Ibn-Jachja, Gedalja, a Jewish historian, was born at Inmla about 1515. He deserves mention here on accouni of his work Shalsheletk Hakkabula, or Chain of Tradition (Zolkiew, 1804). It is a history of the Jews, and is divided into three parts, of which part first only is the Shalsheletk, or literary chronicle of rabbinism ; the other parts treat not only of history proper, but in- clude also natural history, pneumatology, and economics. He died about 1587. — Carmoly, Die Jachjiden, p. 33 sq. ; Griitz, Gesch. der Juden, ix, 435 ; Etheridge, Introd. to Heb. Lit. p. 452 ; FUrst, Biblioth. Jud. ii, 3.
Ibn-Jachja, Joseph b.-David, a distinguished Jewish conimoiitatiir. was liorn at Florence in 1404. His ancestors were citizens of Spain, but had fled from the Iberian I'eninsula on account of the religious persecu- tions Avhich the Jews had to suffer, especially under John II. His education he received first at Yerona, 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, Prov- erbs, and Daniel (transl. into Latin by Constantin I'Era- pereur [Amsterdam, 1633], with the Hebrew text and a refutation of anti-Christian passages). A special fea- ture of these commentaries, which are all inserted in Frankfurter's liabbinical Bible, is the midrashic lore contained in them, which is valuable to the historico- critical exegetist. Ibn-Jachja wrote also Torah, or " The Law of Light" (Bologna, 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, ix, 235; Etheridge, introd. to Hsb. Lit. p. 452 ; Jost, Israelitische Annalen, ii, 393 sq. ; Erseh u. Gruber's .4 llgem. Encyklop. sec. ii, xxxi, 81 sq. ; Kitto, Cyclop, of Bibl. Lit. ii, 356; Fiirst, Biblioth. Jud. ii, 4.
Ibn-Jaish, Baruch, a Jewish scholar, flourished at Cordova, in Spain, in the 15th centur\-. He wrote commentaries on the Song of Songs (The blessed Foun- tain, etc., Constantinople, 1576), and on Ecclesiastes and
Job (The blessed Fountain of Job and Ecclesiast&!, Con- stantinople, 1576). " He generally gives the literal ex- planation of every passage according to the context, and tries to solve the grammatical difficulties of the text."— Kitto, Cyclop, of Bill. Literature, ii, 357 ; Fiirst, Biblioth. J ud.n,\i.
Ibn-Kastor. See Itzchaki.
Ibn-Koreish, JEiurDAir, one of the earliest Jewish lexicographers, flourished in the latter half of the 9th century at Tuhart or Tahort, in Africa, and was one of the first who wrote on comparative philology. He was thoroughly conversant not only with the Berber tongue, but also with the three Shemitic languages; he had carefully studied the traditions of the Jews and the jMo- hammedans, and was emiirently qualified to write on the Hebrew language, and introduce frequent comparisons with the other Shemitic tongues. His works are, ■|i"i5S, a Hebreio I^exicon in alphabetical order, but with that peculiar arrangement which all works of this class were subject to at that time, viz. each group of words belonging to a letter was accompanied by introductions, one on those words which have only the letter in question for a radical theme, and another on the changes of that letter. The work has been lost, but its existence is at- tested by the fact that not only the author himself re- fers to it in another of his works, but also the great scholars of his and subsequent periods ; — Risdlet (Heb. nbXD"!), or a letter addressed to his Jewish brethren at Fez, in which he exhorts them to continue the study of the Aramaic Targum, and of the Aramaic as well as the Shemitic languages, without a thorough knowledge of which the Old-Test. Scriptures can only be imperfectly comprehended. After the introduction he divided the work into three parts. In Part I he arrangetl in alpha- betic order all difficult Hebrew words that could only be properly understood from the Chaldee paraphrases of Onkelos and Jonathan ben-Uziel. Part II contained an explanation of Biblical Hebrew words found also in the Mishna and the Talmud. In Part III he instituted a comparison with the Arabic of all analogous Hebrew roots, forms of expressions, prefixes and suflSxes, etc. This work iS certainly a very important contribution to Hebrew philology, and it is only to be regretted that we do not possess it completely, since the first part breaks up with letter 3, and does not begin again till letter T\, from which Fiirst {Ilebr. Diet. vol. xxiii) in- fers that the author intended it only as a continuation of his (lost) Hebrew Dictionary. It has lately been pub- lished in the Araliic under the title Epistolti de sttulii Targum ufUifute rf dv Vtugwv Chiddnlciv, J\/isnica', Tal- mudica>, A nd,'icir. nirdliidnriiiii it. ,„ numiidhirum. bar- baricorum i-ntirciiiiiilln en in llilinm ; ediderunt J. J. L. Barges et D. R. Goldberg (Paris, 1857). The introcluc- tion, with specimens from the work, have been puhlish- ed in Arabic, with a German translation by Schniu:rer, in Eichhom's A llgem. Bibliothek d. Biblisch. Literatur (Lpz. 1790), iii, 951 sq. ; the introduction has also been published with a German translation by Wetstein in the Literatnrhlnit d,.< (>r/,i,fs ( 1 S4.'i >. iii, 2 ; and extracts are given liy I'lwald ami I hikes. /!, llrage zur Geschichte d. Aeltesten' Aiidiginig mnl Sjirai'lii rUarung d. A. Test. (Stuttgart, 1844),' i, 116-23 ; ii, 117, 118. He wrote also p^l'^p'n ^Sb, a Hebrew grammar, which Aben-Ezra used in the preparation of his own work. See, besides the v.-orks already referred to, Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, v, 293 ; Kitto, Cychp. Biblical Lit. ii, 357 ; Fiirst, Biblioth. Jud. ii, 203.