holy: belonging to God and so set within his realm rather than ordinary life
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
At its core this word does not mean "separate." That popular definition comes from a guess made in the 1800s that the wider evidence has not borne out. The related words in the neighboring ancient languages point instead to one idea: belonging to a god, dedicated to the divine, drawn into the realm where God is. Something is holy because it is God's. Being marked off from common (חֹל) use follows from that, but the marking off is the result, not the meaning.
That single idea fans out across everything the Bible calls holy. First and most properly it describes God himself, the one being who is holy by his own nature. From there it reaches whatever he claims as his own:
a people he chose
the priests and others consecrated (קָדַשׁ) to serve him
the ground and sanctuary where he meets Israel
the days he sets apart
the vessels used in his worship
the heavenly beings who stand in his presence
The senses below are not different words; they are the same holiness named in its different owners.
The word carries weight as well as definition. To call God holy is to confess that he is utterly above the world and dangerous to approach carelessly, yet the prophets, Isaiah above all, tie that towering holiness to justice and even to rescue: the Holy One of Israel is also Israel's Redeemer. So the word can make a person fall down in dread and can also be the name of the God who saves.
Nuances
1aof God himself: the one who is holy by his own nature, the Holy One of Israel
Names belonging to God as the root idea, so it can describe a place, a day, or an object as God's property, not only persons or moral characterExo 19:6Lev 11:44
Both
Both mark something as set within the sphere of God and treated as sacred rather than ordinaryIsa 6:3
Only holy
In ordinary English "holy" leans toward personal piety or moral goodness, which can hide the original idea of simply being God's and being handled accordingly
As a title of God it carries the whole confession that he is uniquely God's own holiness, often expanded to "the Holy One of Israel" who is both fearsome and Israel's rescuerIsa 1:4Isa 41:14
Both
Both single out God as the holy one above allIsa 40:25
Only Holy One
The English title can sound like a fixed name and lose the live sense that the word is an adjective asserting God's holiness
“saint”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How qadosh differs from similar Hebrew words
קֹדֶשׁThe noun for holiness itself, or a holy thing; this word is the adjective describing what or who is holy.
Describes a being or person AS holy: it is the word for the title "the Holy One" given to God himself.Isa 1:4Psa 71:22Hab 3:3
Used to command or declare that God's people themselves be holy, applying the quality to living persons.Lev 11:44Lev 19:2Deu 7:6
Names the "holy ones", the angels or set-apart heavenly beings, as a class of persons who belong to God.Job 5:1Psa 89:5Zec 14:5
Both
Both reach for the same core idea of being set apart to God: the priests' portion of an offering is called holy as a quality and belongs to the realm of the holy things.Lev 24:9Lev 7:6
Both attach to worship at God's sanctuary: the LORD is praised as holy while the place of worship is named the holy hill.Psa 99:9
Is first and supremely a title of God himself, the one utterly set apart above all: the Holy One of Israel, thrice holy, in a class of his own.Isa 6:31Sa 2:2Isa 40:25
Describes people, priests, places, and days that have been claimed for God and so share his set-apart status, a positive dedication rather than a mere category.Lev 19:2Exo 19:6Num 6:5
Carries moral and worshipful weight: God's holiness summons reverence, awe, and a holy life, far beyond a simple cultic classification.Lev 11:44Psa 99:9Isa 57:15
Both
The two are the paired halves of one sorting system: every person, place, time, and object in Israel's world is either holy (claimed for God) or common (ordinary), and the priests are charged to keep the two apart.Lev 10:10Ezk 44:23Lev 19:2
Names the ordinary, everyday realm, what is NOT set apart for God: it is the unmarked default that everything falls into until something is dedicated to him.1Sa 21:41Sa 21:5
Works as the boundary marker the priests must teach: their whole task is to draw the line between this ordinary realm and what belongs to God, and confusing the two is the sin.Lev 10:10Ezk 22:26Ezk 44:23
Marks ground and space by zoning: the temple wall exists precisely to fence off the consecrated area from this surrounding common land.Ezk 42:20Ezk 48:15
טָמֵאUnclean, ritually unfit; the antagonist of holiness in the priestly system, while clean and common is the neutral middle ground.
Is the supreme title of God himself, naming him as utterly set apart and unlike anything created, the one called the Holy One of Israel.Isa 6:31Sa 2:2Isa 40:25
Describes a people, place, or thing claimed as God's exclusive possession and consecrated to him, set apart from common use rather than disqualified from it.Exo 19:6Lev 19:2Deu 7:6
Labels the most concentrated and protected portions of the offerings, reserved for the priests to eat in a consecrated place.Lev 6:16Lev 7:6Lev 24:9
Names heavenly beings and the consecrated servants who belong to God and stand in his presence.Psa 16:3Dan 8:13Num 16:3
Both
Both are formal status labels in the same priestly system that sorts everything by its relation to the sanctuary, the two opposite poles a priest must teach Israel to tell apart along with clean and common.Lev 11:47Lev 20:25Lev 21:8Ezk 44:23
Both are treated as transferable conditions rather than mere descriptions: each can be communicated by contact, so a person or object takes on the status of what it touches.Num 19:22Hag 2:13Lev 6:27
Marks a person or thing as disqualified from sacred space and worship, having come into contact with death, disease, or a forbidden source. It is a state that bars you, not one that sets you apart for God.Lev 5:2Lev 7:21Num 19:13
Is the standing label for animals the law forbids as food, sorting creatures into edible and inedible.Lev 11:4Lev 11:26Deu 14:7
Names a defiled condition a person is ashamed of and warns others about, like the skin-diseased man who must cry out the word over himself so people keep their distance.Lev 13:45Lam 4:15
Brands a whole land or people as morally and spiritually polluted by idolatry and bloodshed, so that even the prophet can feel it in his own lips.Isa 6:5Ezk 22:5Hos 9:3
טָהוֹרClean or pure, fit for use; this clears the way for holiness but is not the same as it, since clean things can still be merely common.
A standing title of God himself, naming him as utterly distinct from all that is created.1Sa 2:2Isa 6:3Isa 1:4
Marks a people or person as set apart to belong to God, not as one state among many but as their defining identity.Exo 19:6Deu 7:6Lev 19:2
Names members of God's own heavenly court, the beings that surround and serve him.Psa 89:5Dan 8:13
Both
Both can name the condition a worshipper must reach before drawing near to God in his sanctuary.Ezr 6:20Lev 21:8
Both describe what may belong in the sacred sphere of God's presence: the clean food a priest may eat and the priest himself who is consecrated.Lev 10:14Lev 21:6
Forms the fixed covenant title the Holy One of Israel, a name for God that ties his set-apart majesty to his bond with one chosen people.Isa 1:4Isa 5:19Isa 12:6Isa 41:14
Carries the command for Israel to become holy because the LORD is holy, the demand that the people mirror God's own separateness in how they live.Lev 11:44Lev 19:2Lev 20:7Deu 7:6
Grades sacred things in the worship system, marking priestly food and portions as holy or most holy, off limits to all but the consecrated.Lev 6:16Lev 7:6Lev 24:9Exo 29:31
Both
Both name God himself as holy, utterly set apart in purity and majesty above everything created, and the Greek word is the regular translation of the Hebrew one for this.Isa 6:31Sa 2:2Rev 4:8Jhn 6:69
Both apply holiness to people and things claimed for God, set apart from common use to belong to him.Exo 19:6Lev 20:261Pe 2:91Co 3:17
Is the regular word for the Spirit of God, named the Holy Spirit, a use that defines the New Testament's vocabulary about God's own presence at work in people.Mat 1:18Luk 1:35Act 2:4Jhn 14:26
Becomes a standing name for ordinary believers, the holy ones or saints, so that a whole congregation of living Christians is addressed by this word.Rom 1:71Co 1:2Eph 1:1Php 1:1
Labels the holy city Jerusalem and the holy place of the temple, marking specific New Testament locations as set apart.Mat 4:5Mat 24:15Act 21:28Rev 21:2
Describes things and places, not only persons: the courtyard where a priest boils the ram of ordination, the spot where the offering must be eaten, the water the priest draws into a clay jar, the temple rooms where the offerings are stored.Exo 29:31Lev 7:6Num 5:17Ezk 42:13
Marks a stretch of TIME as belonging to God, so a particular day can be called holy and the way people behave on it has to change.Neh 8:9Neh 8:10Neh 8:11
Labels people set apart by office or by vow: the priests who bring the offerings, the Levites who carry the ark, the man living under a vow with uncut hair.Lev 21:72Ch 35:3Num 6:8
Describes the nation itself, so a whole people can be called holy simply because God chose it out of all the peoples of the earth.Exo 19:6Deu 7:6Deu 14:2
Turns into a demand as well as a description: because God is holy, Israel is ordered to become holy, which makes the word the ground of a command.Lev 11:44Lev 19:2Lev 20:26
Hardens into a standing name for God, so the prophets can call him "the Holy One of Israel", or simply "the Holy One", with no other word needed.2Ki 19:22Isa 1:4Isa 41:14Isa 40:25
Both
Both are the same word in two languages, and the book of Daniel proves it: the Aramaic chapters use one form for the holy one who comes down from heaven, and when the book switches to Hebrew a few chapters later it uses the other form for exactly the same kind of figure.Dan 8:13Dan 4:13
Both name the heavenly company that surrounds God, spoken of as a settled group a person might appeal to or that arrives with God himself.Job 5:1Psa 89:7Zec 14:5Dan 4:17
Both can stand beside the word for "people" to mark out those who belong to God, a phrase Daniel uses in each language: "a people of holy ones" in the Hebrew chapters and "the people of the holy ones of the Most High" in the Aramaic ones.Dan 8:24Dan 7:27
Both attach holiness to the divine side of reality first, before anything else is called holy: the Hebrew states outright that the LORD is holy, and the Aramaic assumes it when a king traces Daniel's insight to a holy spirit that is not human.Lev 19:2Isa 6:3Dan 4:9
Sits in the mouths of Babylonian kings, who reach for it to explain the power at work in Daniel: the spirit in him is the spirit of holy gods, which is as close as a foreign court comes to naming the God of Israel.Dan 4:8Dan 4:9Dan 4:18Dan 5:11
Names a heavenly figure paired with a watcher who comes down, announces a sentence against a named king, and speaks of that verdict as a decree the holy ones have issued.Dan 4:13Dan 4:17Dan 4:23
Identifies the party to whom rule is finally handed over: the holy ones are attacked and worn down by a hostile power, then receive and hold a kingdom that lasts forever.Dan 7:18Dan 7:21Dan 7:22Dan 7:25Dan 7:27
What scholars say about qadosh
The popular gloss "set apart" reflects a nineteenth-century etymology (associated with Baudissin and enshrined in BDB) that most current scholarship rejects. The comparative evidence from Akkadian, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Arabic, and Egyptian points to a core field of consecration and belonging to a deity; separation is the consequence of holiness, not its meaning (Naudé in NIDOTTE; Davies; Costecalde). What scholars still debate is how this belonging-to-God operates in the text: a near-physical, contagious cultic power in the Priestly material (Milgrom, von Rad); a graded spatial, personal, ritual, and temporal system (Jenson); a moral vocation extended to the whole people in the Holiness material and in Deuteronomy (Knohl, Wright, Weinfeld); or a non-rational numinous "wholly other" (Otto). Holiness reaches its most concentrated theological expression in Isaiah, where the title "Holy One of Israel" (about 25 of its roughly 31 occurrences) holds God's towering transcendence together with his work as Redeemer.
Where scholars disagree about qadosh
What the root behind this word originally meant. The long-standing dictionary gloss is "separate," but most current scholars reject it.
majorityThe core idea is belonging to God or to the divine realm (consecration, dedication), and being set apart is only a consequence of that. The evidence from related ancient languages does not support "separate" as the root sense.; J. A. Naudé, "קדשׁ," in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE), vol. 3 (Zondervan, 1997), 877-887; G. I. Davies, "Alleged Basic Meanings of the Hebrew Verb qdš 'Be Holy'," Vetus Testamentum 71 (2021): 481-502
minorityThe traditional lexicons derive the word from a root meaning to cut off or separate, withdrawal from common use.; F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (Oxford, 1906), 871
contestedThe original sense may simply be unrecoverable; the meaning must be read off how the word is actually used, with no hidden conceptual core beneath the biblical usage.; W. Kornfeld and H. Ringgren, "קדשׁ qdš," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. 12 (Eerdmans, 2003), 521-545; D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield, 1993-2011), s.v. קדושׁ
How holiness works inside the Hebrew Bible: as a near-physical power that can spread by contact, as an ordered system of graded zones and ranks, or as a moral vocation the people are called to grow into.
contestedIn the priestly material holiness is a dynamic, almost physical force centered on the sanctuary and its priests, capable of being transmitted by contact.; J. Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, Anchor Bible 3 (Doubleday, 1991), 615-617, 730-733
contestedHoliness is best read as a graded continuum running across space, persons, ritual, and time, an organizing structure rather than a single mystical quality.; P. P. Jenson, Graded Holiness: A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World, JSOTSup 106 (Sheffield, 1992)
contestedIn the Holiness material and in Deuteronomy holiness becomes a moral vocation extended to the whole people, something to be attained by obedience rather than a fixed state.; I. Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Fortress, 1995); M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford, 1972)
In-depth research
This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.
Sources
J. A. Naudé, "קדשׁ," in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE), vol. 3 (Zondervan, 1997), 877-887lexicon
L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), trans. M. E. J. Richardson (Brill, 1994-99), 3:1072-1078lexicon
W. Kornfeld and H. Ringgren, "קדשׁ qdš," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. 12 (Eerdmans, 2003), 521-545dictionary
G. I. Davies, "Alleged Basic Meanings of the Hebrew Verb qdš 'Be Holy'," Vetus Testamentum 71 (2021): 481-502article