David Kimhi

David ben Joseph Kimchi (also David Qimchi ), also known by the acronym Radak (* 1160 in Narbonne, † 1235 ibid ) was a Jewish grammarian and exegete.

He was the son of Rabbi Joseph Kimchi studied with his brother Moses Kimchi and took in his home town of Narbonne part in public affairs. Between 1205 and 1218 he was involved in a conviction of various persons from Barcelona, ​​which dishonored the memory of Rashi. During the Maimonidesstreits he undertook in 1232 a trip to Toledo to win the support of the followers of Judah ibn Al- Fakar for Maimonides. Because of an outbreak of a disease he could not reach his goal, but his defense of Maimonides and his followers as well as the criticism of Ibn Al- Fakar over kimchi have been preserved in the correspondence between the two.

His first work was a philological treatise on the Hebrew language called Mikhlol ( " totality, wholeness " ), divided into a grammatical part of which appeared in Constantine Opel in 1532, and a lexicon, which before 1480 as Sefer ha - Schoraschim ( "Book of Roots " ) was published. His most important contribution to the Hebrew grammar is on the presentation of the material and the popularization of renewals of his father and his brother. The Mikhlol has been criticized by many scholars as unconventional, but also found support, including in the writings of Elijah Levita, and thanks to this work, the most comparable works by Kimchi predecessors have been forgotten. Even Christian Hebrew scholar such as Johannes Reuchlin and Sebastian Münster were based on the philological work of David Kimchi.

Much of the material from the Mikhlol appeared together in Et Sofer ( " pen of the writer " ), a handbook for copyists of the Bible. Here are primarily questions like Qere and Ketiv, ie Differences between the read and the text written in the Masoretic text of the Torah, treated. His exegetical activity began Kimchi with a comment on the 1st and 2nd Chronicles. Later he also wrote Notes on Genesis, all the prophets and the Book of Psalms.

Kimchi was very well read in philosophical and scientific literature, and was heavily influenced by the rationalism of Abraham ibn Ezra and Maimonides. Often he used philosophical allusions as an aid to exegesis as well as for general distribution of religious studies. He did not develop their own philosophical theories, but rather leaned in most cases to Maimonides.