In the year five thousand two hundred and seventy-seven from creation, the Lord stirred the spirit of a wise and understanding man in all knowledge, noble, precious, glorious, Prince Aegidius of Viterbo, may his glory be exalted, who sought to find pleasant words and upright writing in the books of our holy language. And to me, I his servant, the youngest of the grammarians, Elijah the Ashkenazic Levite, he called and said to me: "What are you doing here, Elijah? Arise now and make a book that gives beautiful words in the grammar of the holy language. For all the grammar books that I have seen do not suffice to fulfill my desire or to quench my thirst for grammar, for there are some of them that are long, multiplying words without benefiting this wisdom, and there are some of them that are brief, leaving out things necessary for it. And you—gird your loins like a man and choose from between the two extremes the middle way. And tell the hidden things of wisdom in the grammar of the language, in matters that have not been written and yet deserve to be written. Compose from them a book so that the many may benefit from it, and it will stand as a banner for peoples, and to it nations will seek and find rest for their souls.

And it came to pass when I heard his words, for they were pleasing, that I rose to fulfill my desire and hastened to comply with him. I resolved to make this book small in size and rich in quality, with concise rules that are useful and necessary for anyone who comes to learn the ways of the Holy Tongue, without lengthening my discussion with matters already written by the grammarians before me, for all books of grammar are full of them. Rather, my main intent in composing this work is to write certain rules and matters in which no one preceded me, as well as some of the good things written by the distinguished grammarians, scattered in various places throughout their books — here a little and there a little. I shall gather them, explain them, and make from them rules and principles whose remembrance will be easy for students. And this shall be your sign: in every place where I explain or introduce something from my own mind, you will find the image of a hand touching its lip from the outside, pointing with a finger as if to say, “See here — something new is being introduced to you.”

And this rule shall be the law and practice of the book: I shall adhere to everything that proceeds according to the rule and law of grammar, and my words will not be merely statements of the rule in the abstract, saying, “the law is thus.” And if one or two words are found that alter the order of the rule and depart from the general principle, I shall not give them attention — especially those words which the grammarians have called irregular or compound. I have already begun to compose a small book, and before it has even come into being its name has been called the Book of Composition; there all matters of the irregular and the compound will be explained clearly and thoroughly, and I have no concern with them in this book. All this is in order not to enlarge its size, lest one who sees it become weary upon looking at its appearance and the height of its stature.

Therefore, when I bring an example from Scripture, I will not multiply citations for it, but will establish the matter by the testimony of one or two verses.

Nevertheless, for every single verse I will record in the margin the name of the book in which that verse appears.

And not only this will I do for you, but I will also record the chapter number in which that verse appears, according to the order of chapters arranged by the Christians in all twenty-four books, which they call in their language capitulos. For I have found in this a great need and benefit for anyone studying any book in which a verse is cited, since at times, even if a person knows in which of the twenty-four books that verse appears, he may stand for a day or two, wearying himself, trying to find the entrance to its place. The truth is that the masters of the Mesorah already divided each book, as is known, into sections, and they called each section a seder.

And besides their division of the Five Books of the Torah into fifty-two portions, they further divided them into sedarim, saying: the Book of Genesis has twelve portions and forty-three sedarim; the Book of Exodus has eleven portions and twenty-nine sedarim; and so with all of them.

And likewise they divided the other books of the twenty-four into sedarim.

For example, the Book of Joshua has thirty-four sedarim, Jeremiah has thirty-one sedarim, and so with all of them — the greater according to its greatness, and the smaller according to its smallness.

And ever since I came of age, I have wondered why they did not do the same in Israel — to mark at the beginning of each seder and seder, in the manner of א ב ג ד ה ו, and so on, just as the masters of the Mesorah arranged them.

And behold, you should surely know that the Christians divided the Book of Samuel, the Book of Kings, and the Book of Chronicles, each into two parts. Therefore, in every place where you find written in a reference “Samuel” with the letter bet above it, Samuel ב׳, it means Second Samuel, beginning from “And it came to pass after the death of Saul” and onward. Likewise, “Kings ב׳” means Second Kings, beginning from “And Moab rebelled” and onward. And similarly, “Chronicles ב׳” means Second Chronicles, beginning from “And Solomon strengthened himself” and onward.

And behold, I divided the substance of this book into four treatises — that is, two on verbs and two on nouns. I divided each treatise into thirteen principles, corresponding to the thirteen principles of our holy faith. Thus these four treatises contain fifty-two principles, whose sign is אליה״ו.

And further, I divided each principle into smaller parts and marked them in the manner of א ב ג ד ה ו, and so on; the benefit of this is well known and needs no explanation.

And behold, I called the name of this book:

The Book HaBachur. And this is for three reasons. The first: because this book is choice and good, wholly fine flour, with no refuse in it.

The second: because it is composed for every young man to study in the days of his youth, and his latter end will be good.

The third: because it is a distinctive appellative name, and is called by the name HaBachur.

And concerning this I said in my poem:

Brothers and also companions, hear my words with attention.

A very pleasant book — today I have given it birth.

Since for every young man it is good and also choice,

and I myself am named Bachur, therefore I called it HaBachur.”

The introduction is concluded