Hebrew Root - Tsade-Dalet-Qof

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Hebrew Word of the Week

In the words below, see how the key letters (Tsade, Dalet, and Qof) are used to form other Hebrew words:

This root basically connotes conformity to an ethical or moral standard. It is claimed by some scholars that the original significance of the root is "to be straight," though this is not absolutely certain.

In the Scriptures
The root and its derivatives occur over a hundred times in the Tanakh, with the first appearance in Genesis 14:8, in reference to Melki-Tsedek, the king of Shalom (melki means "my king," and tsedek means righteousness, so Melki-Tsedek would mean "My king is Righteous"). Melki-Tsedek is further described as the priest (Kohen) of the God Most High (El Elyon) who brought bread and wine to Abraham after Abraham's victory over the kings who enslaved his nephew Lot (this is an obvious picture of the Mashiach Yeshua as our great High Priest (see Hebrews 5:6,20, 6:20, and chapter 7).

The first occurrence of the word Tsedekah is in Genesis 15:6, where the Abraham believed in Adonai, and it was accounted to him as righteousness.

"The LORD is righteous in all His ways" (Psalm 145:17)

Pictographic Meaning
The pictogram for the shoresh, or root, depicts a person in need as a doorway to the sun - an image, perhaps, of our dependence upon God and our need for humilty as we consider the needs of others in our lives:

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