What Does 1 Kings 6:16 Mean in the King James?
And he built twenty cubits on the sides of the house, both the floor and the walls with boards of cedar: he even built them for it within, even for the oracle, even for the most holy place.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The “most holy place” is literally the holy within the holy: its deepest identity is a space set apart within a space already set apart.
THE MEANING
The verse gives distinction a place in the structure: a cedar-lined room sits within the house and is marked as set apart. Its name, “holy of holies,” presents holiness as an inner space within the larger whole.
THE ROOT
קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים
qodesh ha-qodashim
GROWS FROM
קדשׁ
q-d-sh
Set apart; consecrated.
The Hebrew phrase behind “most holy place” is “holy of holies,” repeating the root for setting apart. English sounds like it ranks holiness on a scale; the Hebrew repetition marks a place set apart within what is already set apart, matching the verse’s movement inward.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart; holy.
קָדוֹשׁ
The adjective from this root describes what is marked as distinct, the quality named by the repeated phrase.
miqdash: Sanctuary; a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This branch makes the root’s setting-apart concrete as a place, as it is in the cedar-lined inner room.
THE PATTERN
Sacred space is marked by boundaries that distinguish an inner place from the space around it.
And thou shalt hang up the vail under the taches, that thou mayest bring in thither within the vail the ark of the testimony: and the vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy.And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the LORD unto his place, into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubims.And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all;THE THREAD
And thou shalt hang up the vail under the taches, that thou mayest bring in thither within the vail the ark of the testimony: and the vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy.The phrase rendered “most holy” is qodesh ha-qodashim (קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים, “holy of holies”), repeating the root קדשׁ (q-d-sh, “set apart”) found in the current verse. Here the veil gives that inner setting-apart a visible boundary: the chamber is distinct from a space already called holy.
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