Bible word study

Qodesh (Strong’s H6944): Meaning in the Bible

Qodesh (קֹדֶשׁ) is the Hebrew word numbered H6944 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as a sacred place or thing; rarely abstract, sanctity. In the King James Bible it is translated consecrated (thing), dedicated (thing), hallowed (thing), holiness, portion.

• Original wordקֹדֶשׁ
• Transliterationqôdesh
• Pronunciationko'-desh
• Part of speechnoun (masculine) (n-m)
• Strong’s numberH6944
• LanguageHebrew

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. from H6942;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Qodesh appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Qodesh (H6944) stands behind 469 English renderings in 382 verses across 29 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in Leviticus (92), Exodus (69), Numbers (57).

How the King James Bible renders Qodesh, by count

• holy262 of 469 (56 percent)
• sanctuary68 of 469 (14 percent)
• things44 of 469 (9 percent)
• most43 of 469 (9 percent)
• holiness30 of 469 (6 percent)
• thing8 of 469 (2 percent)

Three places to read Qodesh

• Exodus 3:5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
• Numbers 3:50 Of the firstborn of the children of Israel took he the money; a thousand three hundred and threescore and five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary:
• Psalms 51:11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

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 Qodesh 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.

Related words