Sepharad

2 definitions found

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Sepharad
     (Obad. 1:20), some locality unknown. The modern Jews think that
     Spain is meant, and hence they designate the Spanish Jews
     "Sephardim," as they do the German Jews by the name
     "Ashkenazim," because the rabbis call Germany Ashkenaz. Others
     identify it with Sardis, the capital of Lydia. The Latin father


     Jerome regarded it as an Assyrian word, meaning "boundary," and
     interpreted the sentence, "which is in Sepharad," by "who are
     scattered abroad in all the boundaries and regions of the
     earth." Perowne says: "Whatever uncertainty attaches to the word
     Sepharad, the drift of the prophecy is clear, viz., that not
     only the exiles from Babylon, but Jewish captives from other and
     distant regions, shall be brought back to live prosperously
     within the enlarged borders of their own land."
     

From Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (late 1800's) [hitchcock]:

  Sepharad, a book descending