a sanctuary: a place set apart as holy, where a deity is approached and worshiped
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Mikdash names a consecrated space, ground withdrawn from ordinary use and reserved for the presence and worship of a god. The word is built from the same root as the language of holiness, so it carries the idea of separateness at its core: a sanctuary is what it is because it has been cut off from common life and given over to the divine.
Most of the time the word points to Israel's own sanctuary, first the portable tent in the wilderness and later the temple in Jerusalem, the single place God chose to dwell among his people. From this central use two further uses branch off. Because the word describes any holy precinct, the prophets also apply it to the shrines of other nations and to Israel's own illegitimate worship sites, naming them sanctuaries while condemning them. And in a few striking passages the word is turned inside out: God himself becomes the sanctuary, the safe and holy place his people find in him when they have no building to go to.
What holds these uses together is not the architecture but the claim of holiness. Whether the building is true or false, standing or in ruins, the word marks a place treated as set apart for a god.
Nuances
1athe sanctuary of Israel's God: the tabernacle, and later the Jerusalem temple, where the LORD dwells among his people
applies equally to a portable tent and to other nations' shrines, so it is not tied to a fixed monumental building the way "temple" isExo 15:17Amo 7:13
Both
both can name Israel's central house of worship in JerusalemJer 51:51
Only temple
"temple" suggests a large permanent stone structure, an impression the word does not require
“holy place”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How miqdash differs from similar Hebrew words
מִשְׁכָּןnames God's dwelling as a place where he resides among his people; מקדשׁ names the same place as set apart and holy
הֵיכָלpictures God's house as a grand palace fit for a king; מקדשׁ stresses that the place is consecrated and off-limits to the common
Names the building itself: a grand, columned structure, so it can just as easily mean a king's palace as a house of worship.1Ki 21:1Psa 45:8Dan 1:4
Used for a specific part of the temple, the great hall or main room you pass through to reach the inner shrine.1Ki 6:17Ezk 41:1Ezk 41:4
קֹדֶשׁthe abstract quality of holiness, or a holy thing in general; מקדשׁ is specifically the holy place where that quality is concentrated
miqdash in the other biblical languages
ναόςGreek“temple”the Greek word for the sanctuary proper, the inner dwelling of the deity, which most closely matches מקדשׁ as the holy place itself rather than the wider temple complex
It is used of shrines belonging to other gods and of worship sites Israel set up without warrant. The word still calls them sanctuaries even as the prophets announce their ruin.Isa 16:12Ezk 28:18Amo 7:9Amo 7:13
It names a standing building inside Israel's history, one that enemies can plunder and burn, that worshippers can pollute, and that a later generation can set about rebuilding.2Ch 36:17Psa 74:7Lam 1:10Ezk 5:11
It can be turned on God himself, who becomes the holy refuge of people cut off from any building, though the same image can also make him the stone that trips those who will not trust him.Isa 8:14Ezk 11:16
In Ezekiel's closing vision it is a measured piece of ground with fixed borders and its own share of the land, sanctuary as real estate on a map.Ezk 45:3Ezk 45:4Ezk 48:8Ezk 48:10
Both
Both name the tent Israel was told to build and the temple that took its place, the single spot marked off for God to live among his people.Exo 25:8Ezk 37:26Heb 9:1
When the New Testament retells that Hebrew story in Greek, this is the term it reaches for, so the two words can point at the very same structure: the sanctuary human hands put up, rendered "holy place" in Greek.1Ch 28:10Heb 9:24
Both can narrow from the whole holy area to its most guarded room, the one the high priest entered once a year carrying blood.Lev 16:33Heb 9:25
Both treat the place as closed, open only to appointed people under set conditions, with the guarding of it laid on named families in the one and the barred way into it argued over in the other.Num 18:1Lev 12:4Heb 9:8
It names each of the two rooms of the tent on its own, so the same word can mean the outer room with the lampstand and the bread set out before God, or the innermost room behind the second curtain.Heb 9:2Heb 9:3
It is used of a sanctuary in heaven rather than on earth, a true holy place that no builder put up and that Jesus went into on his people's behalf.Heb 8:2Heb 9:12Heb 10:19
It nearly always shows up alongside the act of going in, so what the word raises is the question of admission: who goes in, how often, and with what blood.Heb 9:25Heb 13:11
What scholars say about miqdash
Standard lexica treat מקדשׁ as a single noun derived from the root for holiness, denoting a consecrated place or sanctuary. They distinguish its dominant use for Israel's tabernacle and temple from its extension to pagan and illegitimate shrines and from its rare figurative use of God as a sanctuary, but all under one head; the divisions are senses of one word, not separate homonyms.