Good Teaching (Lekaḥ tov): On the First of the Ten Commandments

Tuviah ben Eliezer’s Hebrew Good Teaching (Lekaḥ tov) was written in Byzantium. Some Greek words are found in it, and, it has recently been argued, Tuviah recapitulated ideas of earlier authors from this region. Tuviah may have engaged with some of the Byzantine Karaites of his era, who were in the process of importing Karaite learning from the Jerusalem Karaite center. This work engages midrash extensively but is also attuned to the peshat (plain meaning) sense of scripture. This excerpt comments on the first commandment of the Decalogue, reflecting his rearrangement of earlier rabbinic midrash, such as the Mekhilta de-R. Ishmael. Tuviah’s stray grammatical comment about the singular form of the word your appears to be his own addition, a subtle interpretation of the rabbinic comment.