Bible word study

Qedem (Strong’s H6924): Meaning in the Bible

Qedem (קֶדֶם) is the Hebrew word numbered H6924 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as the front, of place (absolutely, the fore part, relatively the East) or time (antiquity); often used adverbially (before, anciently, eastward). In the King James Bible it is translated aforetime, ancient (time), before, east (end, part.

• Original wordקֶדֶם
• Transliterationqedem
• Pronunciationkeh'-dem
• Part of speechnoun (masculine) (n-m adv)
• Strong’s numberH6924
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. or קֵדְמָה; from H6923;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Qedem appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Qedem (H6924) stands behind 86 English renderings in 82 verses across 22 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Genesis (12), Psalms (11), Numbers (10).

How the King James Bible renders Qedem, by count

• east32 of 86 (37 percent)
• old17 of 86 (20 percent)
• eastward11 of 86 (13 percent)
• ancient6 of 86 (7 percent)
• side5 of 86 (6 percent)
• before3 of 86 (3 percent)

Three places to read Qedem

• Genesis 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
• Joshua 18:20 And Jordan was the border of it on the east side. This was the inheritance of the children of Benjamin, by the coasts thereof round about, according to their families.
• Psalms 143:5 I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Qedem in the original Hebrew lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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