Machir ben Judah was a French Jewish scholar of the tenth and eleventh centuries, born at

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand ...

, and brother of R.

Gershom According to the Bible, Gershom ( ''Gēršōm'', "a sojourner there"; la, Gersam) was the primogeniture, firstborn son of Moses and Zipporah. The name means "a stranger there" in Hebrew, ( ''ger sham''), which the text argues was a reference to ...

"the Light of the Exile" (''Me'or ha-Golah''). He is known by his dictionary entitled ''Alfa Beta de-R. Makir'', not extant, but quoted often by

Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki ( he, רבי שלמה יצחקי; la, Salomon Isaacides; french: Salomon de Troyes, 22 February 1040 – 13 July 1105), today generally known by the acronym Rashi (see below), was a medieval French rabbi and author of a compre ...

RaSHBaM Samuel ben Meir (Troyes, c. 1085 – c. 1158), after his death known as "Rashbam", a Hebrew acronym for RAbbi SHmuel Ben Meir, was a leading French Tosafist and grandson of Shlomo Yitzhaki, "Rashi". Biography He was born in the vicinity of Tro ...

, Eliezer b. Nathan, Jacob Tam, and other

tosafist The Tosafot, Tosafos or Tosfot ( he, תוספות) are medieval commentaries on the Talmud. They take the form of critical and explanatory glosses, printed, in almost all Talmud editions, on the outer margin and opposite Rashi's notes. The auth ...

s. As the title indicates, the dictionary was arranged in alphabetical order, and from the many quotations by Rashi in his commentary on the Talmud (Ḥul. 20b; Pes. 50a et passim) it seems that it dealt chiefly with the difficult words and passages of the Talmud; but (by Rashi) he is quoted also for the interpretation of the word ''boṭnim'', in . Machir adopted for the most part the interpretations of his brother, who was

Nathan ben Jehiel Nathan ben Jehiel of Rome (Hebrew: נתן בן יחיאל מרומי; ''Nathan ben Y'ḥiel Mi Romi'' according to Sephardic pronunciation) ( 1035 – 1106) was a Jewish Italian lexicographer. He authored the Arukh, a notable dictionary of Talmu ...

's teacher. Still he sometimes differed from his brother in the interpretation of words, and in such cases Nathan often adopted the opinion of Machir (comp. Jacob Tam, ''Sefer ha-Yashar'', p. 58b), though he never quotes him in his '' 'Aruk''. The quotations from Machir by Rashi and the other rabbis mentioned above were collected by Solomon L. Rapoport in his biography of Nathan b. Jehiel ('' Bikkure ha-'Ittim'', x. 8, xi. 82).

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Machir Ben Judah 10th-century French rabbis 11th-century French rabbis French lexicographers Rabbis from Metz French male non-fiction writers