Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius ( 3 February 1786 - 23 October 1842 ) was a German orientalist and Biblical critic.
He was born at Nordhausen, Germany. In 1803, Gesenius became a student of philosophy and theology at the University of Helmstedt, where Heinrich Henke was his most influential teacher; but the latter part of his university course was taken at the Göngen, where Johann Gottfried Eichhorn and Thomas Christian Tychsen were then at the height of their popularity.
In 1806, shortly after graduation, he became Repetent and Privatdozent at Göngen; and, as he was later proud to say, had August Neander for his first pupil in Hebrew language. In 1810 he became professor extrardinarius in theology, and in 1811 ordinarius, at the University of Halle, where, in spite of many offers of high preferment elsewhere, he spent the rest of his life.
In 1827, after declining an invitation to take Eichhorn's place at Göngen, Gesenius was made a Consistorialrath; but, apart from the violent attacks to which he, along with his friend and colleague Julius Wegsheider, was in 1830 subjected by E. W. Hengstenberg and his party in the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, on account of his rationalism, his life was uneventful.
Gesenius died at Halle and is buried near the university. According to tradition, theology students in Halle put stones on his grave as a token of respect every year before their examinations.