Yalkut haMachiri


Yalkut haMachiri is a work of midrash. Its author was Machir ben Abba Mari, but not even his country or the period in which he lived are definitively known. Moritz Steinschneider supposes that Machir lived in Provence; but the question of his date remains a subject of discussion among modern scholars. indicate that the work was most probably composed in the late 13th or 14th century.

Contents

Yalkut haMachiri is similar in its contents to Yalkut Shimoni, with the difference that while the latter covers the whole Bible, haMachiri covers only the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the twelve Minor Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs, and Job.
In the introductions, apparently very similar, to these books, Machir gave his motivation in composing the work: to gather the scattered aggadic teachings into one group. He seems to have thought it unnecessary to do the same thing for the Pentateuch and the Five Scrolls, as it had been done already in Midrash Rabbah; but it may be concluded that Machir intended to make such a compilation on the earlier prophetical books as well. From his introduction to the part on Isaiah, it would seem that he began with Psalms and finished with Isaiah, though in his introduction to the part on the Psalms he mentions the other parts.

Significance

attached great importance to Yalkut haMachiri, thinking that it was older than Yalkut Shimoni, the second part of which at least Gaster concluded was a bad adaptation from Yalkut haMachiri. Gaster's conclusions, however, were contested by A. Epstein, who declares that Yalkut haMachiri is both inferior to and later than "Yalkut Shimoni." Buber conclusively proved that the two works are independent of each other, that Machir lived later than the author of the "Yalkut Shimoni," and that he had not seen Yalkut Shimoni. Samuel Poznanski thinks that Machir lived in the fourteenth century.