Sifre Devarim

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Sifre Devarim
Name
Sifre Devarim
ספרי דברים
Dates3rd century
PlaceEretz Yisrael
Characteristics
Sources
Impacted on

Background1

Names

  • Common name – ספרי דברים2
  • Other names – 

Date

3rd century

Place

SifDeut was redacted in Eretz Yisrael.

Language

Mishnaic Hebrew

Text

  • Manuscripts – The best manuscript of SifDeut is ms Vatican 32.  Other important manuscripts include London 341, Oxford 151, and Berlin Tubingen 1594.33. These manuscripts are near-complete versions of SifDeut. There are also partial manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah and others.3
  • Printings – L. Finkelstein published a critical edition in 1939 in Berlin, which was republished in New York in 1969.4 The text for the edition was based on the four major available manuscripts (see above, Manuscripts) and the first edition, as well as several Genizah fragments and secondary citations.
  • Textual layers – Scholarly consensus is that the main unit of SifDeut (from Devarm 12:1-26:15, piskaot 59-303) was supplemented with material from other sources that form the units on 6:4-9 and 11:13-21 (both passages from Shema), piskaot 31-36 and 41-47, and perhaps other sections.5

Content

Genre

  • – midrash halakhah

Structure

  • – SifDeut covers six distinct units in Devarim:
    1:1-30, 3:23-29, 6:4-9, 11:10-26:15, 31:14, 32:1-34:12.
    The printed versions are divided into sections called piskaot.6

Characteristics

  • – See Introduction to the Midreshei Halakhah.

Sources

Significant Influences

Occasional Usage

Possible Relationship

Impact

Other Midrashim

  • – 

Medieval Exegetes

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

Supercommentaries

  • – Important commentaries to SifDeut by Rishonim include those of Rabbenu Hillel7 and Raavad,8 among others.9 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).
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