Arama, Meir

Arama, Meir (also. called, by way. of distinction, הרב מאירי, " the Rabbi Meieri"), a Jewisiu; itwer, son of Isaac, was born in Saragossa. He accompanied his father to Naples in 1492, and after his death (1494) emigrated to Salonica, where he died in 1556. He wrote valuable annotations on Isaiah, Jeremiah; Job, the Psalms, the Song of Songs, and the book of Esther, which are distinguished for their brevity -and for logically evolving the sense of the inspired writers. "His style is very laconic, and being a thorough master of the Hebrew language, he generally gives the true sense of the Scriptures in a very few words, without taking the student through the process of verbal criticism, "as Ibn-Ezra does." His commentary on-Isaiah and Jeremiah, called אוּרַים ותֻמַּים, Light and, Perfection, and his exposition of the Song of Songs. are, printed in Frankfurter's great Rabbinical Bible (A msterdam, 172427, 4 vols. fol): the commentary on J:)f called אַיּוֹב מֵאַיר, which he wrote in 1506, was published in Venice, 1517-67; the commentary on then-, Psalms, תּהַלּוֹת מֵאַיר, composed in 1512, was published in Venice, 1590. See Kitto, Cyclop. s.v.; Furst, Bibl. Jud. i,'48 sq.; De Rossi, Dizionario Storico (Germ. transl.), p. 45 sq.; Lindo, Hist. of the Jews, p. 270; Finn, Siphardim, p. 414; Jost, Gesch. d. Judenth. u. s. Sekten, iii E, 119; Etheridge, Introd. to Hebrew Literature, p. 413.: ,(B. P.)'