דוד אבן ביליה

David ben Yom Tov ibn Bilia (דוד אבן ביליה) was a rishon of Portugal, a rav, philosopher and poet, who lived in the first half of the fourteenth century. He wrote a great deal, on many subjects, and much of it is lost and known only from what later writers quote.

Among the lost works was Meor Einayim, a peirush on the Torah, cited by Caspi and by Rabbi Levi ben Gershon, the Ralbag, and above all by his fellow Portuguese Shmuel Zarza, who often faulted its interpretations as too mystical. His Yesodot HaMaskil, a work of Jewish philosophy, survives; S. Klein printed it, with a French translation, in the collection Divrei Chachamim at Metz in 1849. In it he set out thirteen principles of belief to stand alongside the thirteen of the Rambam, among them: that there exist intellects without bodies; that the world was created; that there is a life to come; that the soul emanates from Hashem and exists through its own substance and its awareness of itself, apart from the body it later occupies; that the soul receives reward and punishment, and that the souls of the wicked perish; that the Torah of Moshe stands above philosophy; that Scripture carries a hidden meaning as well as a plain one; and that no emendation of the text of the Torah may be allowed.

Other works of his that have been preserved cover astronomy (Tziyurim), medicine and astronomy (Klal Katan), medicine (Briut HaChayim, translated from the Latin), logic (Klalei HaHigayon), and the writing of verse (Derech Laasot Charuzim). In halacha he wrote a peirush on the thirteen middot by which the Torah is expounded, the Peirush Yud-Gimmel Middot.

Biography © 2026 TorahSages · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · torahsages.com/sages/david-ben-yom-tov-ibn-bilia · Copyright & Licensing