the way from Bokhara to London, and now it enriches
our national collection— a manuscript that has turned
out to be of great importance to textual criticism as
well as to the art of Jewish illumination.
The peculiarity of the illuminations consists in
their exhibiting a mixture not only of French and
Flemish art, but of German and Italian, interspersed
with decorations of an Oriental character, more
especially Persian* A t the end, within richly illuminated
double borders, and in letters of gold, the
writer of the codex describes himself and the distinguished
patron for whom it was written as follows :
“ I, Samuel the Scribe, son of Rabbi Samuel Ibn
Musa— peace be upon him !— have written these four-
and-twenty books by the help of Him who is enthroned
between the cherubim, at the order of the
distinguished, etc., Rabbi Joseph, son of the honoured
° The manuscript consists of three volumes large quarto, the first
containing the Pentateuch, wherein not only is the first word of each of
the five books written in letters of gold, in a beautifully illuminated
border, occupying the space of six lines, but every one of the 53
pericopes, into which the Pentateuch is divided, is indicated by a rich
illumination in the margin containing the word KHQ (pericope) in letters
of gold. The second volume contains “ the Prophets ” in the following
order: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk,
Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The first page of each
of these prophets has a highly illuminated border, and the first word of
each book is not only written in letters of gold, but is in a square on a
beautiful groundwork of delicate penmanship. Two leaves separate the
earlier from the later prophets, and on these are written in the border, in
letters of gold, the celebrated Massorah registering the number of verses
in the Hebrew Bible ; and in ordinary ink the alphabetical list of hajtax
legomena, or words occurring only once with and once without the
letter 1 at the beginning. In volume iii., of 186 folios, the books are in
the following unusual order : Chronicles, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel,
Ruth. Canticles, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezra, and Nehe-
miah. After the sacred text are 9 folios, 7 of which are filled with
Massoretic and rabbinical lore.
Rabbi Jehudah, called Alchakim................. I finished the
manuscript in the month Kislev, on the sixth day o f
the week, on the preparation for the Sabbath, in the
year of the creation 5243 (i.e., a .d . 1483), in Lisbon.”
Hence, when I saw the manuscript at Moscow, I
was right in my supposition that it was of late date,
but Dr. Ginsburg says that even a cursory examination
shows that it is a careful copy of an ancient and model
codex, and that it in turn was designed for a model.*
Thus I lighted upon what Dr. Ginsburg says, so far
as he knows, is “ the most richly illuminated Hebrew
manuscript of the Old Testament in the world” ; and
though I did not know its full value until I reached
England, I was careful to ask in Bokhara whether
there were any more like it. T hey replied “ No.” I
confess, however, to leaving the city with a regret that
I did not make another effort, and search to the bottom
* This is evident not only from the careful and splendid manner in
which it is written and illuminated, but from the various readings given
in the margins as taken from renowned recensions. The most interesting
and important fact, however, is that the manuscript gives, in
the Pentateuch, two variations between the Westerns and Easterns,
which have hitherto been unknown. On Lev. xxvii. 24 it tells us
that the Westerns read WXP (maitto), whilst the Easterns have msa.
(maotho); and again, in Deut. xvi. 3, we are told 'that the words
“ For thou earnest forth out of the land of Egypt,” etc., which in
our Bibles are in the middle of the verse, are the Western division,
whilst according to the Eastern these words begin a new verse. In
Joshua xxi. the Bokhariot manuscript has the two verses, 36 and 37 in
the text, both with vowel points and accents, and remarks against them
in the margin, “ These two verses are not in the text in the Hillali
Codex. ’ ’ This manuscript has also some various readings that are interesting,
as for instance in Psalm lxxii. 5, where our version has “ They
shall fear Thee as long as the sun and moon endure,” we are told the
Hillali codex reads, “ The people of the sun [that is, of the East] shall
fear Thee.”
The manuscript in the British Museum is numbered “ Oriental
2626—8 ” ; but for further information see Dr. Ginsburg’s letter to the
Athenceum, page 409, March 31st, 1883.