Rashbam's Commentary on the Exodus: An Annotated Translation

Abstract

Rashbam's Commentary on the Exodus: An Annotated Translation, ed. and trans. Martin I. Lockshin. BJS 310. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997. Pp. x + 452. $39.95. Rashbam (Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, 1085?-1174?) was the grandson of Rashi, the most famous Jewish exegete of the Middle Ages. The grandson was a noted commentator in his own right, and the book under review contains the first complete annotated translation into English of Rashbam's commentary on the second book of the Torah. (A similar translation of the Genesis commentary was published in 1989.) Rashbam's commentaries on scripture are noted for their fierce dedication to the simple contextual/linguistic meaning (pshat) of the text (his talmudic commentaries are very different). He frequently departs from the ancient midrashic interpretations on which normative Jewish law is based, though he is careful to note (pp. 225-26) his undiminished respect for the binding character of the law, and he normally omits from his commentary and sometimes vehemently condemns any homiletic or fanciful construal of the text. (Lockshin duly notes any departures from this method, though he cannot always account for them.) Rashbam is therefore constrained to adopt a very complex attitude toward his famous ancestor's commentary, occasionally repeating Rashi's glosses verbatim, occasionally pointedly offering alternatives. In his summary conclusion to the entire book, Rashbam reminds the reader of the great value of his grandfather's comments and calls these close to the plain meaning of Scripture (p. 437). Presumably this was meant as deferential high praise. Lockshin indicates (p. 4) that no complete manuscript of Rashbam's commentary survives. He has based his translation on the printed edition (Breslau, 1882) of David Rosin, which he calls the best available; Lockshin's own bibliography indicates a more recent edition, however (A. Bromberg, 1964/65), and Lockshin does not indicate why he preferred the older one. The translation is clear, fluent, and richly annotated, but the Introduction to the volume is extremely brief and provides very little sense of the historical or intellectual context in which Rashbam did his work. Lockshin does frequently provide differing construals of the text by other medieval commentators, and a sense of Rashbam's context does begin to accumulate, but only out of Lockshin's notes and the details of the commentary. One would have appreciated a fuller evocation of the state of Bible study in northern France during Rashbam's generation, a time and place (as Lockshin clearly knows) when such activities were at a high level of energy and sophistication. …