ἁγιάζω (hä-ge-ä'-zo), “Hallowed” Part II. The OT Background: קָדַשׁ (kä·dash)
[Reading time: 8 minutes]
The prior post examined ἁγιάζω through the lens of the opening Psalms of Ascents, which communicated the tension of our position “on earth” surrounded by darkness and deceit such that we are compelled to continually look to God “Who dwells in the Heavens.” As we do this, He sends down the Light of His Eternal Presence into This Fallen Age. Our “hallowing” of the Name of JHWH becomes the means by which Heaven and Earth meet, where God’s Eternal Kingdom breaks into the present moment enacting the Will of the Lord here and now through the Messianic King.
We now move forward from this focus on the phrase “in the heavens” to the OT background of the verb “hallow.”
This particular verb derives from the Hebrew word, קָדַשׁ (kä·dash), meaning to “sanctify by setting apart unto JHWH.” Occurring over 170x in the OT, we will confine ourselves primarily to its initial uses in the Pentateuch as they provide us a basic framework for the ways in which it is used both in the OT and later in the the NT. We will then close with two further OT passages from the Prophets which set the stage for the inauguration of the Kingdom of God through the Promised Messiah.
Summary Synthesis
The opening instances of קָדַשׁ (ἁγιάζω in the LXX) convey the Lord’s sanctifying acts towards His people in Creation, Redemption and in the pathway through the Law, Priesthood and Tabernacle unto Sanctification whereby God’s people come to eternally dwell with Him.
Detailed Analysis
The first use comes on the final day of Creation when the Lord “blesses” the Sabbath Day and “hallows it (וַיְקַדֵּ֖שׁ [kä·dash]; ἡγίασεν [hä-ge-ä'-zo]) because that in it He had rested (שָׁבַת֙ (shabath) / κατέπαυσεν) from all His Work which God created and made” (Gen 2:3). Man, however, an rejects this eternal Rest of JHWH and falls into the vanity of the self-life, cut off from God. Its next use provide us the way back, moving from Creation to Redemption.
Coming in the institution of the Passover, the LORD calls the Israelites to sanctify to Him “all the firstborn” (Ex 13:2, 12). The blood of the lamb placed on the doorposts of their dwellings, the firstborn are in this way redeemed from the Judgment of JHWH, Who passes through the land executing “Judgment against all the gods of Egypt” (12:12). The demonic powers broken, the children of Israel are then freed from bondage, crossing the Red Sea and passing through the wilderness to Mt. Sinai. It is there that the Lord, through Moses as their mediator, sanctifies the people (Ex 19:14) and sets apart the ministry of the priesthood (Ex 19:22).
Here occurs the pathway from Creation and Redemption to Sanctification as the Lord first gives to His people the Torah. In the Ten Commandments, the people are called to sanctify the Sabbath Day, setting apart one-seventh of their life in This Fallen Age unto the fullness of the Eternal Rest to come in New Creation (Ex 20:8-> 11). Next, the High Priest is set apart to minister to the Lord on behalf of the people (28:38, 41) as the priests are sanctified by the sprinkling of blood upon their garments (29:1, 21). The sacrifices are then set apart (29:27, 33) with the altar itself being “anointed and sanctified” to JHWH as an “altar most holy” (29:36-37), upon which the cleansing and purification of His people would be performed.
The result of this pathway to Holiness through the “continual burnt offerings” of the sacrificial lamb, offered morning and evening “throughout [their] generations” is that the LORD Himself would “meet” his people (אִוָּעֵ֤ד [τάξομαι]) coming to “speak” to them there (29:42) and sanctify the Tabernacle by His Glory (29:43). With the Aaronic priesthood sanctified to minister to Him “in the priest’s office” (29:44), JHWH will “dwell among the children of Israel and be their God” (29:45).
Thus, it is that the Glory of the Lord sanctifies His people in and through the Tabernacle that looks forward to the Word made flesh (ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο), Who would come to “tabernacle” (ἐσκήνωσεν) among us such that we could “behold His Glory (ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ) as of the Only-Begotten of the Father (ὡς μονογενοῦς), Full of Grace and Truth (πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας, John 1:14).
With this background to ἁγιάζω through the framework presented in the Pentateuch, we move to two further OT passages that further elucidate the opening petition of the Lord’s Prayer. The first comes in Isaiah’s vision of the Eternal Glory of the Throne Room of JHWH; the final in the prophetic words of Ezekiel regarding the New Covenant.
Isaiah 6
Summary Synthesis
The Holiness of JHWH revealed in the Glory of His Eternal Presence. This Holiness will destroy us unless we are cleansed by His Purifying Fire; it will blind us unless we in true humility are drawn out of self into the Glory of the Celestial Praises of the Eternal Heavens.
Detailed Analysis
“In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the Temple” (Is 6:1).
The seraphim, the “powerful, high-level spirits in close proximity to God”, whose place in the divine council is clarified by their continual participation in celestial praise, then cry “to one another,” saying:
->
Holy, holy, holy, (קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ [kä·doshe, kä·doshe, kä·doshe])
is the LORD of hosts:
The whole earth is full of His Glory (כְּבוֹדֽוֹ [Kavod]; Is 6:3-> Jn 17:1-5, δόξα [doxa]).
The prophet, in the Presence of the Holiness of JHWH, surrounded by the purity of His Praises and the fullness of His Glory, then cries out,
“Woe is me! for I am destroyed (נִדְמֵ֗יתִי [damah];
Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips:
For mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (Is 6:5).
Cleansed by the fire of a coal taken from off the altar, he is then sanctified to a calling which would ultimately be fulfilled only by the Messiah Himself.
“Go, and tell this people:
‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
And their ears heavy,
And shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart,
And return and be healed” (Is 6:9-10).
These lines form the background to Jesus’ earthly ministry, revealing why His Word will continually cut two ways. Opposed and rejected, it brings dullness of heart and total blindness; Accepted through humility in faith, it opens mankind up to New Creational Life. Seeing the ways in which Jesus taught, the disciples come to Him and ask for an explanation as to why He “speaks in parables” (Mt 13:10). In response, Jesus simply quotes these lines. His Words, we find, have the power both to conceal and yet reveal; to blind and yet open; to wound and yet heal. If we seek to control His Word, it does the former. If we sanctify His Word in the realities of our lives, it does the latter. With this, we come to the last passage in Ezekiel 36.
Summary Synthesis
The hallowing of the Name of the LORD God works in the people of God to redemptively transforms us from the destruction of This Fallen Age into the Beauty of New Creation.
Detailed Analysis
This final text is situated in the third section of Ezekiel’s Prophecy, which begins with the promise of a New Exodus into the Promised Land of renewed Eden (Ch 33-39), and closes in Israel’s settlement in the Land with the building of New Jerusalem and construction of the New Temple (Ch 40-48, cf. Rev 21). In a prophecy to the “mountains, hills, rivers and valleys”, Ezekiel is commanded to speak of the flourishing that will come to Israel who has been made “desolate”, “swallowed up on every side”, “slandered”, “plundered” , “shamed” and “forsaken” (Ezek 36:1-6).
From such languishing, the “desolate land” will now “shoot forth branches and yield its fruit” to Israel; for the Lord is now “for” them; He will “turn” His “Face” (וּפָנִ֣יתִי [pä·nä']) to them and they “shall be tilled and sown” once again (36:8-9). Their inhabitants will be “multiplied” (רָבָה [rä·vä], cf. Gen 1:22 & 1:28-> 15:1, 16:10 & 17:2) as the Creational Blessings become operative in their midst through the Covenant. Their “ruins” shall then be “rebuilt” with the Lord doing “better” for them than at their “beginnings” (36:10-11). Their enemies and captors shall become their “inheritance” (36:12-15; cf. Ps 2) and Israel shall no longer “defile” the land with their “ways and deeds”, like the pagan nations surrounding them (36:16-18).
Their sin and rebellion which had brought the Covenantal Curses of exile (36:19, וָאָפִ֤יץ [püts], cf. Gen 11:8-9-> Deut 28:64) shall be reversed.
And why? How?
Israel had profaned “My Holy Name” (שֵׁ֣ם קָדְשִׁ֑י [Shem Qodesh]), says the Lord God, “Yet I had concern for My Holy Name (36:20-21).
“I do not do this,” says the Lord “for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name’s sake (36:22). And though, Israel had “profaned” it, JHWH declares, I will sanctify (קָדַשׁ [kä·dash]) My great name (36:23). such that “the nations shall know that I am the LORD when I am hallowed (קָדַשׁ [kä·dash]) in you before their eyes.
This is the pathway to Israel’s renewal.
This is the pathway to a New Covenant which will inaugurate the New Creation for the people of God.
“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God” (36:24-28).
As the Lord “hallows” His Great Name, he “sanctifies (מְקַדֵּ֖שׁ [kä·dash]) Israel” breathing New Life into His People, raising them up from the “dry bones” of death into Eternal Communion with the Living God, whose “Sanctuary” comes to dwell “in the midst of them for evermore” (Ezek 37:28).