In the context of a scholarly study, the question, what is Midrash, may appear to be trivial, if not irrelevant. For more than a century, Midrash has been the subject of intensive and extensive academic study and research. Its language and terminology have been analysed in detail. It has been exhaustively excavated as a mine of information relating to the religious beliefs and attitudes of the talmudic sages and to the political, social and economic conditions in which they lived. In more recent years, a new dimension has been added to the study of Midrash, through literary analysis. The phenomenon of Midrash has captured the attention of literary theorists, who have reinterpreted it in the light of the contemporary theory of intertextuality. Consequently, this ancient corpus of specifically Jewish literature, which represents centuries of development as a living process in the ancient synagogues and school-houses of the Holy Land, retains its place in the forefront of modern scholarly interest.

Yet, despite this considerable and wide-ranging scholarly activity – or perhaps, in some measure, because of it – insufficient attention has been given hitherto, to one or two basic issues relating to the nature and the underlying rationale of the midrashic process. For example, what were the criteria upon which the selection of proemial and proof-texts was based? The early preachers frequently cite verses in support of their statements, or as the basis of a proem, with apparently scant regard for the plain meaning of their chosen text, or of the context from which it was taken.