HOLOKAUSTON-



CONSUMED BY FIRE







HOLOCAUST (Heb., sho’ah). The word “holocaust” is derived from the Greek-- holokauston , which originally meant a sacrifice totally consumed by fire; it was used in the translation of 1 Samuel 7:9, “a burnt offering to God.”







In the course of time it came to be used to describe slaughter on a general or large scale, and, especially, various forms of the destruction of masses of human beings. In the 1950s the term came to be applied to the Jews of Europe.





