[3] He was born and lived in Hachmei Provence in Occitania, an area that was heavily under the influence of the Sephardic community of that time.
He apparently raised his younger brother David following the death of their father, and was a major influence in his commentaries.
[4] Like his father, he wrote a number of commentaries on the Bible, basing himself on the literal meaning of the text.
His surviving works include commentaries on the books of Proverbs, Job,[5] Ezra, and Nehemiah.
This handbook was of great historical importance as in the first half of the 16th century it became the favourite manual for the study of Hebrew among non-Judaic scholars.