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Sifre Bemidbar

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Sifre Bemidbar

Name	Sifre Bemidbar ספרי במדבר
Dates	3rd century
Place	Eretz Yisrael
Characteristics
Sources
Impacted on

Background¹

Names

• Common name – ספרי במדבר²
• Other names – ספרי דבי רב, ספרי רבתי, ספר וידבר, מכילתא וידבר³

Date

3rd century⁴

Place

SifNum was redacted in Eretz Yisrael.

Language

Mishnaic Hebrew

Text

• Manuscripts – The best manuscript of SifNum is ms Vatican 32.⁵ Other important manuscripts include London 341, Oxford 151, Berlin Tubingen 1594.33, eight leaves of Firkovich II A 269.⁶
• Printings – 
  The first critical edition was published by H. Horovitz (Leipzig, 1917).⁷
  A new critical edition based on all known manuscript and citation evidence was published by M. Kahana (Jerusalem, 2011) in three volumes. The first volume contains the text of SifNum to Naso and Behaalotecha, with critical notes, parallels, and textual variants, along with an interim edition of the rest of SifNum containing only the text and critical notes. The second volume contains an extensive critical commentary to SifNum on Naso, and the third volume contains Kahana’s commentary to SifNum on Behaalotecha.
• Textual layers – SifNum is marked by a significant number of expositions or opinions whose placement either interrupts the flow of the discourse, or is out of order in relation to the verses. This may imply that an additional stratum was inserted following an initial redaction.⁸

Content

Genre

• – midrash halakhah

Structure

• – SifNum covers eleven distinct units in Bemidbar:
  5:1-7:19,7:84-8:4, 8:23-9:14, 10:1-10, 10:29-12:16, 15:1-41, 18:1-19:22, 25:1-14, 26:52-56, 27:1-31:24, 35:9-34.
  SifNum was originally partitioned into two “sefarim”: Sefer Vayedaber and Sefer Zot (named after the opening words in the verses they first expound, respectively, 5:1 and 19:2). Each of these sefarim is divided into subtopics, which are further subdivided into “baraitot”.⁹

Characteristics

• – See Introduction to the Midreshei Halakhah.

Sources

Significant Influences

Occasional Usage

Possible Relationship

Impact

Other Midrashim

• – 

Medieval Exegetes

• – SifNum was widely known and used by medieval exegetes.

Supercommentaries

• – Important commentaries to SifNum by Rishonim include those of Rabbenu Hillel¹⁰ and Raavad,¹¹ among others.¹² Significant commentaries by Acharonim include those of R. David Pardo (ספרי דבי רב), R. Meir Friedmann-Ish Shalom (מאיר עין)  and R. Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin (Netziv) (עמק הנציב).

¹ This section incorporates information from M. Kahana, "The Halakhic Midrashim" in The Literature of the Sages Part II, ed. Safrai et al. (Assen, 2006): 3-105 (hereafter: Kahana).

² This page will use the abbreviation SifNum.

³ For other names, see J.N. Epstein, Studies in Talmudic Literature and Semitic languages, ed E.Z. Melamed,
vol 2, (Jerusalem, 1988): 183-189.

⁴ SifNum contains only a few statements of Tannaim from the generation after R. Yehudah Hanasi, possibly indicating a relatively early date of redaction in comparison with other midreshei halakhah. See Kahana: 91.

⁵ Its superiority is evident through several features that indicate it preserves an early, untampered, version of the text. Such features include baraitot that were not edited to fit with parallels in the Talmud Bavli, a version of the Mishnah that differs from the extant version (and that was emended in other SifNum versions), and various linguistic and stylistic peculiarities. See Kahana: 89.

⁶ For a fuller listing of manuscripts, see M. Kahana, Manuscripts of the Halakhic Midrashim: An Annotated Catalogue (Jerusalem, 1995): 89-94, and Kahana 89, note 437. For a transcription of all Genizah fragments, see M. Kahana., The Genizah Fragments of the Halakhic Midrashim 1 (Jerusalem 2005): 187-213.

⁷ The text was based on the Venice 1546 edition, with corrections and additions from the Vatican 32 and London 341 manuscripts, as well as medieval citations. The edition includes parallels and a concise commentary. This edition is now outdated, as much new manuscript and other evidence has come to light. See also Kahana: 89 for a summary of critiques of Horovitz’s approach.

⁸ The fact that some of these apparent later insertions are cited in the name of R. Yehudah Hanasi (or are cited anonymously in SifNum, but attributed to R. Yehudah Hanasi elsewhere), in addition to the fact that R. Yehudah Hanasi’s statements that do not seem out of place in the discourse are often cited at the end of expositions, has led scholars to believe that the later stratum added to SifNum issued from בי רבי – the school of R. Yehudah Hanasi. See Kahana: 91.

⁹ A later division partitioned SifNum by exposition on each verse, and thus the label סליק פסוקא appears at the end of these sections.

¹⁰ S. Koleditzky published this commentary twice in Jerusalem, in 1948 and 1985, the second time basing the edition on a different manuscript. According to Kahana, both editions are somewhat flawed. See M. Kahana, “The Commentary of Rabbenu Hillel to the Sifre,” Kiryat Sefer 63 (1990): 271-80.

¹¹ The commentary was traditionally attributed to Raavad, but scholarly consensus is that it was not authored by Raavad. See the critical edition H. Basser, Pseudo-Rabad: Commentary to Sifre Numbers (Atlanta 1998), and Kahana: 90, note442.

¹² See Kahana:90, note 445.