- an early Jewish interpretation of or commentary on a Biblical text, clarifying or expounding a point of law or developing or illustrating a moral principle.
- a collection of such interpretations or commentaries, especially those written in the first ten centuries a.d.
- a homily on a scriptural passage derived by traditional Jewish exegetical methods and consisting usually of embellishment of the scriptural narrative
- one of a number of collections of such homilies composed between 400 and 1200 ad