Ibn Ezra's Commentary on the Pentateuch: Genesis (Bereshit) [Hardcover]

H. Norman Strickman (Author), Abraham Ben Meir Ibn Ezra (Author), Arthur M. Silver (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hebrew

Product Details

• Hardcover: 456 pages
• Publisher: Menorah Pub Co; 1 ED edition (May 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0932232078
• ISBN-13: 978-0932232076
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #763,699 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A valuable addition to your Jewish book shelf, November 28, 1999

By 

Morris Goldman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ibn Ezra's Commentary on the Pentateuch: Genesis (Bereshit) (Hardcover)

This book provides a valuable service to readers of the Hebrew Bible in that it makes Ibn Ezra's commentary comprehensible even to the non-scholar. The authors have based their work on scholarly interpretations of Ibn Ezra's sometimes telegraphic comments, which are often obscure in their original form. My main reservations concern the format of massive foot-noting, and the use of English transliterations instead of Hebrew in cases where the whole point of the commentary may be a fine distinction in spelling or vocalization of the Hebrew text.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Work!, December 2, 2004

By 

Michael L. Samuel - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ibn Ezra's Commentary on the Pentateuch: Genesis (Bereshit) (Hardcover)

Ibn Ezra would have been very proud to know how his commentary has been translated. As a traveler, Ibn Ezra always had a fondness for England. At any rate, not only is the commentary clear and easy to read, the authors provide lucid footnotes which neatly explain how Ibn Ezra's ideas compare with the other great scholars of his time.

Let me suggest an improvement for a future edition:

Present the readers with a Hebrew text of the Pentateuch along with Ibn Ezra's commentary in a modern Hebrew font. Make sure the Hebrew text of Ibn Ezra has nikudot to make the text even more appealing to the eye. As a potential model, consider the old Silverman edition of Rashi. A similiar work on Ibn Ezra would sell like hotcakes!

What a great job!
Thank you H. Norman Strickman!!

Rabbi Dr. Michael Samuel

5.0 out of 5 stars difficult but sometimes interesting, December 15, 2009

By 

Michael Lewyn (Forest Hills, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ibn Ezra's Commentary on the Pentateuch: Genesis (Bereshit) (Hardcover)

This commentary is radically unlike the typical Chumash you might pick up in a synagogue, or even the five-volume commentaries of Rashi and Ramban (also much more widely available than Ibn Ezra's work). While Rashi and congregational Chumashes focus on deriving broader meanings from the Torah's text, Ibn Ezra focuses like a laser beam on Hebrew grammar, trying to ascertain the text's plainest possible meaning,

On the negative side, this means that most of this book was over the head of readers who (like me) have limited understanding of Hebrew grammar- so I didn't get as much out of it as a more learned reader would.

But on the positive side, Ibn Ezra disdains fanciful interpretations that Midrashim and other commentators often employ- and when Ibn Ezra does speculate about nongrammatical issues, it makes sense and (at least in this translation) is sometimes well phrased.

To give one example: the Torah says that Leah's eyes were "weak" (Gen. 29:17). This phrase has summoned forth a variety of fanciful explanations (e.g. that Leah's eyes were weak from crying because of fear she might be destined to marry Esau). But Ibn Exra responds with verve: "Some ask, why were Leah's eyes weak? They raise this question because they believe God's thoughts are like their thoughts, and they think that all people have to be formed alike." In other words, some people are born with visual problems, and that's that. As someone whose paternal grandparents had "weak ears" (i.e. were very hard of hearing) I sympathize with Ibn Ezra's point of view. In response to another commentator who points out that if the letter alef had been added to the Hebrew word for weak (rakkkot) the meaning would change, Ibn Ezra responds that this commentator "was missing an alef."