, are very helpful. English cinnamon is cognate with Hebrew [i:16e89c0672]qinnamon[/i:16e89c0672], and English gopher is cognate with Hebrew [i:16e89c0672]gopher[/i:16e89c0672]. To be sure, [i:16e89c0672]qinnamon[/i:16e89c0672] occurs all of THREE times in the Old Testament and [i:16e89c0672]gopher[/i:16e89c0672] occurs exactly ONCE.
Other than these (and I am pretty sure a few more...I cannot recall), it is all new and unusual vocabulary. But you never know, you might be one of those freaky geniuses that takes to Hebrew right out of the starting gate.

Lon