The Swabian lawyer, philosopher, and philologist Johannes Reuchlin saw it as his duty to preserve the Hebrew language and literature for posterity. His Hebrew studies must be interpreted in the context of his overall conception, which was concerned with leading mankind back to God and trusting in the power of language to do so. For Reuchlin, words have not only a deictic function, but also a poetic one: Words are the bond that connects people with God (vinculum verborum). His exercise book for learning the Hebrew language In septem psalmos poententiales hebraicos interpretatio (1512) is based on texts which his readers were familiar with. This was intended to facilitate learning. To address grammatical issues, he draws on the works of the Kimchi brothers (Moses Kimchi, died c. 1190; David Kimchi, died 1235), but also refers to Aramaic Bible translations (Targumim). This paper will show how Reuchlin combines linguistic precision with the freedom of Renaissance philology.