Judah Ḥayyūj’s Book on Verbs That Contain Weak and Lengthening Letters: Translator’s Introduction

Introduction

This is a book composed by a man of intelligence and learning, acquainted with Jewish grammar and understanding Hebrew logic. Hereafter shall his name and that of his father be famous, and at the end of all things shall he be celebrated as the head of philosophers and of those who understand the properties of the Hebrew language. Yet forasmuch as a strange people rules over us, and we are swallowed up among nations of a deep speech and of a hard language, and lions have scattered the dispersed sheep of Israel till the day when the judgment shall be set and the books opened; and forasmuch as the language of the sanctuary is lost among the languages of the world, and they who speak them are numerous as the sand, while we are left but few out of many, and the wisdom of our wise men has perished and the prudence of our prudent ones is hidden; and forasmuch as no one is left from whom we may learn the properties of the language, and none remaining from whom we may acquire all its meanings, but only what we may understand from the materials afforded in the holy scriptures, and learn from the prophetic books—though that is but a small portion of the whole, inasmuch as the prophets did not come to employ the language in its full extent, but only so far as they required for their prophecy and vision. For these reasons, therefore, Jewish grammarians were obliged to compose their works in Arabic, this being current in the mouth of a powerful people and easy of comprehension, while Hebrew was obscure; the former clear and intelligible, the latter of doubtful meaning; as it was proper to explain the obscure by the clear, the difficult by the intelligible. The men of France, however, who dwell in the dominions of our brethren the children of Esau [i.e., the Christians], do not for the most part understand Arabic, while they dearly love and are accustomed to speak the holy tongue.

Then the Lord stirred up the spirit of a man of understanding, a desirable young man (Ezekiel 23:6), delighting in the law of the Lord, R. Isaac ha-Na’im son of R. Solomon ha-Nasi, and he sought to understand the meaning of the book composed by R. Judah, son of R. David of the city of Fez, surnamed Ḥayyūj, and to surmount the difficulties of it. And nothing was found in all the language more difficult and obscure than the verbs and nouns containing the letters alef, heh, vav, yod, known in Arabic as “weak letters,” whether at their beginning, middle, or end, and also the verbs of which the second and third radicals are the same [ . . . ]. Accordingly, the author selected these for explanation, because that when this is done, the other secrets of the Hebrew language will be revealed to anyone who can argue from one thing to another, from the particular to the general; as it is said: Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser (Proverbs 9:9). And inasmuch as we do not find all the expressions used in Arabic in the holy tongue, either because we do not possess the latter in its fullness, or that the former does not correspond to our language in all its idioms, each word cannot be adequately rendered without circumlocution and management, so that for one Arabic phrase of our author several words must be employed to bring out the full meaning of the original and fix it in the mind of the reader.—And R. Isaac requested me, Moses ha-Kohen, the son of R. Samuel ha-Kohen of the city of Córdoba, to translate for him this book into Hebrew, and this accordingly have I done.

I will begin my work by saying, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: He is the living God and eternal King; immortal, while all living beside Him shall die; wise, without folly, whereas all wise except Him are fools; strong, without weakness, while all strong beside Him are weak; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding, He reveals the deep and secret things, He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with Him. But where shall wisdom be found, seeing it is hidden from the eyes of all living? Though a man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it. Yet for all this, should he not refuse to learn and to instruct, or cease to enlighten himself and others according to his ability, the extent of his strength, and the reach of his hand. For from the Lord is the answer of the tongue: the Lord gives wisdom, out of His mouth comes knowledge and understanding.” And in His great Name will I, Moses ha-Kohen, begin the translation of this book.