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unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes.”
Thus consecrated, the people could come into God’s presence. In a related sense, the verb
means “to set someone aside for divine service.” Although the primary emphasis here is
ritualistic, there are ethicalmoral overtones. Thus, God directed Moses to have the
artisans make special clothing for Aaron: “… And they shall make holy garments for
Aaron thy brother, … that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office” (Exod. 28:4).
When the consecration occurred, Aaron and his sons were sprinkled with the blood of the
atonement. Such an offering necessitated their confessing their sin and submitting to a
substitutionary (albeit typological) sacrifice. Used in this sense the word describes the
necessary step preceding ordination to the priestly office.
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is also applied to the consecration of things by placing them into a state of
ritualistic or cultic purity and dedicating them solely to God’s use (cultic use; cf. Exod.
29:36; Lev. 16:19). In some cases consecrating something to God requires no act upon
the object, but leaving it entirely alone. Moses acknowledges to God that “the people
cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the
mount, and sanctify it” (Exod. 19:23). In Isa. 29:23-24 the verb means “to recognize God
as holy,” as the only real source of truth, and to live according to His laws: “But when he
[the home of Jacob] seeth his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him, they
shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of
Israel. They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured
shall learn doctrine.” In Ezek. 36:23
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means “to prove oneself to be holy, or to
demonstrate and vindicate one’s holiness.”
In the causative stem the word means “to give for God’s use”: “And it shall be upon
Aaron’s forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children
of Israel shall hallow …” (Exod. 28:38). The act whereby someone gives things to God is
also described by the word
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The priests performed the actual consecration
ceremony while an individual decided that something he owned was to be given to God:
“… King David did dedicate [these vessels] unto the Lord …” (2 Sam. 8:11). In Lev.
27:14ff. several objects are listed which may be given to God as a gift and which may be
redeemed by substitutionary payments. In Num. 8:17 God identified “sanctifying” the
first-born and killing them. Thus, they were removed from profane use and taken over
completely by God: “… On the day that I smote every first-born in the land of Egypt I
sanctified them for myself.”
God’s consecrating something or someone may also mean that He accepts that person
or thing as in His service: “… I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put
my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually” (1
Kings 9:3). In a more emphatic nuance the word is a correlative of election, signifying
God’s appointing someone to His service: “… Before thou camest forth out of the womb
I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jer. 1:5; cf. 12:3). This
verb also means “to prepare to approach God”: “… For the Lord hath prepared a
sacrifice, he hath bid his guests” (Zeph. 1:7). Here, since the word is synonymously
parallel to the concept “prepare,” or “make ready,” it, too, refers to making ready. In
Num. 20:12 the stem presents the word in the meaning “trust as holy”; Moses did not
follow God’s orders recognizing His demand for perfect obedience (cf. Isa. 8:13).
B. Nouns.