RASHBAM (nz"v-1) is the acrostic of ) t..:Inty, Rabbi Samuel b. Meier, the cele brated commentator and Tosafist, and Rashi's daughter's son. He was born at Ramero about '085, and died about r 154. Till the beginning of the last century this exquisite scholar was chiefly known as having completed the commentaries on certain tractates of the Talmud (viz., Pesachim, Baba Bathra, etc.), which his grandfather Rashi had left unfinished, and by his discussions on sundry legal points in the Pentateuch which are embodied in the Tossaphoth. In 1705, however, his commentary on the Five Books of Moses, en titled C.MD, the Exposition of Rashbam, was for the first time published in the edition of the Hebrew Pentateuch, with the Haphtaroth, the Five Megilloth, the Massorah, the three Chaldee paraphrases, the Chaldee paraphrases of the Me gilloth, the second Chaldee paraphrase of Esther, the commentaries of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Jacob b. Asher, Aaron Pesaro, David Kimchi on the Haphtaroth, etc., Berlin 1705—which at once established his reputation as one of the most dis tinguished expositors of the Scriptures belonging to the French school. Rashbam's commentary, which was published from Oppenheim's MS., begins with Gen. xviii. and ends with Deut. xxxiii. 3. It was republished in this imperfect condition in the excellent edition of the Hebrew Pentateuch, with the Chaldee paraphrases, sundry commen taries, etc., Amsterdam 1727.29, though it was evi dent from his quotations (Gen. xxv. 27 ; Exod. xiv. 30 ; xx. to ; Lev. ii. 1), as well as from the writings of others (comp. Jacob b. Asher on Gen. iv. 26), that the other portions existed in MS. The erudite and indefatigable Geiger published, from a Munich MS., a portion of this missing commentary, extending from Gen. i. I to 31, in the Hebrew Annual called Zero,: Chemed, vol. viii. p. 41-51, Berlin 1854, and it is to be regretted that this portion is not inserted in the excellent edition of the Pentateuch, with sundry Rabbinic commentaries, published at Vienna 1859, in which Rashbam's commentary is given. A super-com
mentary, entitled rip, the Horn of Samuel, on Rashbam's exposition, by S. Hessel, was lished in Frankfort-on-the-Oder 1721. Rashbam also wrote (J-6= vp.S1 Ulit) A Commentary on the Five Megilloth, of which only that on two Me gilloth—viz., the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes —has been published by Jellinek, Leipzig 1855. Excerpts from the other three Megilloth are given in ro+N) Tllt iroN invre, edited by the same indefatigable scholar, Leipzig 1855. An English translation of the first chapter of the com mentary on Ecclesiastes is given by Ginsburg, Historical and Critical Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Longman, 1861, p. 42-46. The commentary on the Psalms, edited by Isaac Satanov, Berlin 1794, and reprinted Vienna 1816, which is ascribed to Rashbam, is not his. He also completed Rashi's commentary on Job, and we learn from the quota tions by the expositors of the north of France school, that he both wrote independent commen taries and glosses to Rashi's comments on the whole O. T. The extraordinary influence which his literal, grammatical, and exegetical commen taries exercised upon his contemporary fellow labourers, may be judged of from the fact, that no less a person than his own grandfather—the im mortal Rashi—was convinced by the soundness of Rashbam's principles of interpretation, and de clared to him, that if he had to re-write his exposi tions, he would adopt those principles of interpre lion. Comp. Rashbam's Commentary on Gen. xxxvii. 2 ; Geiger, Golly] p. Bres lau 1847. By the same author, Parschandata, p. 20-24 ; Furst, Bibliotheca yiedaica, iii. 239, etc. —C. D. G.