The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael ( IPA /məˈχiltɑ/, "a collection of rules of interpretation") is midrash halakha to the Book of Exodus. The Jewish Babylonian Aramaic title Mekhilta corresponds to the Mishnaic Hebrew term "measure," "rule", and is used to denote a compilation of exegesis ( middot; compare talmudical hermeneutics).
First mention
Neither the Babylonian Talmud nor the Jerusalem Talmud mention this work under the name "Mekhilta," nor does the word appear in any of the passages of the Talmud in which the other halakhic midrashim, Sifra and Sifre, are named. It seems to be intended, however, in one passage which runs as follows: "R. Josiah showed a Mekhilta from which he cited and explained a sentence." The text quoted by R. Josiah can be found in the extant version of the Mekhilta, Mishpatim.
It is not certain, however, whether the word "mekhilta" here refers to the work under consideration, for it may allude to a baraita collection, which might also be designated a mekhilta.
On the other hand, this midrash, apparently in written form, is mentioned several times in the Talmud under the title She'ar Sifre debe Rav "The Other Books of the Schoolhouse". A geonic responsum in which appears a passage from the Mekhilta likewise indicates that this work was known as She'ar Sifre debe Rav. The first individual to mention the Mekhilta by name was the author of the Halakhot Gedolot.
Another geonic responsum refers to the text as the Mekhilta dʻEreṣ Yisrael, probably to distinguish it from the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, which was generally known in the Babylonian schools.
Authorship
The author or redactor of the Mekhilta cannot be definitely ascertained. Nissim ben Jacob and Samuel ibn Naghrillah refer to it as the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, thus ascribing the authorship to Ishmael. Maimonides likewise says: "R. Ishmael interpreted from 've'eleh shemot' to the end of the Torah, and this explanation is called 'Mekhilta.' R. Akiva also wrote a Mekhilta." This Ishmael, however, is neither an amora by the name of Ishmael as Zecharias Frankel assumed, nor Judah ha-Nasi's contemporary, Ishmael ben Jose, as Gedaliah ibn Yaḥya thought. He is, on the contrary, Ishmael ben Elisha, Rabbi Akiva's contemporary, as is shown by the passage of Maimonides quoted above.
The present Mekhilta cannot, however, be the one composed by Ishmael, as is proved by the references in it to Ishmael's pupils and to other later tannaim. Both Maimonides and the author of the Halakhot Gedolot, moreover, refer, evidently on the basis of a tradition, to a much larger Mekhilta extending from Exodus 1 to the end of the Torah, while the midrash here considered discusses only certain passages of Exodus. It must be assumed, therefore, that Ishmael composed an explanatory midrash to the last four books of the Torah, and that his pupils amplified it.
A later editor, intending to compile a halakhic midrash to Exodus, took Ishmael's work on the book, beginning with ch. 12, since the first eleven chapters contained no references to the halakhah. He even omitted passages from the portion which he took, but (by way of compensation) incorporated much material from the other halakhic midrashim, Sifra, the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon, and the Sifre to Deuteronomy. Since the last two works were from a different source, he generally designated them by the introductory phrase, "davar aḥer" = "another explanation," placing them after the sections taken from Ishmael's midrash. But the redactor based his work on the midrash of Ishmael's school, and the sentences of Ishmael and his pupils constitute the larger part of his Mekhilta. Similarly, most of the anonymous maxims in the work were derived from the same source, so that it also was known as the "Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael." The redactor must have been a pupil of Judah ha-Nasi, since the latter is frequently mentioned.
He cannot, however, have been Hoshaiah, as Abraham Epstein assumes, as might be inferred from Abraham ibn Daud's reference, for Hoshaiah is mentioned in the Mekhilta. Abba Arika therefore probably redacted the work, as Menahem ibn Zerah says. Abba Arika however, did not do this in Babylonia, as Isaac Hirsch Weiss assumes, but in Palestine, taking it after its compilation to Babylonia, so that it was called "Mekhilta de-Eretz Yisrael".