On The Book of
Exodus
By
U. Cassuto
Late Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Translated from the Hebrew by
Israel abrahams
Professor of Hebrew, University of Cape Town
The Hebrew University Magnes Press, Jerusalem
מ.ד. קאסוטו׃ פירוש על ספר שמות
First published in Hebrew, Jerusalem 1951
Reprinted in 1953, 1959, 1965, 1969, 1974 and 1982
First English edition, Jerusalem 1967
Reprinted 1974, 1983, 1987, 1997
©
All Rights Reserved
By the Magnes Press
The Hebrew University
Jerusalem, 1997
ISBN 965-223-456-7
The late Professor Umberto Cassuto ז״ל—Magnes Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University—had originally planned to write in Hebrew a monumental commentary on the Bible that would comprise a series of detailed expositions of the Book of Genesis, and less elaborate commentaries, consisting of one volume to each book, devoted to the remaining four books of the Pentateuch. It was also his intention to compose a compendious Introduction to the Torah as a whole, and a comprehensive commentary on the Book of Psalms. Unhappily the author died after completing only three of his commentaries (two on Genesis and one on Exodus), preceded by a smaller work dealing, in the form of lectures, with the Documentary Hypothesis as a whole, in which he summarized his larger Italian book La Questione della Genesi. The present volume, A Commentary on The Book of Exodus, is the last of the commentaries to be rendered into English.
The untimely demise of Cassuto was undoubtedly a major tragedy in the field of Biblical scholarship. The few commentaries, however, that the great savant was able to bequeath to the world constitute a veritable storehouse of Scriptural learning and lore, whose value for both the student and lay reader of Holy Writ cannot be overestimated. It would be invidious, and in truth pointless, to compare the respective merite of the exegetical works that Cassuto has left us. Each book serves its assigned purpose with profound erudition and consummate expositional skill. Yet the Commentary on Exodus is unquestionably outstanding in a number of respects deserving of our special attention.
The contents of the second book of the Pentateuch, apart from all other considerations, endow this volume with exceptional importance. In the words of our author: ‘we must realise that is the book whose significance is so great in the history of Israel and all mankind.’ It is in Exodus that we find the initial description of the Revelation on Mount Sinai and the first version of the Decalogue. The spiritual concepts inherent in the Ten Commandments are fundamental to the entire structure of Biblical religious and ethical teaching, constituting, as it were, the base of a pyramid whose apex is love of God expressed in loving-kindness towards man.
The form of this commentary also differentiates it from the two exegetical volumes on Genesis. It is larger and at the same time briefer than the books entitled From Adam To Noah ...
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About A Commentary on the Book of ExodusIn this volume, A commentary on the Book of Exodus, Cassuto’s comments have a vivid quality seldom found in the exegetical writings of other biblical expositors, who all too often prefer a jejune and lifeless approach to their subject. Cassuto succeeds in injecting a sense of dramatic excitement into his interpretations. Without neglecting the scientific data provided by archeological and philological research, he makes us conscious of the literary attributes of the Bible. This work does not separate the annotations from the Biblical text, but forms a continuous, unified commentary in which the Scriptural citations are interlinked with the exposition. The elements are so closely and artistically interwoven as to form a new literary entity—not a text with notes, but a homogeneous expository work, which must rank among the finest modern contributions to the treasury of biblical learning. Umberto Cassuto was an Italian historian and Biblical and Semitic scholar. He began to make a name in the world of scholarship by virtue of a series of articles mainly on the history of Jews in Italy. In 1912 he began to publish important papers and books on Bible studies. All his works are of great significance to this day. Cassuto died in 1951. |
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