KEIL, KARL FRIEDRICH. — Protestant-Lutheran exegete of conservative tendency and opponent of criticism, born at Lauterbach, near Oelsnitz (Saxony), on 26 February 1807, died at Rödnitz, near Glauchau (Saxony), on 5 May 1888. He attended the Universities of Dorpat (Estonia) and subsequently Berlin, where he became E. W. Hengstenberg’s most important disciple.
His first work, Apologetischer Versuch über die Bücher der Chronik und die Integrität des Buches Isra (1833), was dedicated to Tsarina Alessandria Feodorovna, K.’s great patroness. Lecturer (1833) at Dorpat, he became extraordinary professor there in 1837 and ordinary professor in 1838, remaining at the same University until 1858. In 1859 he was in Leipzig, where, in collaboration with Franz Delitzsch, he devoted himself to the extensive Biblischer Kommentar über das Alte Testament.
Other works of his, printed in Leipzig, include: Über die Hiram-Salomonische Schifffahrt nach Ophir und Tarsi (1834); Der Tempel Salomons (1839); Einleitung in die kanonischen Schriften des Alten Testamentes (1853; 2nd ed., 1858; 3rd ed., 1873); Biblische Archäologie (1858–59); Genesis, Exodus (1861; 3rd ed., 1878); Samuel (1865; 2nd ed., 1875); Die zwölf kleinen Propheten (1867; 3rd ed., 1888, with K.’s biography at the beginning of the book); Daniel (1869); Chronik, Esra, Nehemia und Esther (1870); Jeremia (1872); Josue, Richter und Ruth (2nd ed., 1874); Die Bücher der Makhabäer (1875); Die Bücher der Könige (2nd ed., 1876); Ezechiel (2nd ed., 1882). On the New Testament he published: Commentar über das Evangelium des Matthäus (1877); Marcus und Luca (1879); Johannes (1881); Comm. über die Briefe des Petrus und Judas (1883); Comm. über den Brief an die Hebräer (1885).
His characteristic essays—diligent, learned, and rich in erudition, but at times lacking in balance and perhaps even erroneous—may be read, for example, on Mt. 26:17 and Io. 18:28, Lc. 2:1–5, etc. Raimondo Köbert