ר׳ אברהם בן מאיר אבן עזרא

ר׳ אברהם בן מאיר אבן עזרא (conventionally 1089–1167), known as ראב״ע, was a Spanish Jewish biblical commentator, Hebrew poet, grammarian, translator, mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. Probably born at Tudela, he spent roughly his first fifty years in Muslim Iberia, where he formed a close intellectual friendship with ר׳ יהודה הלוי and wrote Hebrew sacred and secular verse. Around 1140 he left Iberia and began the exceptionally well-documented European wanderings that made him a principal transmitter of Andalusian Judaeo-Arabic learning to Hebrew-reading communities. In Rome, Lucca, Mantua, Verona, Béziers, Rouen, London and Narbonne he produced biblical commentaries, grammatical books, translations and scientific manuals, often dating them by place. His commentaries privilege contextual meaning, grammar, Masoretic detail, comparison with Arabic and rational scientific explanation, while also preserving deliberately cryptic “secrets.” His compact style generated a large supercommentary tradition. He translated works of ר׳ יהודה בן דוד חיוג׳ and adapted Arabic scientific terminology into Hebrew; his astronomical, calendrical, arithmetical and astrological writings circulated in Hebrew and Latin. In London he composed יסוד מורא and אגרת השבת. Hundreds of poems survive, including אגדלך, כי אשמרה שבת and צמאה נפשי. His final years and place of death are uncertain, but manuscript evidence supports 1167. His enduring importance lies both in original biblical interpretation and in carrying the intellectual culture of al-Andalus across Christian Europe.