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: , or as:
.
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 ()
- QD(U)Sh, so far, is the following: The / 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 / D depicted a door and represented ‘to enter’
or ‘to move’. The / U depicted a
tent pin, representing security, belonging and connection. The / 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) (?) -
) to enter (or to have something
enter; ) a high () or secure (; i.e.
pure) water well () 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 on its own often means to enter or to
move; then becomes to move into the cleansing water. Fürst (p.1221) says to compare it also to
חָדַשׁ -
ChaDaSh [2318]
- - to renew
(originally said of one’s skin/flesh or tent cloths
- / Ch) by entering it/them
() into a fresh well (). The / Q, rising sun, often stands for rising, going up, or up and down;
this could be coupled to the /
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
/ Q might represent light, perpetuation and/or continuity.
The / 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 -
() 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
as Source/Well is significant here, in my eyes; you come back to your
Source. Remains the .
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 /
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 - (), 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’ , 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. - / 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) / D.
He provides: Security, involvement, belonging - / U.
And above all: Who He is: The Source (of all life) - / Sh (compare ShDY - Shaddai - (1) my ShaD in the sense
of source of nourishment, like the part of a mother’s breast / (Sh) that enters /
(D) a baby’s mouth does, so, from: ShaD = breast/ nipple/
tit, and: (2) my ShaD in the sense of strength - source / (Sh) of movement / (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 / 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 - literally: the water that He gave;
Meribhah is - the water () that the Other (; God) gave () as a house () of awe/joy/worship ()
(I believe that only later this story led to the
connotation ‘strife’). I translated here
as “He gave () holiness ()”; and as: in
() the water () 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 - QDUSh would explain how we obtain this
holiness: when Jesus, the rising/shining Morning Star (/Q) comes into us (/D) to connect us (/U)
to God, the Source of Life (/Sh).
As an aside: In idolatrous Canaan, the favorite idol
(‘goddess’) was also (nick)named -
QDSh and often depicted, moving up () her breasts () (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 ( - God/god)
with an ox (the first, /’ - 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)...
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:
- 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)
- 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)
- 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
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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