Biblical encyclopedias in several languages existed then, but there was no such in work in Hebrew, which by that time was already the living spoken and literary language of the Jewish community in Palestine (Yishuv).
The initiative was started by the archaeologist Eleazar Sukenik, who proposed the idea to the Bialik Institute.
The Institute supported it and created a commission of scholars to determine the format of the future work.
Among those scholars were Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai, Leo Aryeh Mayer, Moshe Zvi Segal, Moshe David Cassuto, Shmuel Yeivin, Fishel Lakhover, Benjamin Mazar (Maisler) and Menachem Solieli.
The 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the battles for Jerusalem disrupted the work on the encyclopedia.