📖 Biblical Definition
In its original biblical sense, a holocaust is a whole burnt offering -- a sacrifice in which the entire animal is consumed by fire as an offering to God. Unlike peace offerings (where portions were eaten) or sin offerings (where portions went to the priest), the holocaust was totally devoted to God. It represented complete consecration and total surrender. "Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings (holokautomata in the LXX) on the altar" (Genesis 8:20). The burnt offering is described in detail in Leviticus 1. It typologically points to Christ's total self-giving on the cross -- He held nothing back, offering Himself wholly to the Father for our redemption.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
A burnt-sacrifice or offering, the whole of which was consumed by fire.
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HOL'OCAUST, n. [Gr. holokauston; holos, whole, and kaustos, burnt.] A burnt-sacrifice or offering, the whole of which was consumed by fire; a species of sacrifice in use among the Jews and some pagan nations. Webster understood this exclusively as a sacrificial term.
📖 Key Scripture
• Leviticus 1:3-4 — "If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish... He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him."
• Genesis 8:20 — "Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and offered burnt offerings on the altar."
• Genesis 22:2 — "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love... and offer him there as a burnt offering."
• Hebrews 10:5-7 — "In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, 'Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.'"
⚠️ Modern Corruption
The sacrificial meaning of "holocaust" has been entirely eclipsed by the 20th-century usage.
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Since the mid-20th century, "Holocaust" (capitalized) has referred almost exclusively to the Nazi genocide of six million Jews. While the historical event demands remembrance and moral reckoning, the loss of the word's original meaning has impoverished biblical literacy. Older translations and commentaries freely used "holocaust" to describe the Levitical burnt offering. Recovering this original meaning is not a dismissal of the 20th-century tragedy but a recognition that the word belongs first to the vocabulary of worship. The whole burnt offering -- total, unreserved, consumed by divine fire -- is one of the most powerful images of Christ's self-sacrifice in all of Scripture.
Usage
• "The biblical holocaust -- the whole burnt offering -- pictured total devotion to God, with nothing held back from the flames."
• "Abraham's willingness to offer Isaac as a holocaust on Mount Moriah is the supreme Old Testament picture of the Father offering His Son."