CAHEN, SAMUEL—This celebrated Jewish ex positor of the Old Testament was born in Metz, August 4, 1796, of very poor parents. He began his studies by becoming a Bachor (nnz), diligent student of the Talmud, but was obliged to quit his parental roof in consequence of poverty, and went to Mayence, where the literati Gerson, Levy, Ter quem, Creiznach, etc., became his fellow-students and teachers, He thence went to Verdun, where he became the private tutor of a highly respectable family, and where, at the same time, he prepared himself for academic honours, which he soon ob tained in a highly creditable way. In 1822 he ac cepted the professorship of German in an academy at Versailles, which he soon relinquished for the office of secretary to the celebrated Alphonse de Beauchamp, and in 1824 was made Director of the Consistorial School at Paris, where he pub lished his riip tiipn Cours de lecture hlbzedque suivi de plusieurs fir/27es, avec tmez'zection inter/but/lire, et d'un petit vocabulaire hareu-frangais, Metz 1824, of which a second edition appeared in 1833. His richly endowed mind and great knowledge of Hebrew with its cognate languages, and of Jewish literature, were now almost entirely devoted to the elucidation of the word of God, the result of which was given to the student of the Sacred Scriptures in 1831 in the first volume of his gigan tic Biblical commentary, under the title of La Bible, traduclion nouvelle, avec Nehru en regard, accompagne des points-voyelles et des access toniques, avec des notes philologiques, glognaphiques, et litte naires,el les principales variantes de la version des sep tante et du terte samaritain. To render this work
as complete as possible, Cahen engaged the assist ance of some of the most distinguished Jewish scholars, viz., Munk, Terquem, Gerson, Dukes, and others. The whole was finished i83i, consisting of eighteen volumes. As might have been anticipated from these men, the commentary is a store-house of learning, and the student of the Old Testament will find important lore in the notes of and appendices to this remarkable production such as he will meet with nowhere else. The ten dency of the commentary is uneven, in some places it is conservative, and in others destructive. Thus, Gen. xlix. Cahen renders 'until he come to Shiloh,' taking Judah as the subject and Shiloh as denoting the city in the tribe of Benjamin (Josh. xviii. 1 ; 1 Sam. iv. 3), which has been done by some commentators of the middle ages (SHILOHJ, whereas Is. NE. t, he admits is a Messianic pre diction. Cahen died in Paris on the 8th of Jan uary 1862, and was followed to the grave by men of various sects and ranks.—C, D. G.