Broadly speaking, the advantages are three: accuracy, brevity, and poetry.
Accuracy
As with all translations, the risk in translation (particularly of a long text) is that the original meaning is distorted or, at times, downright wrong. The most infamous example is the commandment lo tirtzaḥ, which has often been misconstrued as Thou shalt not kill, when in fact it is Thou shalt not murder (big difference). But there are many other, lesser known examples, such as:
| Square Hebrew | SimHebrew* | Translation (KJV) | Actual meaning |
| ותחסרהו מעט מאלהים
[Psalms 8:6] |
vtksrhu my’t malhim* | For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels | For thou hast made him a little lower than God |
| עת ללדת, עת למות
[Eccles. 3:2] |
yt lldt, yt lmut* | A time to be born, a time to die | A time to give birth, a time to die |
These are significant differences: in the the latter case, being born is beyond a person’s control, while giving birth is not, and in the Psalms example, the mistranslation smacks of editorial censorship by translators who thought the literal meaning of the Hebrew may be sacrilegious.
Brevity
Due to its use of prefixes or suffixes to denote prepositions, possessive forms, etc., Hebrew tends to be much more concise than English and many other languages. Here are two examples (the first of which I’ve cited on another occasion):
| Square Hebrew | SimHebrew* | Translation (KJV) |
| אל יתהלל חוגר כמפתח
[I Kings 20:21] |
al ithll kogr cmptk* | Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off |
| לכל זמן, ועת לכל חפץ
[Eccles. 3:1] |
lcl zmn, vyt lcl kpx* | To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose |
Sixteen words in English versus four in Hebrew in the first example; twelve versus five in the second. And the same is true, almost to the same extent, of most of the Hebrew Bible.
Poetry
This is perhaps the least appreciated deficiency, but is apparent during linguistic analysis of the text. Two examples by way of illustration:
| Square Hebrew | SimHebrew* | Phonetic rendition | Translation (KJV) |
| טוב שם משמן טוב
[Eccles. 7:1] |
‘tob wm mwmn ‘tob* | Tov shem mishemen tov | A good name is better than precious ointment |
| וַהֲכִינֹתִי … וְכֹנַנְתִּי …וַתְּכוֹנֵן
[II Samuel 7] |
vhcinti… vcnnti… vtconn* | vehakhinoti… vekonanti… vatekhonen | I will set up […] and I will stablish […] For thou hast confirmed |
In the first example, the alliteration of the original Hebrew is lost; in the second, it is the rhetorical power of repetition of the three-letter root (n-c-n)—both of which are entirely lost in translation.
*To illustrate the linguistic patterns of the Hebrew for the benefit of non-Hebrew readers, all asterisked texts are in SimHebrew (simulated Hebrew).
Notes by Autumn Light 