Holiness –
What was it originally all about?

André H. Roosma
7 July 2012

Holiness. A most relevant subject, both in Judaism and Christianity.
All the more because God said:

For I am YaHUaH your God;
consecrate yourselves therefore,
and be holy, for I am holy.
כִּי אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶם
וְהִתְקַדִּשְׁתֶּם
וִהְיִיתֶם קְדֹשִׁים כִּי קָדֹושׁ אָנִי

Leviticus 11: 44a

But what is this being holy all about? What did the Bible mean by such words as the above?

In order to find an answer to that question, we have to go back to the Middle East, around the beginning of the second millennium BC. The Semitic languages of that area stem from one early language (in the fourth to third millennium BC), called Proto-Semitic.
The Proto-Semitic root of many words pertaining to holiness is QD(U)Sh. In one of the oldest Semitic scripts1 it was written as: quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to enterwawu: tent pin; connection, securityshad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life), or as: quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to entershad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life). Probably it was pronounced as qudush or qudash, respectively. There is an entire family of Hebrew קד(ו)שׁ words derived from this (examples: קָדוֹשׁ - qadosh [6918], קָדַשׁ - qadash [6942], קֶדֶשׁ - qedesh [6943], קוֹדֶשׁ - qodesh [6944], קָדֵשׁ - qadesh [6945], קַדִּישׁ - qaddish [6922]). These words are used for notions translated in the English Bibles as ‘holy’ (and derived or related words, such as ‘sacred’ and the verbs ‘to sanctify’ and ‘to consecrate’).

This is a root word on which I have been chewing for quite a while, because I wanted to understand some more of the depth of it. It is quite a notion! And there is apparently more to it than is easily comprehended.

The best connotation I have with the early symbols of quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to enter(wawu: tent pin; connection, security)shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) - QD(U)Sh, so far, is the following:
The quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and down / Q depicted a rising sun and originally probably stood for notions like: ‘going up’ (or: ‘up and down’ or ‘around’), ‘light’ or for ‘repeatedly’ or ‘continuously’ – as the sun keeps coming up every day.
The dalt: door; to move, to enter / D depicted a door and represented ‘to enter’ or ‘to move’.
The wawu: tent pin; connection, security / U depicted a tent pin, representing security, belonging and connection.
The shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) / Sh stood for a pair of motherly breasts, a source, fountain or well.

Thus, what I see depicted in the entire word is: (repeatedly, or go up high in the mountains (to a pure source) (?) - quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and down) to enter (or to have something enter; dalt: door; to move, to enter) a high (quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and down) or secure (wawu: tent pin; connection, security; i.e. pure) water well (shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life)) with the inferred meaning: to make or become very clean or pure (or to be infused regularly by the source of life).

I might elaborate on this by observing the following points:
The dalt: door; to move, to enter on its own often means to enter or to move; dalt: door; to move, to entershad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) then becomes to move into the cleansing water. Fürst (p.1221) says to compare it also to חָדַשׁ - ChaDaSh [2318] - chet: tent-panel/walldalt: door; to move, to entershad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) - to renew (originally said of one’s skin/flesh or tent cloths - chet: tent-panel/wall, flesh / Ch) by entering it/them (dalt: door; to move, to enter) into a fresh well (shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life)).
The quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and down / Q, rising sun, often stands for rising, going up, or up and down; this could be coupled to the dalt: door; to move, to enter / D to denote bowing, to going up and down as you do in washing/ bathing, or it could refer to going up to a high source (that is: a pure one; lower ones may be contaminated by dirty stuff entering at an intermediate level; when you ever traveled mountainous area, drinking from natural water, you will know that you have to care to drink only from wells above the level where cattle pee, people wash, etc.).
Alternatively, the quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and down / Q might represent light, perpetuation and/or continuity.

The wawu: tent pin; connection, security / U (Wav/Wau) in this word may well be original – it is even there in part of the old Akkadian occurrences – and have denoted the body/subject that entered the well (like a tent pin being washed), or it may have stood for connection (also stressing the continuity of being clean(sed)) or with the Sh for a secure (i.e. pure) well.

It is good, to check such an explanation of the original symbols against knowledge that has been gained otherwise already, and against what the Bible says about it.

So, I looked up many derivatives of the Semitic root QD(U)Sh - quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to enter(wawu: tent pin; connection, security)shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) in several dictionaries of (Old) Semitic languages, including, first of all, Hebrew.
Both Gesenius2 and Fürst3 gave ‘clean, pure’ and ‘to clean’ as first meaning.
But the word is indeed very old – much older than the Hebrew language as such. As quddushu the word is even encountered in Akkadian – one of the oldest Semitic languages (for which there is a good dictionary available!) at the furthest distance from Hebrew. The extensive Assyrian dictionary of the University of Chicago gives under qadáshu: 1. (stative only) to be free of claims (?) (RS only) 2. quddushu to clean, 3. quddushu to make ritually clean, to purify, 4. quddushu to consecrate, dedicate, 5. II/2 to purify oneself;”.
This sure is a confirmation of my explanation of the symbols...

What about the common translation of QDSh as to set apart, as one of the options in the dictionary by Brown, Driver & Briggs?5 Spiritually, setting apart, consecrating, purifying and cleansing are basically the same concept (to free from defilement, dirt, sin, ... to belong purely and totally to the ultimately pure God), as we will see in what follows.6

Now, let us have a look in the Bible. In the Torah, dedication and setting apart almost always was commenced by cleansing with pure water. An example can be found in Numbers 8: the dedication/purification of the Levites, with removing dirty clothes, washing, etc.

Often, it is especially interesting to look at the first occurrences of a word.
For QDSh the first time is (as far as I can see): Genesis 2: 3, where God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. It says: “because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.” Now, a rest after hard work often starts with a good bath, doesn’t it? Deep in us all is the notion, that from work you get dirty. Resting and regaining strength is a way of cleansing the soul. The use of the shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) as Source/Well is significant here, in my eyes; you come back to your Source. Remains the quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to enter. On its own this means to bow down (or to be peeled open/ have outside/crust removed); to enter into a bath, you need to go down as well (and have your dirty clothes peeled off first)... With the quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and down / Q seen as representing light, perpetuation and/or continuity, the QDSh Shabbath would be joyful and enlightening, continuously recurring day, every seven days, as the sun rises over and again...

The second occurrence of QDSh in the Torah is in Exodus 3: 5 – holy ground around the place where YaHUaH was. The ground itself was not special, it had become special because of God’s purifying (fiery) presence. Moses had to remove his dirty shoes – not to defile the QDSh ground.

In Exodus 12: 16 (2x) the first and seventh days of the festival of unleavened bread are holy – not ‘polluted’ by doing work, as one could rephrase what the text says. Again we see the notion of being clean from something.

Another early occurrence of QDSh I found in the Torah is in Exodus 19: 6 and 14. The people will be holy, and Moses sanctified them. How? By having them washed, even including their clothes (see the relation with ChaDaSh ! as illustrated above).

Once the notion of spiritual purity was associated to the three or four symbols of QD(U)Sh - quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to enter(wawu: tent pin; connection, security)shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life), this word may then have come to represent also that ultimate spiritual purity, characteristic of YaHUaH Himself.

Hallelu YaH !


Footnotes

1 For the old pictographic Bible script, see: André H. Roosma, ‘The Written Language of Abraham, Moses and David – A study of the pictographic roots and basic notions in the underlying fabric of the earliest Biblical script.pdf document, Hallelu-YaH Draft Research Report, 1st English version: 18 April 2011 (1st Dutch original: January 2011).
2 Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee [Aramaic, Syriac] Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (with Additions and Corrections from Gesenius' Thesaurus and Other Works; transl. from: Lexicon Manuale Hebraicum et Chaldaicum in Veteris Testamenti Libros, by Samuel Prideaux Tregelles), Samuel Bagster & Sons, London, 1857 (available in various formats: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, etc. - 24 files; file about the Qoph); p.DCCXXII-III and DCCXXV-VI.
3 Julius Fürst (1805-1873), with Samuel Davidson (1806-1898), A Hebrew & Chaldee lexicon to the Old Testament, B. Tauchnitz, Leipzig / Williams & Norgate, London, 1885 (available in various formats: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, etc.); p.1217.
4 The Assyrian (Akkadian) dictionary of the University of Chicago, part Q, p.46.
5 Francis Brown, S.R. Driver & Charles A. Briggs A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, based on a translation by Edward Robinson of the Lexicon by Wilhelm Gesenius, Houghton Mifflin, Boston/New York (/ The Riverside, Cambridge), 1906; p.871-874.
6 The same is also clearly visible in the terminology and associations of e.g. Isaiah and the apostle Paul. Take e.g. these words of God through Isaiah, quoted by Paul writing to the Christians of Corinth (Isaiah 52: 11 ff, cited in 2 Cor.6: 17, where Paul speaks about lawlessness and intimate relations with unbelievers): “Depart, depart, go out from there, touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her, purify yourselves, you who bear the vessels of YaHUaH ... then I will welcome you,”.

See also the Wikipedia entry Q-D-Sh.


A thought experiment

We, westerners (Greek, left brain thinkers), we think logic and grammar. The original Semites (maybe just a bit more like God?) were apparently more associative. When I try to think that way of God and anything that belongs to Him, what notions come up in my free, associative mind? What is He about, what is it about to associate oneself with Him?

Notions come up like:

He is: High, lifted up, light, etc. - quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and down / Q. (So, I cannot stay low, impure, dark, etc. but have to ascend...) And faithful, as the sun that never stops but rises every morning again.

It is naturally outside of me, I have to enter, to immerse, to start taking part, to get involved (not stay distant), move, as if entering someone’s tent (or leaving my own comfort zone) dalt: door; to move, to enter / D.

He provides: Security, involvement, belonging - wawu: tent pin; connection, security / U.

And above all:
Who He is: The Source (of all life) - shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) / Sh (compare ShDY - Shaddai - (1) my ShaD in the sense of source of nourishment, like the part of a mother’s breast shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) / (Sh) that enters dalt: door; to move, to enter / (D) a baby’s mouth does, so, from: ShaD = breast/ nipple/ tit, and: (2) my ShaD in the sense of strength - source shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) / (Sh) of movement dalt: door; to move, to enter / (D), so, from: ShaD = strength, even to overcome and destroy enmity.)


Other notes and thoughts

Within Christianity baptism can also be thought of as sign of being introduced to the QD(U)Sh state in Messiah. It’s a sign of being cleansed and purified (forgiven) by the Messiah. Especially when considered in its root context of (First Testament) Israel. Compare what happened with the prodigal son upon returning home, in Jesus’ famous parable.

On the city or village of קָדֵשׁ - Qadesh [6945], Fürst (p.1222) also notes: Kadesh was called at an earlier period, because of a fountain flowing there, עין מישׁפּט (spring of judgment) Gen.14:7, ...”. And: “... now lies a place Kudes with a fountain ...” (underlining added). It all underlines the well/spring/ fountain notion of the shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) / Sh encompassed in QD(U)Sh.

Most intriguing are some of the texts on what happened in Kadesh. Take e.g. Numbers 20: 13, which reads in Hebrew: הֵמָּה מֵי מְרִיבָה אֲשֶׁר־רָבוּ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת־יְהוָה וַיִּקָּדֵשׁ בָּֽם ס - This water(s) [was called] Meribhah, where the sons of Israel quarreled with (the wholeness of) YaHUaH, and He gave holiness in the water of life (my translation, based on interpretation of the old script). A few notes on this remarkable text and my translation: The ‘water(s)’ is mu: water, abundanceyad: arm with open hand - literally: the water that He gave; Meribhah is mu: water, abundanceraisu: man's head (sideways)yad: arm with open handbaitu: tent/houseah: figure with raised hands and bent knees - the water (mu: water, abundance) that the Other (raisu: man's head (sideways); God) gave (yad: arm with open hand) as a house (baitu: tent/house) of awe/joy/worship (ah: figure with raised hands and bent knees) (I believe that only later this story led to the connotation ‘strife’). I translated yad: arm with open handquph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to entershad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) here as “He gave (yad: arm with open hand) holiness (quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to entershad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life))”; and baitu: tent/housemu: water, abundance sin/samekh: palm tree; symbolic for Tree of Life as: in (baitu: tent/house) the water (mu: water, abundance) of life (sin/samekh: palm tree; symbolic for Tree of Life). The text explains itself when read in the old script! The same counts for a similar text on Kadesh in Numbers 27: 14, that also loses lots of its traditional difficulty.

Galilean Kedesh (Joshua 20: 7), situated in the mountains of Naphtali, was chosen as a city of refuge, where someone who had committed a crime by accident, could live as being innocent/ morally clean, without fearing revenge.

An alternative, spiritual interpretation of quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to enterwawu: tent pinshad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) - QDUSh would explain how we obtain this holiness: when Jesus, the rising/shining Morning Star (quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and down/Q) comes into us (dalt: door; to move, to enter/D) to connect us (wawu: tent pin/U) to God, the Source of Life (shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life)/Sh).


As an aside: In idolatrous Canaan, the favorite idol (‘goddess’) was also (nick)named quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to entershad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life) - QDSh and often depicted, moving up (quph: rising sun; to rise, light, to go round or up and downdalt: door; to move, to enter) her breasts (shad: breasts, source, well, fountain (esp. of life)) (with her hands; no, indeed, the ‘pin up’ and ‘push up’ concepts of this age are not new!). This may be associated to the meaning of qadesh as a male temple prostitute.
It appears that even in those days, there were often multiple interpretations of the symbols, just as the idolatrous (‘literal’) association of ’El (alp: ox head; first, most prominentlam: shepherd's staff; shepherd, leader - God/god) with an ox (the first, alp: ox head; first, most prominent/’ - alp symbol of this word!) as idol (by Canaanites and several others in the region, and by the children of Israel on their way from Egypt)...


Reactions

9 July 2012

Jon Westlund

Thank you for all your hard work.  I like especially how you have layed out the details (you “elaborate”) of your method. The key differences between you and Jeff Benner, I see as consisting of three things:

  1. You keep the first symbol Q as the same as the ancient original - Benner substitutes Ch as the original and Q as replacing it later. (leading to a different meaning)
  2. You define the Sh as having a connection with the concrete object of breasts - Benner sees a connection with the concrete object of teeth instead. (leading to a different meaning)
  3. you include the Wav/U as possibly part of the original - because of Benner’s root system, he concludes that a three letter root is the original rather than your possible four (leading to a different root)

On each of these, I find your course to be more satisfactory.  Due to your hard work, I will continue to reflect more on each of these symbols.  It is tremendous that you are making this topic available worldwide through the internet.  Thank you.

Sincerely,

Jon


9 July 2012

André (author)

Thank you, Jon,
for your kind reaction.
Yes, I try to keep things ‘as they are’ as much as possible, leaving interpretations and hypotheses to a minimum and being clear about them.
I appreciate your blog too, as well as your well considered and considerate feedback.
Blessings!
André

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Previous articles: The Light of the World, His Name is Jesus / Yashu‘ah, Our Father / אבינו - ’abhinu.

 
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