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qedem

קֶדֶם

HebrewH6924“east, old, ...”

Appears 87 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 2:8Gen 3:24Gen 10:30Gen 11:2Gen 12:8 (2×)Gen 13:11Gen 13:14Gen 25:6 (2×)Gen 28:14Gen 29:1Exo 27:13Exo 38:13Lev 1:16Lev 16:14Num 2:3Num 3:38Num 10:5Num 23:7Num 34:3Num 34:10Num 34:11Deu 33:15Deu 33:27Jos 7:2Jdg 6:3Jdg 6:33Jdg 7:12Jdg 8:10Jdg 8:111Ki 4:30(5:10)2Ki 19:25Neh 12:46Job 1:3Psa 74:2Psa 74:12Pro 8:22Pro 8:23
Names & words formed with this
Word studyResearch-gradeKEH-demnoun

What qedem means

1

east, or what lies in front: the direction of the sunrise, the eastern side of a place, and the lands and peoples that way

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Hebrew fixes direction from the body of a person facing the sunrise. East is therefore what is in front, west is behind (אָחוֹר), the right hand is south and the left is north. That is why this one word can mark the eastern side of the tabernacle, a boundary line running eastward, a camp pitched on the east, and simply the space ahead of someone.

From the bare direction the word stretches to name a whole region: the lands and peoples beyond Israel's eastern edge, the home of Abraham's relatives and of the desert raiders who pressed in on the farmland. Job is called the greatest of the people of the east, which sets his story in that world of herds, tents and open country.

The eastward movement carries weight in Genesis. The man and woman are put out east of Eden, Cain settles east, and the builders of Babel travel east to the plain of Shinar, a steady drift away from God's presence. Ezekiel then makes the same direction the road home: the glory of God leaves the temple by the east gate and returns by it.

Nuances

1athe direction east; the eastern side or edge of a place or structure
Gen 2:8Gen 3:24Gen 11:2Gen 12:8 (2×)Gen 13:11Gen 13:14Gen 28:14Exo 27:13Exo 38:13Lev 1:16Lev 16:14Num 2:3
Gen 2:8

Whether מִקֶּדֶם in Genesis 2:8 locates the garden spatially ("in the east") or temporally ("from the beginning, of old").

  • majoritySpatial: God planted the garden "in the east." The narrative sequence and the matching eastward movements at Genesis 3:24; 4:16; 11:2 favor a direction here.; Septuagint, Genesis 2:8 (ἐν Εδεμ κατὰ ἀνατολάς); Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary 1
  • minorityTemporal: the phrase means "from the beginning" or "of old," so the garden is primeval rather than eastern.; Aquila (ἀπὸ ἀρχῆθεν) and Theodotion (ἐν πρώτοις), ad Genesis 2:8; Targum Onqelos, Genesis 2:8 (מלקדמין); Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram
1bthe eastern lands, and the peoples who live there
Gen 10:30Gen 25:6 (2×)Gen 29:1Num 23:7Jdg 6:3Jdg 6:33Jdg 7:12Jdg 8:10Jdg 8:111Ki 4:30(5:10)Job 1:3Isa 2:6
1cin front, ahead: the side a person is facing
TranslatabilityDirect
Job 23:8Psa 139:5
2

ancient time: the remote past, the days of old, the earliest times reaching back to the world's beginning

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

The same word that points east also points backwards in time. The link is the idea of the front: the past is what a person has already seen and can face, while the future is unseen and comes up from behind. A much repeated image compares it to rowing a boat, where you watch the water you have already crossed while backing into what is ahead.

So the word names former days, long ago, the first times. Writers reach for it in three settings:

  • praying under pressure, when they recall God's rescues in Israel's earliest history as grounds for hope now
  • announcing judgment or restoration, when God says he settled all of this long ago and is only now bringing it about
  • speaking of God himself, or of wisdom, as already there before the world was made

That last group is where care is needed. On its own the word means great age, the remotest past inside time, rather than existence outside time altogether. Where an English Bible reads "eternal" or "everlasting," the weight is usually carried by the word for long duration standing beside it (עוֹלָם) and by the setting, not by this word alone.

Nuances

2aformer times, long ago: the days of old within remembered history
TranslatabilityApproximate
Deu 33:152Ki 19:25Neh 12:46Job 29:2Psa 44:1Psa 68:33Psa 74:2Psa 74:12Psa 77:5Psa 77:11Psa 78:2Psa 119:152
2bthe earliest beginning: before the world was made
Pro 8:22Pro 8:23
Pro 8:22

Whether Proverbs 8:22 asserts Wisdom's pre-existence before creation or her creation as the first of God's works, which turns on the sense of קָנָה.

  • contestedThe verb's lexical content is "acquire," and in this context it is best rendered "created," never "possessed," so Wisdom is the first of God's works and the following phrases date that act to before the earth.; Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1-9, Anchor Bible 18A
  • contestedThe verb means to create or beget, and the passage presents Wisdom as brought forth by God before the world, which the Greek ἔκτισεν ("created") then sharpened into a claim about creaturely status.; Richard J. Clifford, Proverbs: A Commentary, Old Testament Library; Johann Cook, The Septuagint of Proverbs: Jewish and/or Hellenistic Proverbs?
2cof God and his purposes: going back further than memory or record reaches
CertaintyContested
Deu 33:27Psa 55:19Mic 5:2Hab 1:12
Deu 33:27

Whether אֱלֹהֵי קֶדֶם in Deuteronomy 33:27 means "the eternal God," "the God of old," or reflects an archaic mythic formula in need of redivision.

  • majorityThe God of old: the phrase asserts God's immense antiquity, parallel to the "arms" of long duration in the same line, and not timelessness, since the noun on its own denotes the remotest past within time.; HALOT, s.v. קֶדֶם; Tryggve Kronholm, "qedem," TDOT 12
  • minorityThe eternal God: the traditional rendering reads the phrase as a statement of God's eternity.; King James Version, Deuteronomy 33:27
  • minorityAn archaic formula: behind the line stands old Canaanite language about the ancient high god, and the consonants are better redivided to yield a subjugation of the ancient gods.; Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry; New Revised Standard Version, Deuteronomy 33:27

Disputed

Whether קֶדֶם itself can denote timeless eternity or only the remotest past within time (Deuteronomy 33:27; Psalm 55:20; Proverbs 8:22-23; Micah 5:1; Habakkuk 1:12).

  • majorityThe noun denotes antiquity, the remotest bounded past. An "eternal" rendering depends on a parallel term such as עוֹלָם and on the theological setting, not on this word.; HALOT, s.v. קֶדֶם; DCH, s.v. קֶדֶם; Tryggve Kronholm, "qedem," TDOT 12
  • minorityIn the divine and messianic passages the word reaches genuine eternity, and the traditional renderings ("the eternal God," "from everlasting") are lexically warranted.; King James Version, Deuteronomy 33:27; Micah 5:2; Habakkuk 1:12

What scholars say about qedem

The lexica treat קֶדֶם as one noun on the root קדם ("be in front"), with two principal domains: spatial (front, east, the eastern lands) and temporal (former time, antiquity, the primeval past). BDB files everything under a single head ("front, east, aforetime"), deriving both "east" and "antiquity" from "front"; HALOT likewise gives priority to the spatial sense; DCH, being distributional rather than etymological, catalogues the attested collocations (east; antiquity; adverbial "of old"; מִקֶּדֶם) without positing one basic meaning. In TDOT the qdm word group was treated by Tryggve Kronholm, whose analysis derives both the geographic "east" and the temporal "former/primeval time" from spatial "being in front," with sustained attention to the theologically loaded temporal uses. TWOT 1988 distinguishes directional קֶדֶם ("east" from "front") from locative מִזְרָח ("place of sunrise").

The orientation system behind the polysemy is body based and faces the sunrise (front = east, back = west, right = south, left = north), in contrast with the Mesopotamian wind based scheme and the Egyptian scheme oriented toward the Nile source; Wolff's Anthropology of the Old Testament popularized the corollary that the visible past lies "in front" while the unseen future comes from behind. Núñez and Sweetser (Cognitive Science 30 [2006]) found the future-in-front mapping to be quasi-universal and Aymara to invert it, so Hebrew patterns with the rarer type, which is why the claim is best argued from the directional vocabulary itself rather than assumed from a general theory of metaphor. Cognates confirm a pan-Semitic root: Akkadian qudmu and qadmu (marginal beside maḫru and pānu), Ugaritic qdm with the derivatives qdmy and qdmym, Arabic qadama, qidam and qadīm (whence the technical theological qidam, "pre-eternity"), and Aramaic קֳדָם, which in Daniel narrows to the deferential preposition "before" a king or God.

The Septuagint splits the word, rendering the spatial uses ἀνατολή and the temporal uses ἀρχή, ἀρχαῖος or ἀπ' αἰῶνος. At Proverbs 8:22 its ἔκτισεν ("created") reflects, on Johann Cook's analysis, a deliberate subordination of Wisdom to creaturely status; that rendering became the fulcrum of the Arian controversy, with Athanasius reading ἔκτισεν as appointment to headship and Eusebius appealing to Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, none of whom used κτίζω. Several precise lexicon wordings and page references behind the comparative Semitic material should be checked against the printed volumes.

Where scholars disagree about qedem

Whether the spatial sense ("front," hence "east") is the original meaning from which the temporal sense derives.

  • majoritySpatial "being in front" is basic, and both the geographic "east" and the temporal "former/primeval time" develop from it.; Tryggve Kronholm, "qedem," TDOT 12; BDB, s.v. קֶדֶם; Brevard S. Childs, "Orientation," Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible 3
  • minorityIn actual usage neither domain reduces to the other; the attested collocations should be catalogued without positing one basic meaning.; DCH, s.v. קֶדֶם
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

  • HALOT, s.v. קֶדֶםlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. קֶדֶםlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. קֶדֶםlexicon
  • Tryggve Kronholm, "qedem," TDOT 12theological-dictionary
  • TWOT 1988, "קדם"theological-dictionary
  • Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testamentmonograph
  • Brevard S. Childs, "Orientation," Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible 3theological-dictionary
  • Rafael Núñez and Eve Sweetser, "With the Future Behind Them," Cognitive Science 30 (2006)journal-article
  • Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary 1commentary
  • Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetrymonograph
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1-9, Anchor Bible 18Acommentary
  • Richard J. Clifford, Proverbs: A Commentary, Old Testament Librarycommentary
  • Johann Cook, The Septuagint of Proverbs: Jewish and/or Hellenistic Proverbs?monograph
  • Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel, New International Commentary on the Old Testamentcommentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of קֶדֶם

m s absolute

קֶדֶם, קֵדְמָ, קֶּדֶם

Gen 25:6, Gen 29:1, Num 23:7, Deu 33:15, Deu 33:27, Jdg 6:3, Jdg 6:33, Jdg 7:12

m s construct

קֶדֶם, קֶּדֶם

Pro 8:22, Num 34:11

m p construct

קַּדְמֵי

Pro 8:23