Holy of Holies
term in the Hebrew Bible
The Holy of Holies (Biblical Hebrew: קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים, romanized: Qoḏeš haq-Qŏḏāšim) or Devir (הַדְּבִיר had-Dəḇir 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God's presence) appeared. According to Hebrew tradition, the area was defined by four pillars that held up the veil of the covering, under which the Ark of the Covenant was held above the floor. According to the Hebrew Bible, the Ark contained the Ten Commandments, which were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. The first Temple in Jerusalem, called Solomon's Temple, was said to have been built by King Solomon to keep the Ark.
Jewish traditions viewed the Holy of Holies as the spiritual junction of the Seven Heavens and Earth, the "axis mundi".
As a part of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies was situated somewhere on Temple Mount; its precise location is a matter of dispute, with some classical Jewish sources identifying its location with the Foundation Stone, which sits under the current Dome of the Rock. Other Jewish scholars argue that contemporary reports would place the Temple to the north or east of the Dome of the Rock.
The Crusaders associated the Holy of Holies with the Well of Souls, a small cave that lies underneath the Foundation Stone in the Dome of the Rock.
Hebrew terminology and translation
The construction "Holy of Holies" is a translation of the Hebrew, which is intended to express a superlative. Examples of similar constructions are "servant of servants" (Gen 9:25), "sabbath of sabbaths" (Ex 31:15), "God of gods" (Deut 10:17), "vanity of vanities" (Eccl 1:2), "Song of Songs" (Song of Songs 1:1), "king of kings" (Ezra 7:12), etc.
“Holy of Holies” enters the record as term in the Hebrew Bible. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Holy, Holies and term can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3620148. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Holy of Holies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.