Coming to England shortly after the completion of his education in the Rabbinic College at Warsaw, Ginsburg continued his study of the Hebrew Scriptures, with particular attention to the Megillot. The first result was a translation of the Song of Songs, with a historical and critical commentary, published in 1857. A similar interpretation of Ecclesiastes, followed by treatises on the Karaites, the Essenes, and the Kabbala, kept the author prominently before biblical students while he was preparing the first sections of his magnum opus, the critical study of the Masorah.
