MEKHILTHA' (Aram. “measure”). — Midhrās (v.), a collection of interpretive and methodological material concerning the Pentateuch, of a preceptive-narrative character and referring principally to Exodus (ed. M. Friedmann, Vienna 1870; recent ed. by Lauterbach).
It is a pseudepigraphic midhrās, since it is attributed to the tannaim (v.) of the 2nd century A.D., R. Jāma'ēl and Sim'ōn ben Jōbā. It is not excluded that the oldest elements derive from the teaching of these masters, but as a whole the M. was enriched by additions due to scholars of subsequent generations.
BIBL.: H. L. Strack, Einleitung in Talmud und Midral, 5th ed., Munich 1921, p. 201; I. Ziegler, s. V. in Jād. Lex., IV, 1, p. 3; S. Dubnov, Weltgeschichte des jüd. Volkes, III, Berlin 1926, pp. 275 ff., 581. Eugenio Zolli