Ḳimḥi

ḲImḤI, or Qimḥi, the family name of three Jewish grammarians and biblical scholars who worked at Narbonne in the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th, and exercised great influence on the study of the Hebrew language. The name, as is shown by manuscript testimony, was also pronounced Ḳamḥi and further mention is made of the French surname Petit.

Joseph Ḳimḥi was a native of southern Spain, and settled in Provence, where he was one of the first to set forth in the Hebrew language the results of Hebraic philology as expounded by the Spanish Jews in their Arabic treatises. He was acquainted moreover with Latin grammar, under the influence of which he resorted to the innovation of dividing the Hebrew vowels into five long vowels and five short, previous grammarians having simply spoken of seven vowels without distinction of quantity. His grammatical textbook, Sefer Ha-Zikkaron, “Book of Remembrance” (ed. W. Bacher, Berlin, 1888), was marked by methodical comprehensiveness, and introduced into the theory of the verbs a new classification of the stems which has been retained by later scholars. In the far more ample Sefer Ha-Galuy, “Book of Demonstration” (ed. Matthews, Berlin, 1887), Joseph Ḳimḥi attacks the philological work of the greatest French Talmud scholar of that day, R. Jacob Tam, who espoused the antiquated system of Menaḥem b. Saruq, and this he supplements by an independent critique of Menaḥem. This work is a mine of varied exegetical and philological details. He also wrote commentaries—the majority of which are lost—on a great number of the scriptural books. Those on Proverbs and Job have been published. He composed an apologetic work under the title Sefer Ha-Berith (“Book of the Bond”), a fragment of which is extant, and translated into Hebrew the ethico-philosophical work of Baḥya ibn Paquda (“Duties of the Heart”). In his commentaries he also made contributions to the comparative philology of Hebrew and Arabic.

Moses Ḳimḥi was the author of a Hebrew grammar, known—after the first three words—as Mahalak Shebile Ha-daat, or briefly as Mahalak. It is an elementary introduction to the study of Hebrew, the first of its kind, in which only the most indispensable definitions and rules have a place, the remainder being almost wholly occupied by paradigms. Moses Ḳimḥi was the first who made the verb paqadh a model for conjugation, and the first also who introduced the now usual sequence in the enumeration of stem-forms. His handbook was of great historical importance as in the first half of the 16th century it became the favourite manual for the study of Hebrew among non-Judaic scholars (1st ed., Pesaro, 1508). Elias Levita (q.v.) wrote Hebrew explanations, and Sebastian Münster translated it into Latin. Moses Ḳimḥi also composed commentaries to the biblical books; those on Proverbs, Ezra and Nehemiah are in the great rabbinical bibles falsely ascribed to Abraham ibn Ezra.

David Ḳimḥi (c. 1160-1235), also known as Redaq (= R. David Ḳimḥi), eclipsed the fame both of his father and his brother. From the writings of the former he quotes a great number of explanations, some of which are known only from this source. His magnum opus is the Sefer Miklol, “Book of Completeness.” This falls into two divisions: the grammar, to which the title of the whole, Miklol, is usually applied (first printed in Constantinople, 1532-1534, then, with the notes of Elias Levita, at Venice, 1545), and the lexicon, Sefer Hashorashim, “Book of Roots,” which was first printed in Italy before 1480, then at Naples in 1490, and at Venice in 1546 with the annotations of Elias. The model and the principal source for this work of David Ḳimḥi’s was the book of R. Jonah (Abulwalid), which was cast in a similar bipartite form; and it was chiefly due to Ḳimḥi’s grammar and lexicon that, while the contents of Abulwalid’s works were common knowledge, they themselves remained in oblivion for centuries. In spite of this dependence on his predecessors his work shows originality, especially in the arrangement of his material. In the grammar he combined the paradigmatic method of his brother Moses with the procedure of the older scholars who devoted a close attention to details. In his dictionary, again, he recast the lexicological materials independently, and enriched lexicography itself, especially by his numerous etymological explanations. Under the title Eṭ Sofer, “Pen of the Writer” (Lyk, 1864), David Ḳimḥi composed a sort of grammatical compendium as a guide to the correct punctuation of the biblical manuscripts; it consists, for the most part, of extracts from the Miklol. After the completion of his great work he began to write commentaries on portions of the Scriptures. The first was on Chronicles, then followed one on the Psalms, and finally his exegetical masterpiece—the commentary on the prophets. His annotations on the Psalms are especially interesting for the polemical excursuses directed against the Christian interpretation. He was also responsible for a commentary on Genesis (ed. A. Günsburg, Pressburg, 1842), in which he followed Moses Maimonides in explaining biblical narratives as visions. He was an enthusiastic adherent of Maimonides, and, though far advanced in years, took an active part in the battle which raged in southern France and Spain round his philosophico-religious writings. The popularity of his biblical exegesis is demonstrated by the fact that the first printed texts of the Hebrew Bible were accompanied by his commentary: the Psalms 1477, perhaps at Bologna; the early Prophets, 1485, Soncino; the later Prophets, ibid. 1486.