What Does Joshua 19:37 Mean?
And Kedesh, and Edrei, and En-hazor,
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Kedesh, and Edrei, and En-hazor,THE KEY
The land’s names are part of its inheritance: Kedesh carries “set apart,” while En-hazor preserves a spring in the map.
THE MEANING
What you receive is not a blank expanse: it arrives with named places, each carrying its character. Kedesh holds the language of being set apart, and En-hazor names a spring. This list gives the portion shape through both distinction and source.
THE ROOT
קֶדֶשׁ
Qedesh
GROWS FROM
ק־ד־שׁ
q-d-sh
To set apart; to make sacred.
Kedesh shares its root with words for what is set apart and with the word for a sanctuary. Its name carries that quality into the map: this place is marked as distinct within the inheritance.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart; holy.
קָדוֹשׁ
The shared root shows the quality carried by Kedesh’s name.
qodesh: Set-apartness; sacredness.
קֹדֶשׁ
This noun makes explicit the quality held within the place-name.
miqdash: Sanctuary; set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
The place-name and the sanctuary word share the same root of being set apart.
עֵין
ʿEn
GROWS FROM
ע־י־ן
ʿ-y-n
Eye; also a spring or source.
En-hazor means “spring of Hazor”; its first word is the same Hebrew noun that can mean “eye.” The name keeps a source within the place, a detail the English spelling of the compound can obscure.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye; also a spring or source.
עַיִן
This is the noun appearing in En-hazor, where it means spring.
maʿyan: Spring; fountain.
מַעְיָן
This related word makes the spring or source branch of the root visible.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets a place’s name or defining quality carry meaning beyond its location.
And he called the name of that place Bethel, house of God; but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.And he said, Do not draw near here. Loosen the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is set-apart ground.And carrying his cross, he went out to the place called the place of a skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.THE THREAD
And he said, Do not draw near here. Loosen the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is set-apart ground.“Holy” here is qodesh (קֹדֶשׁ, set-apartness), from the same root as Kedesh (קֶדֶשׁ, set apart). The city named in the allotment carries the same quality as the ground declared set apart here.
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