Yalkut haMachiri (Hebrew: ילקוט המכירי) is a work of midrash. Its author was Machir ben Abba Mari, but his country and the period in which he lived are not definitively known. Moritz Steinschneider[1] says that Machir lived in Provence; but his date remains a subject of discussion among modern scholars. Strack & Stemberger (1991) say that the work was most probably composed in the late 13th or 14th century.
Only the following parts of the Yalḳuṭ ha-Makiri are extant: Isaiah, published by I. Spira[3] from a Leyden manuscript; Psalms, published by S. Buber (Berdychev, 1899) from two manuscripts (one, previously in the possession of Joseph b. Solomon of Vyazhin, was used by David Luria, and its introduction was published by M. Straschun in Fuenn's Ḳiryah Ne'emanah, p. 304; the other is MS. No. 167 in the Bodleian Library); the twelve Minor Prophets;[4] Proverbs, extant in a manuscript which is in the possession of Grünhut,[5] and which was seen by Azulai,[6] published by Grünhut in Jerusalem in 5662 (= 1902).
Moses Gaster[7] attached great importance to Yalkut haMachiri, thinking that it was older than Yalkut Shimoni, the second part of which at least Gaster concluded was a bad adaptation from Yalkut haMachiri. Gaster's conclusions, however, were contested by A. Epstein,[8] who declares that Yalkut haMachiri is both inferior to and later than "Yalkut Shimoni." Buber conclusively proved[9] that the two works are independent of each other, that Machir lived later than the author of the "Yalkut Shimoni," and that he had not seen Yalkut Shimoni. Samuel Poznanski thinks that Machir lived in the fourteenth century.
^Compare S. Buber, Liḳḳutim mi-Midrash Eleh ha-Debarim Zuṭa, Introduction
^Berlin, 1894; compare Israel Lévi in R. E. J. xxviii. 300
^British Library, Harley MS 5704, for which compare A.W. Greenup, The Yalkut of R. Machir bar Abba Mari / ed., for the first time, from the unique MS. (Harley, 5704) in the British Museum, London 1909-1913 (3 vols.)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: M. Seligsohn (1901–1906). "MACHIR BEN ABBA MARI". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
