Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael

This tannaitic midrash to the book of Exodus, which nevertheless contains much aggadah (narrative or story) in the form of ethical teachings, parables, legends, proverbs, and maxims, is attributed to the school of R. Ishmael. Compiled in the third century CE, the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael provides a nearly complete verse-by-verse commentary, beginning from Exodus 12:1.

The Ishmaelian midrashim limit the freedom of the interpreter and cast scripture as the lead agent and exemplar in its own interpretation. Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Nezikin 16:1, is a brief halakhic unit that exemplifies the relatively constrained exegetical method of the Ishmaelian school. The operative exegetical principle in this teaching is that a specific statement encompasses the more general as well (u-perat u-kelal, “the specific and the general”). By contrast, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Beshallaḥ 1:90, is an aggadic unit about the Israelites’ removal of Joseph’s coffin from Egypt and serves as an excellent example of how ancient interpreters engaged in inner-biblical interpretation; that is, they used the scripture to interpret itself.