II. Translations. a. Hebrew.—As soon as European Jews heard of the existence of this work, they procured its translation into Hebrew. Two scholars, independently of each other, undertook the task: Samuel Ibn Tibbon and Jehudah al-Ḥarizi. There is, besides, in the Moreh ha-moreh of Shemṭob Palquera an original translation of some portions of the Moreh. In the Sifte yeshenim (No. 112) a rhymed translation of the Dalalat by Rabbi Mattityahu Kartin is mentioned. Ibn Tibbon’s version is very accurate; he sacrificed elegance of style to the desire of conscientiously reproducing the author’s work, and did not even neglect a particle, however unimportant it may appear. Ibn Tibbon went in his anxiety to retain peculiarities of the original so far as to imitate its ambiguities, e.g., meẓiut (I. lviii.) is treated as a masculine noun, only in order to leave it doubtful whether a pronoun which follows agrees with meẓiut, “existence,” or with nimẓa, “existing being,” both occurring in the same sentence (Br. Mus. MS. Harl. 7586, marg. note by Ibn Tibbon). When he met with passages that offered any difficulty he consulted Maimonides. Ḥarizi, on the other hand, was less conscientious about words and particles, but wrote in a superior style. Vox populi, however, decided in favour of the version of Ibn Tibbon, the rival of which became almost forgotten. Also Abraham, the son of Moses Maimonides, in Milḥamoth ha-shem, describes Ḥarizi’s version as being inaccurate. Most of the modern translations were made from Ibn Tibbon’s version. There are, therefore, MSS. of this version almost in every library containing collections of Hebrew books and MSS. It has the title Moreh-nebuchim. The British Museum has the following eight copies of Ibn Tibbon’s version:— Harl. 7586 A. This codex was written in the year 1284, for Rabbi Shabbatai ben Rabbi Mattityahu. In the year 1340 it came into the possession of Jacob b. Shelomoh; his son Menaḥem sold it in the year 1378 to R. Mattityahu, son of R. Shabbatai, for fifty gold florins. It was again sold in the year 1461 by Yeḥiel ben Joab. There is this peculiarity in the writing, that long words at the end of a line are divided, and written half on the one line, half on the next; in words which are vocalized, pataḥ is frequently found for ḳameẓ. There are numerous various readings in the margin. The text is preceded by a poem, written by Joseph Ibn Aknin, pupil of Maimonides, in praise of his master, and beginning Adon yiẓro. This poem is attributed to R. Yehudah ha-Levi (Luzzatto, in his Divan, Betulat-bat-Yehudah, p. 104). At the end the copyist adds an epigram, the translation of which is as follows:— “The Moreh is finished—Praise to Him who formed and created everything—written for the instruction and benefit of the few whom the Lord calleth. Those who oppose the Moreh ought to be put to death; but those who study and understand it deserve that Divine Glory rest upon them, and inspire them with a spirit from above.”