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Ibn-Jachja, Joseph B.-David

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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a distinguished Jewish commentator, was born at Florence in 1494. His ancestors were citizens of Spain, but had fled from the Iberian Peninsula on account of the religious persecutions which the Jews had to suffer, especially under John II. His education he received first at Verona, then at Imola and Padua, and he settled at Imola. He died, exhausted by excessive studies, in 1539. His works are, commentaries on the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther; Psalms, Proverbs, and Daniel (transl. into Latin by Constantin l'Empereur [Amsterdam, 1633], with the Hebrew text and a refutation of anti-Christian passages). A special feature of these commentaries, which are all inserted in Frankfurter's Rabbinical Bible, is the midrashic lore contained in them, which is valuable to the historicocritical exegetist. Ibn-Jachja wrote also Torah, or "The Law of Light" (Bologla, 1538), a very valuable work on the theology of Judaism, in which he rejects the introduction of philosophy in the consideration of religious topics. See Gratz, Gesch. der Juden, 9, 235; Etheridge, Introd. to Heb. Lit. p. 452; Jost, Israelitische Annalen, 2, 393 sq.; Ersch u. Gruber's Algem. Encyklop. sec. 2, 31:81 sq.;. Kitto, Cyclop. of Bibl. Lit. 2, 356; First, Biblioth. Judges 1:2; Judges 1:4.