לֹא־תִהְיֶ֥ה קְדֵשָׁ֖ה מִבְּנ֣וֹת יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וְלֹֽא־יִהְיֶ֥ה קָדֵ֖שׁ מִבְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
No Israelite woman shall be a consecrated worker,* nor shall any Israelite man be a consecrated worker.**
*consecrated worker Or “retainer”; meaning of Heb. qedeshah uncertain. In contrast to others “cult prostitute.”
**consecrated worker Meaning of Heb. qadesh uncertain. See previous note.
(The above rendering and footnotes come from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation.)
The terms in question are קְדֵשָׁה and קָדֵשׁ, the latter being the masculine counterpart of the former. Yet the second term is mentioned separately as if it refers to a distinct category, which is something of a puzzle. According to our project’s academic consulting editor, Dr. Hilary Lipka, the terms most probably refer to some kind of (unapproved) temple or cultic functionaries, given the contextual association with prohibited religious practices.
What is more clear is that there is no evidence that these terms describe prostitutes or that they have any sexual connotations, despite the fact that this was the prevailing interpretation of 20th-century scholarship. The notion that ancient Near Eastern religions included prostitution as a religious act has since been discredited. See, e.g., Elaine Adler Goodfriend, “Prostitution (Old Testament),” Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992), 5:505–10; Stephanie Lynn Budin, The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
That being said, it remains unclear which of the two main meanings of the verbal root קדש is the source of these derived nouns. They may describe either a “consecrated one” or “someone set aside for a special function.”
As for the translation, the NJPS rendering “sacred prostitute” is no longer defensible.
If these Hebrew nouns were meant to evoke the idea of consecration, English seems to allow its use only via an adjective, which then needs a noun to attach to. The advantage of worker for that noun slot is that its meaning hints at the idea of “personnel/functionary/attendant” while still remaining appropriately vague.
Alternatively, if these nouns were meant to evoke the idea of being “set aside,” then retainer would be more appropriate.