BAḤUR

BAḤUR (Heb. בַּחוּר). In the Bible baḥur is first used to mean "selected for military fitness" and applied especially to hand-picked warriors (I Sam. 26:2; II Sam. 10:9; Judg. 20:15; I Chron. 19:10; et al.). Later, ne'arim was used for "youngsters," and baḥur came to mean young men in the prime of their life; cf. "The glory of young men is their strength" (Prov. 20:29). In many cases it is mentioned with betulah meaning virgin (Deut. 32:25) and Jeremiah contrasts baḥur-betulah with old-man–boy and with man-woman (51:22). Later the term was used for an unmarried man (Ket. 7a). The Talmud uses it also in the sense of an innocent young man who has not "tasted sin" (Pes. 87a), and eventually as a student at a talmudical school (yeshivah). In Yiddish, pronounced boḥer, it is also the term for an unmarried young man. In modern Hebrew it means a young man and the feminine baḥurah, an unmarried girl.