Psalms (Tehillim). With commentary of David Kimchi (Rada”k)
AUCTION 26 |
Monday, November 22nd,
2004 at 1:00
Exceptional Printed Books, Sixty-Five Hebrew Incunabula: The Elkan Nathan Adler-Wineman Family Collection
Lot 14
(BIBLE).
Psalms (Tehillim). With commentary of David Kimchi (Rada”k)
(Bologna): Joseph and Neriyah Chaim, Mordechai and Hezekiah Montero 1477
Est: $40,000 - $50,000
PRICE REALIZED $37,500
FIRST EDITION OF ANY PORTION OF THE BIBLE IN HEBEW CHARACTERS
The Kimchis were a Narbonne family that originated in Spain. At the time of the Almohad persecution, the family crossed the Pyrenees to the more tolerant clime of Provence. There they devoted their linguistic and grammatical talents to Biblical exegesis. Both the father Joseph (c.1105-c.1170) and the son David (1160?-1235?) had a penchant for anti-Christian polemic, which especially imbues Rada”k’s commentary to Psalms. Eventually, the polemic material from Psalms would be collected in a special work entitled Teshuvoth LaNotzrim (Responses to the Christians), included in Lipmann Muelhausen’s Sepher Nitzachon (Altdorf, 1644). See F. Talmage, David Kimhi: The Man and the Commentaries (1975)