Latter Prophets (Nevi’im Aharonim), with the Commentary of Don Isaac Abarbanel (1437–1508)

Celebrated first edition of Abarbanel’s commentary on the Latter Prophets.

Born in Lisbon in 1437, Don Isaac Abarbanel was a court financier, statesman, and one of the most influential Jewish exegetes of the late Middle Ages. He rose to prominence as treasurer to King Afonso V of Portugal, but when in 1483 Afonso’s successor João II accused him of conspiracy, he fled to Castile, where he entered the service of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile. In 1492, he famously made an unsuccessful attempt to avert the expulsion of the Jews of Spain. Following the expulsion, Abarbanel spent two years in Naples, where he served Ferrante I and his son Alfonso II. However, the French invasion of 1494 sent him into a further exile that led via Messina and Corfu to Monopoli (Apulia) and, finally, Venice, where he died in 1508 and was buried in Padua.

Abarbanel composed several important philosophical works and exegetical commentaries on the Bible and other canonical books. His biblical commentaries combine close reading with political, historical, and theological analysis. Methodologically innovative, he divides each book according to his own program, precedes each section with a structured series of questions (she’elot), and then resolves them in the course of the exposition. His exegesis balances elucidation of the literal meaning of the text (peshat) with sustained engagement with earlier Jewish and Christian interpreters, often disputing Christological readings.

The present volume contains Abarbanel’s commentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets. He began the commentaries on Isaiah and the Twelve Minor Prophets during his sojourn in Corfu in the summer of 1495, completed the commentary on Isaiah in Monopoli, and composed his commentaries on Jeremiah and Ezekiel after his move to Venice.

The great Italian Jewish printer Gershom Soncino issued Abarbanel’s commentary on the Prophets in two separate folio volumes: Former Prophets at Pesaro in 1511–12, and the present Latter Prophets in 1520—the first edition of Abarbanel’s commentary on these books. The two volumes formed the basis for later sixteenth-century reprints and for the widespread diffusion of Abarbanel’s innovative exegetical program.

Physical Description

Folio (317 x 220 mm), 397 leaves (of 398, final blank removed). Hebrew text of the Prophets in square type with vowels (nikud); Abarbanel’s commentary in semi-cursive type. Title within an ornamental woodcut border, with occasional woodcut initials. 

Binding: contemporary blind-stamped pigskin over wooden boards; spine with four raised bands; ink inscription of the author’s name on lower board.

Provenance

Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter (1506–1557; signature on title); Duplum Bibliothecae Regiae Monacensis (later pencil inscription on pastedown, referring to the Munich Court Library); General Theological Seminary Library (stamps and pastedown on front free endpaper); Current owner.

Literature

Benzion Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher (Ithica, NY, 1998).