I. Name

The Hebrew root qdš indicates ‘to be reserved for a god, to be sacred’ and is frequently used in the Hebrew Bible. A number of nominative forms are derived from this root: qādēš ‘prostitute’ and qōdeš ‘sacred object, sacred place, holiness’. The adjective qādôš, ‘the Holy One’, is attested as a name for Yahweh in the MT. The root qdš occurs frequently in West-Semitic languages as a verb, as an adjective ‘holy’, or as a substantive ‘sanctuary, sacred object, sacred personnel’ (Hoftijzer-Jongelin…