The biblical version is more of a verb-subject-object language, where the verb appears first in a sentence. This is a common feature of all Semitic languages. However, when modern Hebrew was formulated, the structure changed to the subject-verb-object sequence, which was easy to pronounce and use in daily routines. As we have already said, the first difference between biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew is time.
Both are the same language but at different points of time, so you can see that there are some differences between them. Old Hebrew, also known as classical or biblical Hebrew, differs markedly, but not drastically, from modern Hebrew. The differences are mainly found in the areas of grammar, phonology and vocabulary, and modern Hebrew speakers can normally read an old text without difficulty. This form includes several dialects spoken in ancient Israel between the tenth century BC.
C. and early 4th century A.D. In the modern era, it is primarily a literary and liturgical language only. Modern Hebrew, the national language of modern Israel, is a secular spoken language.
As the world changes, languages evolve. The first change that can occur is the appearance of new words. Any modern language has many more words than its predecessor had in the past. There are about 8,000 Hebrew words in the Bible, while modern Hebrew has more than 100,000 words.
It is also necessary to express more contemporary ideas and talk about things that did not exist in biblical times. Today we need to talk about computers, telephones, airplanes, cars, electricity and a million other things that didn't exist in the past. Okay, let's imagine that a speaker of biblical Hebrew had a machine that would travel back in time and travel to the future. At this point in history, someone who is only familiar with biblical Hebrew would not be able to communicate very well with contemporary native speakers.
Now, biblical Hebrew, in fact, is not simply the Hebrew that was spoken 3,000 years ago, but it is a literary language. By learning to read in Hebrew, you'll be able to study both Hebrew and modern Hebrew, or both, with the difference that in modern Hebrew you'll soon have to read without vowels, while in biblical Hebrew you won't necessarily have to worry about it. If you want to have a conversation with a Hebrew speaker or are planning to visit Israel, I recommend that you learn modern Hebrew. But over time, when the Roman Empire took power, biblical Hebrew evolved and changed until it was unrecognizable.
I can follow the services and, as you said, biblical Hebrew doesn't always mean exactly the same as ivrit. Modern Hebrew is ancient Hebrew that I think linguists working for the Israeli government redesigned and gave it a more concrete grammatical structure. Modern Hebrew phonology is based on that of Sephardic Hebrew, while the Yemeni dialect that developed in the Middle Ages is probably the closest to the phonology of ancient Hebrew. Israeli Hebrew is still very similar to ancient Hebrew because the Jewish exile and the Jewish diaspora froze the ancient language.
Modern Hebrew is not a revival of Yiddish, which was alive and thriving when modern Hebrew returned to daily use. But if your goal is to read the Bible in its original language, you should learn biblical Hebrew, which is the literary language of the Bible, and then you will not focus on conversation, but on reading texts.
