HILALI, or HELALI CODEX (t•brl ltD), one of the most ancient and most celebrated codices of the Hebrew Scriptures, which derived its name front the fact that it was written at HiHa (n9t•bri ; Arab. L.51.,), a town built near the ruins of ancient Babel. Others, however, main tain that it was called Hilali because the name of the man wbo wrote it was HiIlel. But whatever uncertainty there may be about the de rivation of its name, there can hardly be any doubt that it was written A.D. 600, for Sakkuto tells us most distinctly that when he saw the re mainder of it (circa 150o), the Codex was goo years old. His words are--4 In the year 4956, on the 28th of Ab (1196, better 1197), there was a great persecution of the Jews in the kingdom of Leon from the two kingdoms that came to besiege it. It was there that the twenty-four sacred books which were written long ago, about the year 600, by R. Moses b. Hill& (on which account the Codex was called Hilali), in an exceedingly cor rect manner, and after which all the copies were corrected, were taken away. I saw the remaining two portions of it—viz., the earlier and later pro phets—written in large and beautiful characters, which were brought to Portugal and sold in Africa, where they still are, having been written 90o years ago. Kimchi, in his Grammar on Num. xv. 4,
says that the Pentateuch of this Codex was extant in Toleti' (2ochassin ed. Filipowski, London 1857, p. 2zo). The Codex had the Tiberian vowels and accents, Massora and Nikud glosses, and it served up tO A.D. 1500 as a model from which copies were made. This Codex which Haja had in Baby lon about A.D. I000, was conveyed to Leon in Spain, where the greater part of it became a prey to the fury of the martial hosts who sacked the Jewish dwellings in r197. The celebrated gram marian, Jacob b. Eleazar, fixed the renderings of the Biblical text according to this Codex [JAcon B. ELEAZAR], and the older philologians frequently quote it. Comp. Graetz, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vi. 132, 229; Fiirst, Geschichte des Kariier Mums, Leipzig 1862, pp. 22, 138 ; Kimchi, Rada- cum Liber ed. Biesenthal et Lebrecht, Berolini 1847, p. 26.—C. D. G.