Who is equal to You among the gods, O Lord? This verse is similar in structure to “Your right hand, O Lord, You Who are girt with might / Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy” (above, v. 6). That is, the first part of the verse is repeated, but the idea is not completed until the end of the verse. So here, “Who is equal to You among the gods, O Lord” is not a complete statement; rather, the meaning is, “Who among the gods is girt with holiness, awesome, and a worker of wonders equal to You, O Lord?” (as per Mendelssohn’s comment).
However, this verse differs from v. 6 and similar verses in that the second part is missing the word
ba-elim (“among the gods”) (for [in order to fit the model,] the verse should have read, “Who is equal to You among the gods, O Lord / Who is equal to you
among the gods, girt with holiness”). In the same vein is the verse, “Wherewith Your enemies have taunted, O Lord / Wherewith they have taunted the footsteps of Your anointed”
(Ps. 89:52), where the word
oyevekha (“Your enemies”) is missing from the second part. A somewhat similar example is, “Is it kindled against the rivers, O Lord /
Is Your anger against the rivers?”
(Hab. 3:8), which means, “Is Your anger kindled against the rivers?” The first part of this verse is missing the word
appekha (“Your anger”), while the second part is missing the word
ḥarah (“kindled”). The verse should not be interpreted according to the view of the accentuator [who joined the words
ḥarah YHVH in the first part with a conjunctive
munaḥ], for [in that case] the phrase should have read
ḥarah af YHVH (“the Lord’s anger is kindled”), since the phrase
ḥarah YHVH is not found anywhere.
among the gods (ba-elim). The Hebrew is the equivalent of
ba-elohim, that is, the gods of the nations, as in, “And [the king] shall speak strange things against the God of gods [
elim]”
(Dan. 11:36). So also, “Who among the
benei elim can be liked unto the Lord”
(Ps. 89:7), meaning
benei Elohim (“sons of God”), i.e., the angels; similarly, “Ascribe unto the Lord,
benei elim / Ascribe unto the Lord glory and strength”
(Ps. 29:1). Other than in these verses, we do not find
elim as the equivalent of
elohim, but rather denoting “strength” or “might,” as below, “the magnates of [
eilei] Moab” (v. 15); so also, “When he raises himself up, the mighty [
elim] are afraid”
(Job 41:17).
The reason for this is that the primary meaning of el is “strong” or “powerful,” and from this was derived eloah and elohim, but these words are altered in form, so that anyone who hears the term elohim knows that it refers to an object of worship, whether [truly] possessing strength and might (as does the true God) or whether lacking any strength or might (as do the gods of the nations). On the other hand, the word elim is not altered in form, and one who hears it must necessarily understand it to refer to strong or powerful beings. Therefore, the Israelites chose not to use this term to refer to the gods of the nations, and the prophets used it only where the context shows that these elim are not in fact strong or powerful – as in the present verse, which says that there are none among the elim that are girt with might, worthy of awesome praises, or workers of wonders; and in the verse from Daniel, where the phrase “the God of gods [elim]” indicates that the elim are under the power of the true God.
girt with holiness (ne’dar ba-kodesh). See above on ne’dari ba-koaḥ, v. 6. The meaning is “girt [ne’ezar] and surrounded by Divine might, Godly attributes,” etc. In other words He is the true God, and not in name only. See what I wrote in Bikkurei ha-Ittim ha-Ḥadashim 5606 (1845/46), p. 35.1
with holiness (ba-kodesh). It seems to me that kodesh was derived from kad esh, that is, yekod esh, “a burning of fire” (as per the homiletical interpretation in the Talmud, Kiddushin 56b, of the phrase “otherwise the produce of the planting would become sacred [prohibited] [tikdash]” [Deut. 22:9] – “otherwise it would be set afire [tukkad esh]”), and that the term originally applied to sacrifices that were burned in order to honor God. Later the term was transferred to anything that was set aside for God’s honor and removed from profane use, even if no burning was involved, e.g., the kedushah (“holiness”) of Sabbath, the “holy convocations” (mikra’ei kodesh), the “holy mountain” (har ha-kodesh), and the “holy Temple” (beit ha-mikdash).
Similarly, a person would be called kadosh (“holy”) by reason of being devoted to God and set apart for His service. The terms “holy garments” (bigdei kodesh) and “holy oil” (shemen ha-kodesh) referred to the garments and the oil that were special to the priests and removed from the rest of the people, and which served to symbolize the setting aside of the priests for God’s service.
The word kadosh came to denote anything divine or pertaining to God, and likewise kodesh came to mean “godliness,” “Divine power,” “Divine attribute,” and the like. The expression ne’dar ba-kodesh means “girt with Divine power, Divine attributes,” etc., that is He is truly Divine, and not in name only. This sense of the term was extended so that God [Himself] was said to be kadosh, that is, He is Divine and exalted above all human imperfection.
The term
kedushah was also transferred to describe anything from which no benefit is to be derived, and from which people keep apart as if it is set aside for Heaven, even if this is not the case and the article in question possesses no “holiness,” but is merely forbidden. This is the meaning of the phrase “otherwise the produce of the planting would become sacred [prohibited] [
tikdash]”
(Deut. 22:9).
Because sacrifices were to be eaten in a state of purity, people would purify themselves before eating them, and thus it was said, “For the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, He has consecrated [
hikdish] His guests”
(Zeph. 1:7). They would also purify themselves before coming to the Temple, and in this sense it was said, “Sanctify [
kaddeshu] a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders… to the house of the Lord your God”
(Joel 1:14). Similarly, before the giving of the Torah, when the people came into the presence of God, it was said, “Have them sanctify themselves [
ve-kiddashtam] today and tomorrow”
(Exod. 19:10). Joshua, too, told the people, “Sanctify yourselves [
hitkaddashu], for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you”
(Joshua 3:5); that is, he told them to purify themselves as if they were coming into God’s presence, so that they should be impressed with the greatness of the miracle that God was to perform for them in causing them to cross the Jordan on dry land.
Other examples are, “Sanctfiy yourselves [
hitkaddeshu] for tomorrow, and you will eat meat” (Num.11:18), i.e., “prepare yourselves for the miracle [of the quails]”; and also, “Up, sanctify [
kaddesh] the people, and say, ‘Sanctify yourselves [
hitkaddeshu] against tomorrow’”
(Joshua 7:13) – that is, Joshua wanted the people to purify themselves before he cast the lot to determine who had misappropriated the devoted things, as if they were coming into God’s presence to hear their judgment, and this was in order to impress upon them that the lot that he would cast among them would result in a Divine judgment.
The term
mitkaddeshet was later transferred to a woman who was cleansing herself of her menstrual impurity
(2 Sam. 11:14), even if her ritual immersion was not done for the purpose of partaking of
kodashim (sacred offerings), but rather to become pure for her husband, or perhaps because she would be obligated, after giving birth, to go to the Temple and bring a sacrifice. Also, because soldiers would bring sacrifices before going to war so as to pray that God would be with them – and because, even when at war, they were admonished to keep themselves in a state of
kedushah and purity, as it is written, “For the Lord, your God, walks in the midst of your camp… therefore your camp must be holy [
kadosh]”
(Deut. 23:15) – they would use the expression
kaddesh milḥamah (“sanctify war”) [in the sense of “prepare for war”], as in Jer. 6:4, Joel 4:9, and Mic. 3:5, and those who were prepared for war were called
mekuddashim (Isa. 13:3).
As for the verse, “And they set apart [
va-yakdishu] Kedesh in Galilee [as a city of refuge]”
(Joshua 20:7), it is true that it would have been proper to use the verb
va-yavdilu, as in, “Then Moses separated [
yavdil] three cities”
(Deut. 4:41), but it seems that out of a preference for plays on words, it was written
va-yakdishu et Kedesh. In any case, the term
kedushah is well employed with respect to cities of refuge, for the refuge given to manslayers was originally a distinction unique to sanctuaries and altars, as it is written, “From My very altar shall you tear him [the intentional murderer] away”
(Exod. 21:14); “And [Joab] caught hold on the horns of the altar”
(1 Kings 2:28). Because the Torah banned the
bamot (“high places,” or local altars) and commanded the entire nation to have only one sanctuary and altar – and thus not all manslayers could flee to the Temple, which was too distant for some – the six cities of refuge were ordained, as if there were six sanctuaries and altars in the land of Israel to give refuge to those who killed unintentionally. Hence, it was fittingly written
va-yakdishu et Kedesh, as the word
va-yakdishu does not depart from the essential meaning of
kedushah.
In the verse, “But prophesy not again any more at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary [
mikdash melekh], and it is a royal house”
(Amos 7:13), the term
mikdash melekh does not mean “the king’s house,” but literally a “sanctuary,” the site where [Jeroboam’s] golden calf was worshipped. It was called
mikdash melekh because it was there that the king would bring his sacrifices, not at the other worship site in Dan, which was at the far border [of the northern kingdom of Israel] and distant from the royal city [of Samaria]. Moreover, the terms
kadesh and
kedeshah [the masculine and feminine words, respectively, for “sacred prostitute”] do not depart from the essential meaning of
kedushah, for there were pagan gods (such as Ashtoret, alias Astarte and Venus) whose worship consisted of acts of harlotry, and the
kedeshim and
kedeshot consecrated themselves and their hire to those gods. During the reigns of some of the sinful kings of Judah, these abominations were performed even in honor of the true God, and in His house, and the
kedeshim had houses within the Temple
(2 Kings 23:7), even though the Torah had already forbidden all of this by declaring, “There shall not be a prostitute [
kedeshah]… You must not let into the House of the Lord… the hire of a harlot…”
(Deut. 23:18-19).
It is clear that most or all of the commentators (led by Onkelos and Jonathan) were mistaken in thinking that the term
kedushah applies to any “preparation.” Rashi (on Num.11:18) sought to bring proof from Jeremiah
(2:3), “And prepare them [
ve-hakdishem] for the day of slaughter,” but not even that verse lends decisive support, for the more likely explanation, as per my student, David Hai Ashkenazi, is that the prophet is comparing the slain to sacred sheep (
tson kodashim) that are slaughtered on a day of sacrifice; cf. “For the Lord has prepared a sacrifice” [Zeph. 1:7, referring to the slaughter of sinners].
Now every enlightened person knows that words indicating spiritual, intellectual concepts that are not perceptible to the senses are all transferred terms that originally indicated tangible things.2 For example, the three words nefesh, ruaḥ, and neshamah (all meaning “soul”) originally referred to “breath” and the intake of air, and because inhalation is an action that is necessary for life, these nouns were later transferred to refer to the vital essence of all living things, the cause of human life and thought. Similarly in other languages, [words such as the Latin] anima (“soul”) originally meant “wind,” “air,” or “breath.” The concept of kedushah, too, is exalted and far removed from the senses, and it is unlikely that its root originally conveyed such an exalted meaning. [It is true that] if we search through the languages cognate to Hebrew, we find in all of them this root in the sense of “holiness,” and not in any other tangible sense that might be thought to have been transferred to denote “holiness.” However, according to my view, the original sense of the word kodesh reflected a tangible thing, the burning of sacrifices, and the word was later transferred to anything specially dedicated to the honor of God even if it was not burned.
There is a similar instance in Latin, according to Servius, the ancient commentator to the poems of Virgil: “Sancire (“to sanction”) properly refers to something holy, that is, ‘to consecrate by pouring the blood [sanguine] of an enemy’; and to say sanctum is as if [to say] ‘consecrated with blood.’”3
I hereby revoke what I wrote in
Bikkurei ha-Ittim 5587 (1826), p. 204, and in
Kerem Ḥemed vol. 3, p. 210, on the verse “Six hundred thousand on foot”
(Num. 11:21).
4 I now say that when God said, “Sanctify yourselves [
hitkaddeshu] for tomorrow, and you will eat meat”
(Num. 11:18), this was already an intimation that the matter would be way of a miracle. It seems to me that if God had promised the people a new type of food (as in the case of the manna), Moses would not have expressed astonishment. However, God said that He would give them meat, and Moses saw that there was no settled land around them where there would be herds and flocks, and no sea with fish, and even birds were not to be seen in that great and terrible desert; therefore he was astonished.
In his
Thesaurus, Gesenius made of the expression
mitkaddeshet mi-tum’atah, “she was purified from her uncleanness”
(2 Sam. 11:4) the basic source for the entire concept of
kedushah; he thought that the original sense of the word indicated purity and cleanliness. This is not so, for
kedushah always denotes a higher state than [mere] purity.
Kedushah means that a thing is set aside for the honor of God, and this concept is not at all included in the meaning of the word
tohorah (“purity”). It should be obvious that in the case of the phrase, “Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy [
va-y’kaddeshehu]”
(Exod. 20:11), it could certainly not have been said
va-yetaharehu (“and declared it pure”). Similarly, in the vast majority of other places, the term
kedushah could not be replaced by the term
tohorah, for the principal meaning of
kedushah refers to a thing’s relation to God, unlike the principal meaning of
tohorah.
As for the derivation of the word, Gesenius found no root similar to kadash except for ḥadash (“to be new”), which also (according to him and others) mainly denotes that which is clean and bright, but all of this is unlikely. The root kadash contains the letter shin even in Aramaic, while the Aramaic equivalent of ḥadash is ḥadat. According to others cited by Gesenius, the original meaning of the root kadash had to do with “setting aside,” and the root is derived from kadad, which in Arabic and Syriac denotes “cutting” or “splitting.” But how many other roots do we have in Hebrew that indicated “cutting” – can it be that out of all of them, only this one was chosen, which appears in Hebrew only in another sense (that of “bowing to the ground”)?
And if we had to derive kadash from kadad, it would make more sense to say that it came from kodkod, “the top of the head,” and that kedushah originally meant “height” or “exaltedness.”
I concede that the compounding of one word from two words (kodesh from kod esh) is an unusual phenomenon in Hebrew and its cognate languages, and that I have retracted what I wrote twenty years ago, that riggel (“to spy”) was derived from ra gillah (“to expose evil”), and that yatur (“will explore”) was derived from atah ra’ah (“came and saw”). Nevertheless, it cannot be completely denied that compound roots do exist, such as:
• maḥar (“tomorrow”) from yom aḥar (“day after”);
• belimah (“nothingness”) from beli mah (“without anything”);
• lulei (“unless”) from lu lo (“if not”);
• me’umah (“anything”) from mah o mah (“what or what”); and also, in my opinion:
• immadi (“with me”) from im yadi (“with my hand”);
• etsel (“next to”) from el tsela (“at the side of”);
• zulati (“except for”) from zu lo (“this not”) (on the model of bilti, beli, and bal, which I derive from belo [all meaning “without”]).5
If anyone still denies the existence of compound Hebrew words, such a person would be free to say that kedushah is derived from yekod (“burning”), but that the final shin was added to distinguish the idea of kedushah from the idea of “burning.”
worthy of awesome praises (nora tehillot, lit., “awesome of praises”). Worthy of great and mighty praises; cf.,
nora alilah, “terrible in His doing”
(Ps. 66:5), i.e., “master of awesome deeds.”