The first Talmudic dictionary to achieve wide circulation.

Rabbi Nathan ben Jehiel (1035-ca. 1110), cohead (together with his two brothers) of the yeshivah in Rome, was a widely-respected Italian halakhic authority and an accomplished linguist. In the present work, completed in 1101, he explicates, in alphabetical order, the many difficult terms in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, as well as in targumic and midrashic literature, often providing the pertinent etymology from Latin, Greek, Arabic, or Persian; in about six hundred cases, he glosses the term with its Judeo-Italian equivalent. R. Nathan’s detailed explanations contain material of historical and 🌃bibliographical value, including descriptions of rare Jewish customs and citations of otherwise-unknown 🍎passages from important works.

The present lot is a copy of Sefer he-arukh probably produced in either Egypt or Iran. It mostly comprises🌃 leaves from the second of a presumed two volumes of the work. Davℱid Solomon Sassoon purchased the manuscript from the bookseller David Fränkel during a stay by the latter in London around April 1930.

Contents

pp. 1-8: dalet;

pp. 9-10: vav;

pp. 11-12: zayin;

pp. 13-48: samekh;

pp. 48-103: ayin;

pp. 103-178: pe;

pp. 178-208: tsadi;

pp. 208-305: kof;

pp. 306-352: resh;

pp. 353-417: shin;

pp. 417-444: tav.

Physical Description

444 of about 1358 pages (10 1/8 x 6 3/4 in.; 257 x 170 mm) (likely original collation starting with p. 13: ix⁸ [ix_9-10 lacking], x⁷ [x_1-2,10 lacking], xi-xii¹⁰, xiii⁸ [xiii_1,10 lacking], xiv⁸ [xiv_1,10 lacking], xv⁹ [xv₁₀ lacking], xvi² [xvi_1,3-4,6 lacking], xvii¹⁰, xviii⁸ [xviii_1,10 lacking], xix⁸ [xix_1,10 lacking], xx⁸ [xx_1,10 lacking], xxi-xxii¹⁰, xxiii⁸ [xxiii_1,10 lacking], xxiv⁸ [xxiv_1,10 lacking], xxv⁸ [xxv_1,10 lacking], xxvi⁸ [xxvi_1,10 lacking], xxvii⁸ [xxvii_1,10 lacking], xxviii¹⁴, xxix¹⁰, xxx⁷ [xxx_1,9-10 lacking], [xxxi_1-8 lacking], xxxii-xxxiii¹⁰, xxxiv⁹ [xxxiv₁₀ lacking], [xxxv_1-8 lacking]) on paper; modern pagination in pencil in Arabic numerals in upper-outer corners; first page of each quire signed in pen in Hebrew characters at head (at least partially visible on pp. 43, 63, 115, 137, 205, 225, 325, 353, 387, 407, 427); written in Persian square (headings and some lemmata) and semi-cursive (text body) scripts in black ink; single-column text of mostly twenty-six or twenty-seven lines per page; slanted inscription of final words; slanted catchwords in lower margin of last page of each quire; modern catchwords sometimes added before missing folios; episodic Tiberian vocalization of text; Tetragrammaton abbreviated to three yodin in a row; diagrams on pp. 4, 193, 256; brief poems on pp. 305-306, 352-353, 417; corrections, strikethroughs, and/or marginalia in primary and secondary hands. Probably lacking about 654 pages from volume 1 and about 260 fro♔m volume 2 (see collation); staining and dampstaining throughout; corners rounded; periodic minor damage in outer and lower edges; slight damage in upper edges of pp. 3-4; small hole in outer margins of pp. 13-14; short tears in outer edges of pp. 41-42, 325-326, 361-362, in upper edges of pp. 133-136, and in lower and outer edges of pp. 2🔯85-292; taped puncture on pp. 229-230; small holes in text on pp. 245-246, 387-388; lower-outer corner of pp. 339-340 lacking; longer tear in lower margins of pp. 351-352. Modern brown buckram, slightly worn; shelf mark lettered in gilt at base of spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

Literature

Shraga Abramson, “Sefer ‘he-arukh’ le-rav natan be-r. yehi’el me-roma,” Sinai 95,1-2 (Nisan-Iyyar 1984): 27-42.

Sassoon 1206 (not catalogued in Ohel Dawid)

Shifrá Sznol, “Medieval Jewish Greek Lexicography: The ‘Arukh of Nathan ben Jehiel,” Erytheia 30 (2009): 107-128.

Joanna Weinberg, “Midrash in a Lexical Key: Nathan ben Yehiel’s Arukh,” in Michael Fishbane and Joanna Weinberg (eds.), Midrash Unbound: Transformations and Innovations (Oxford: Littman Library, 2013), 213-231, ✃esp. pp. 221-222.