From Encyclopaedia Judaica, volume 7 page 766
GOMBINER, ABRAHAM ABELE BEN HAYYIM HALEVI (c1637-1683), Polish Rabbi.
After the death of his parents during the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648, Abraham left his birthplace GOMBIN. In 1655 he went to Lithuania, and there studied with his relative, Jacob Jsaac Gombiner. Later he went to Kalisz, where he was appointed head of the yeshivah and dayyan of the bet din.
Abraham is best known for his Magen Avraham (Dyhernfurth, 1692), a commentary on the Shulhan Aruch Orah Hayyim, highly esteemed throughout Poland and Germany by scholars who followed it in their halakhic decisions, at times against the opinions of other codifiers.
In his work Abraham reveals his acumen, depth of insight, and comprehensive knowledge of the entire halakhic literature.
Abraham's main purpose was to reach a compromise bewteen the decisions of Joseph Caro and the glosses of Moses Isserles, but he upholds the latter where no compromise can be arrived at. He regarded all Jewish customs as sacred and endeavored to justify them even where they were at variance with the views of codifiers.
He also thought highly of the Zohar and of the kabbalists Isaac Luria and R. Isaiah Horowitz, occasionally accepting their decision against that of the codifiers. Magen Avraham is written in a terse style, which sholars were at times hard put to udnerstand until the appearence of R. Samuel Ha-Levi Kolin's extensive commentary: Mahazit ha-shekel.
Abraham is also the author of Zayit Ra'anan (Dessau, 1704), a commentary on the Yalkut Shimoni, published together with some of his homilies on Genesis, Shemen Sason. Zayit Ra'anan was also published in abridged form in the margins of the Yalkut, in the 1876 edition and in all subsequent editions. His short commentary on the Tosefta of Nezikin was published by his grandson under the title Magen Avraham at the end of the Lehem ha-Panim
(Amsterdam, 1732) of his son-in-law, Moses Jekuthiel Kaufmann.A commentary to Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes was attributed in error to him, having in fact been from the Beit Avraham of Abraham b. Samuel Gedalia.
"Magen Avraham" - Cover Page, First print. Dyhernfurth, 1692