Etrog - Biblical References

Biblical References

"And you shall take on the 1-st day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God 7 days!" Leviticus 23:40.

Traditional Judaism sees the etrog referred to in the Bible as peri eitz hadar (פְּרִי עֵץ הָדָר), literally "a fruit of the beautiful tree." In modern Hebrew, hadar refers to the genus Citrus. Nahmanides (1194 – c. 1270) suggests that the word was the original Hebrew name for the citron. According to him, the word etrog was introduced over time, adapted from the Aramaic. The Arabic name for the citron fruit, itranj (اترنج), mentioned in hadith literature, is also associated with the Hebrew.

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