COMMENTARY ON PSALMS, RABBI JOSEPH JABEZ, SALONIKA: JOSEPH BEN ISAAC [JABEZ], 1571

Rabbi Joseph Jabez (d. 1507) was a Sephardic preacher and exegete who, following the expulsion of 1492, wandered to Lisbon, Sicily, Naples, and finally settled in Mantua, becoming an honored member of that community. Much of his surviving oeuvre concerns matters of faith, and especially his opposition to philosophical inquiry, to which he attributed the choice by many of his countrymen to convert to Christianity rather than suffer exile. Jabez also composed two commentaries, on Pirkei avot (Adrianople, 1555) and on Psalms, the present lot comprising a copy of the latter. This volume was published by Jabez’s grandson and namesake Joseph in Salonika, not long before he would join his brother Solomon in Constantinople. The printer notes at the book’s close that the commentary on a number of psalms (113-150) was stolen.