NATHAN BEN-JECHIEL
857
NATHAN HA-BABLI
XV, 37 ; 1 Chron. xxvii, 33) ; and Azariah, another of his sons, occupied a high place in the king's court (1 Kings iv, 5). He assisted David by his counsels when he reorganized the public worship (2 Chron. xxix, 25). B.C. 1014. This is the last time that we hear directly of his intervention in the history. His influence may be traced in the perpetuation of his manner of prophecy in the writings ascribed to Solomon (comp. Eccl. ix, 14- IG with 2 Sara, xii, 1-4). He left two works behind him— a life of David (1 Chron. xxix, 29), and a life of Solomon (2 Chron. ix, 29). The last of these may have been incomplete, as we cannot be sure that he outlived Solomon. The consideration in which he was held at the time is indicated by the solemn announcement of his approach— " Behold Nathan the prophet" (I Kings i, 23). The peculiar affix of "the prophet," as distin- guished from " the seer," given to Samuel and Gad (1 Chron. xxix, 29), shows his identitication witli the later view of the prophetic office indicated in 1 Sam. ix, 9. His grave is shown at Ilallnil near Hebron (see Robin- son, Bib, Res. i, 216, note).— Smith.
3. A native of Zobah, in Syria ; the father of Igul, one of David's mighty men (2 Sam. xxiii, 36 ; 1 Chron. xi, 38). B.C. cir. 1040.
4. A son of David (2 Sam. v, 14; 1 Chron. xiv, 4), from whom the evangelist Luke has reckoned the gene- alogy of Mary the mother of Jesus (Luke iii, 31). B.C. cir. 1032. See Gknealogv. In 1 Chron. iii, 5 Na- than is said to have been " the son of David by Bi^fh- shua," i. e. Bathsheba, but the rendering has been ques- tioned. To him must probably be referred the words of Zech. xii, 12 (see Henderson, Miii. Proph. ad loc), though some have interpreted it as the house of the prophet Nathan standing for the family of the prophets. See David.
5. One of the head men who returned from Babylon with Ezra on his second expedition, and whom he de- spatched from his encampment at the River Ahava to the colony of Jews at Casiphia, to obtain thence some Levites and Nethinim for the Temple service (Ezra viii, 16). B.C. 459. " That Nathan and those mentioned with him were laymen appears evident from the con- cluding words of the preceding verse, and therefore it is not impossible that he may be the same with the son of Bani, who was obliged to relinquish his foreign wife (Ezra X, 39) ; though on the other hand these marriages seem rather to have been contracted by those who had been longer in Jerusalem than he, who had so lately arrived from Baljylon, could be" (Smith). B. C. 458.
Nathan ben-Jechiel, also called Aruh (""p"'."), or Baal hu-Aruk (~n"n b"3), from the fact that he is the author of the celebrated lexicon denominated A )-iik; a distinguished Jewish lexicographer, was born in Rome about 1030, where, like his ancestors before him and his descendants after him, he was held in the highest veneration for his extraordinary learning, and it was said of him, "peritum omnis generis scientia- rura fuisse." Though busily engaged in faithfully dis- charging the responsible duties devolving upon him as rabbi of the Jewish community in the Eternal City, and in attending to the Hebrew academy of which he was the president, R. Nathan devoted all his spare time for the greater part of his life to the writing of that im- portant lexicon which has obtained such a world-wide celebrity. From the words of the epilogue which R. Nathan himself appended to it {this lexicon was completed on Tuesday, the nineteenth day of ike month on which the Temple vxis destroyed by the despised one [i. e. Ab = end of July], 4861 after the creation [ = A.D. 1 101], 1033 after the destruction of the burned Temple, 1413 of the Seleucian cera'), it will be seen that he finished this lexicon A.D. 1101. According to Mr. Etheridge, the work was finished m the year 4865, answering to A.D. 1105; it may be that he read nTiriib noiin nSira instead of NOm'T. Five years after the completion of the work Jechiel died, A.D. 1106. The lexicon is de-
nominated A ruk C^1"i", from "I?, to arrange, to set in order), i. e. arranyement of the words in alphabetical order, and extends over the Mishna, both the Gemaras, the Midrashim, and all the Chaldee paraphrases of the O. T. " The importance of this work, both to the un- derstanding of the ancient expositions of the Bible and the criticism of the text of the Chaldee paraphrases, can hardly be overrated, inasmuch as R. Nathan, in explain- ing the words, embodied the interpretations of the an- cient sages preserved by tradition, and adopted the an- cient and correct readings. So comprehensive is this lexicon, and so highly was it appreciated, that it not only superseded and buried in oblivion a lexicon also called Aruk, compiled by Zemach ben-Paltoi, who was gaon in Pumbaditha, A.D. 871-890, but simply left for his future supplementors to compile and rearrange the rich materials which R. Nathan amassed. In this, how- ever, they did not always succeed" (Ginsburg). Not- withstanding the subsequent labors of Buxtorf, Landau, and others, in the field of Hebrreo- Aramaic lexicography, t\\Q Aruk of Nathan Jechiel still holds its pre-eminence. Its definitions are remarkable for their substantial im- port and verbal precision, and it is even quoted by Da- vid Kimchi (q. v.) in his famous CUiTiTn "ED, s. v. ■^3'^, "pS, ^3, "1111. It was published at Pisauri, 1515, and often afterwards. An edition was published at Amsterdam in 1655, with the additions of B.-Musafia (q. v.), which edition was republished by M. I. Landau with his own notes, in 5 vols., under the title ''5"i?P ■|isb, or Rahbinisch- Ai-amdisch- Deutsches Wurterbuch zur Kenntniss des Talmuds, der Targumim u. Midra- schim, etc. (Prague, 1819-24). A convenient edition of the A ruk, with the supplements of IMussafia, De Lon- sano, and Berlin, has been published by H. Sperling (Lemberg, 1857) ; still later annotations to the -1 7-uk, with emendations and critical notes, appeared by R. Lindermann, under the title *p3"^3"3 "!i"lw' 1ED (Berl. 1864; see Frankel, Monatsschrift, 1865, p. 393 sq.) ; and a still later edition was published by Lonsano and Berlin (Lemberg, 1865), and the latest edition is that of Lemberg (1874, 2 vols.). To the honor of R. Na- than be it said— though it does not redound to the glory of modern scholarship— that his A ruk is still the only clew to the ancient Jewish writings which are so im- portant to Biblical literature and exegesis. See the masterly biography of R. Nathan by Rapaport in the Hebrew annual entitled Bikure ha-Itim (Vienna, 1829), x, 1-79; xi (ibid. 1830), 81-90; Geiger, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenldndischen Gesellschaft. xii, 142 sq., 357 sq. ; xiv, 318 sq. ; Steinschneider, Cutalogus Libr. Hebr. in Biblioth. Bodleiana, No. 2040-2043 ; id. Bibliograph. Ilandbuch, p. 99 sq. ; Kitto, Cyclop, s. v. ; Fiirst, Biblioth. Judaica, iii, 20 sq.; De Rossi, Bizi- onario storico degli autori Ebrei, p. 140 sq. (German transl.) ; Etheridge, Introd. to Jetcish Literature, p. 284 sq. ; Griitz, Gesch. d. Juden, vi, 76; Braunschweiger, Gesch. d. Juden in den Roman. Staaten, p. 56 ; Basnage, History of the Jews, p. 625 (Taylor's transl.) ; Dernburg, in Geiger's Zeitschrift fur Jiid. Th'eologie, iv, 123 sq. ; Bleek, B'inleitung in das Alte Testam. p. 100; Kimchi, Liber radicum (ed. Lebrecht u. Biesenthal), p. xxxix ; Buxtorf, Lexicon Talmudicum, etc., p. ix, ed. B. Fisch- er (Leips. 1869) ; (N. Y.) Jewish Alessenger, Jan. 8, 1874. (B.P.)