Ezra’s Work as Subject of Scholarly Research
Throughout the centuries, especially in the modern era, a vast number of scholars
of various disciplines, studied his works extensively. An especially prominent one was
George Sarton (1884–1956), the founder of History of Science. Of Ibn Ezra, he wrote:
One of the greatest Biblical commentators of the Middle Ages, one of
the forerunners of modern criticism, and much admired by Spinoza on
that account. He was one of the first to translate writings of Muslims
into Hebrew.
He wrote various books on mathematics and astrology, on the calendar,
and on the astrolabe; eight treatises on astrology were completed at
Lucca in 1148.
One of his main titles to fame is that through his wanderings in
Provence, France and England, he helped to propagate among the Jews
of Christian Europe (who, unlike their Spanish brethren, did not know
Arabic) the rationalistic and scientific points of view which had been
developed in Spain by Muslims and Jews on the basis of Greco-Muslim
knowledge.
He translated from Arabic into Hebrew three treatises on grammar by
Judah Hayyuj (second half of the tenth century), Rome 1140; two trea-
tises on astrology by Mashallah, before 1148; al-Biruni’s commentary
on al-Khwarizmi’s tables, Narbonne 1160. The last mentioned is
known only through Ibn Ezra’s version.
Ibn Ezra’s mind was a strange mixture of rationalism and mysticism. His
writings show his deep interest in magic squares and the mystical prop-
erties of numbers. He explained a decimal system of numeration using
the first nine letters of the Hebrew alphabet, plus a circle for the zero,
with place value.
Though they do not directly concern us, Ibn Ezra’s commentaries on the
Old Testament were so influential, even outside of their own sphere, that
something must be said of them. He explained his methods in the intro-
duction to his commentary on the Pentateuch (Perush ha-Torah); he
distinguished between the peshat,simple or literal meaning; the derash,
common sense explanation; and the midrash,more philosophic explana-
tion; trying hard to steer a middle course between excessive literalism
and loose interpretations. As an instance of his boldness, I may mention
his conclusion that the Book of Isaiah contains the sayings of two
prophets, a view confirmed by modern criticism. The popularity of his
commentaries is attested by the large number of super-commentaries.Philology and Lexicography
The Old French translation of Hagin le Juif has served Raphael Levy for com-
parative study with modern French; Frédéric Godefroy in Dictionnaire de l’ancienne
langue française;Erhard Lommatzsch in Adolf Tobler’s Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch;A.
THEASTROLOGYBOOK [355]
Ibn Ezra, Avraham