\VILNA, ELIJAH, also called the Pious (TWIN). This remarkable Hebraist and commentator, who endeavoured to produce a reformation among the Jews in Poland at the same time that Mendelssolin and Wessely were labouring to the same effect in Germany [MENDELSSOHN ; WESSELY], was born at Wilna I72o. His natural endowments were so extraordinary that when eleven years old he was not only a thorough Hebraist, but unravelled the mysteries of the Kabbalah [KABBALAH1, and was master of astronomy, geometry, grammar, etc. ; and at the age of thirteen (1733) was appealed to as a great authority and teacher. In addition to his marvellous native powers he possessed a real love for learning, and great assiduity, as well as an independent fortune, and lived to be seventy-seven years of age (i.e. to 1797). It is therefore not surprising that up to the year r 76o he wrote the pro digious number of sixty volumes, in explanation of both the Scriptures and the traditional law, that he was visited by the Rabbins from far and wide as the oracle of the Jewish nation ; that the year of his birth was described by the words of Malachi (iii. 23 Heb., iv. 5, Engl.), I am sending you Elijah' orrx cn5 +118 + 3o + 30.-1-16+n5+,10+3.+Ni+n40+20+530 =4s., i.e. 17zo), as the advent of Elijah, in sion to his name ; and that the year of his death was indicated by the ascension of Elijah or6stri1531—i.e.
+n 5+4 io+30+1+r1400+16 301-317o =558, or 1797), in allusion to Kin,gs 1, IL Fifty-four of his works appeared between 18oz and 1854, and as it is beyond the limits of this notice to describe them all, we shall confine ourselves to those works which are more immediately connected with the Hebrew Scriptures and Biblical literature.
These are as follows :—(i.) A commentary on the Pentateuch, entitled The Mantle of Elijah (Mils:.
In+9K) , in allusion to 2 Kings ii. 13, and to his own name, first printed in the excellent edition of the Hebrew Pentateuch with the Great and Small Massora, the Chaldee Paraphrases, the commen taries of Rashi and Sephorno, as well as with the criti cal apparatus of Norzi 11111n), the commentaries on the Massora by Solomon Dobrowiner (rim= rin5v), and his son Feivel Dobrowiner airun Dobrowna 1804, and again at Halberstadt 1859-60. The commentary on Leviticus was pub lished separately, with the Hebrew text, Rashi's comment., etc., at Constantinople ISIS. (2..) A commentary on Isaiah i.-xii., and IIabakkuk, edited and supplemented by his grandson, Jacob Moses of Slonim, Wilna 1820, zd ed. ibid. 1843. (3.) A commentary on Jonah, published, togethe with his explanations of Talmudic Agadas, \Vilna r300, and separately Prague 1303. (.4..) A com. mentary on Proverbs, Sklov 1798, Prague 1815, and Warsaw 1333. (5.) A commentary on Job i.-vi., Warsaw 1354. (6.) A commentary on the Song of Songs, Prague 1811, Warsaw 1842. (7.) A commentary on Chronicles, \Vilna IS2o, ibid.
1843. (ro.) A Hebrew Grammar (1rt'N \Vilna 1333. (IL) A Topographical Description of Palestine, and a treatise on the Solomonic Temple (11'Zil .11`)3711 rto nilv Sklov 1802. (12.) A commentary on the third or Ezekiel's Temple (Thn't ronr, ronn), or on Ezek. xl.-xlvii., Berlin 1322 (comp. Jost, Geschichte des 7ztdenthums, 248, ff., Leipzig 1359 ; Furst, Bibliotheca Yudaica, iii. 516-320. —C. D. G.