kon
כונ
When translated, this word exhibits a variety of spellings including “koen”, “kohen”, “coen”, “cohen”. The hebrew word occasionally is spelled with the letter ה in the middle, and this seemingly justifies the spelling an 'h' (כהנ 'kehen', LexID 3549 with 8 instances). However, it also brings with it some suspicion that perhaps כונ and כהנ might be different words entirely, with different meanings.
- we will need to compare the spellings within the text as we may not be able to rely on the Strongnumbers.
Even without this potential issue, there are other issues at play. Although the meaning of “priest” is applied quite consistently, the word כונ appears under the guise of multiple strong_numbers.
Intriguingly, the word כהנ (kohen), which does include an 'h' is also translated as “priest” and also assigned Strongnumber 3548, but also Strongnumber 3547, where it is supposedly pronounced 'kahan' and 3549, pronounced 'kahen', and 3550 pronounced 'kehuna'. In this form it is generally interpreted to mean “the priesthood” that is the office or profession, rather than a specific person. This appears to be cognate with 'Kahuna' a Hawaiian word that refers to experts in their field. Historically, it has been used to refer to doctors, surgeons and dentists, as well as priests, ministers, and sorcerers.
'kehen' is built on the root word 'keh' meaning “thus”, so it quite probable that the title of priest is based on correct procedural action - “doing it thus”, an idea that still holds much sway and is encapsulated in the word “orthodoxy”.
History
In Genesis 14:18, Melchizedek is said to have been the “priest of god most high”, at least this is the typical interpretation. But the Hebrew reads: כֹהֵ֖ן לְאֵ֥ל עֶלְיֽוֹן
Later on in Genesis we read of the “priest of On” and the “priest of Midian”, and then in Exodus, the priest of Pharoah.
These instances occur in an early time period predating the establishment of Israel as a nation and Judaism as a religion, so it is important to understand that at that time there was no such thing as a priest of Yahweh or a “Jewish Priest”. Thus, many hundreds of years later after the Hebrew exodus from Egypt, when the priesthood of Israel was established by Moses, he chose to utilize the same ancient word that had always referred to what we might now consider “pagan gods”.
In fact, not only did Moses re-use the “pagan” word, which was culturally still very fraught, having left Egypt not long before, he actually applied it in a very strange way, not only to a certain profession, but very strangely, to the entire group of Hebrew citizens.
He explicitly calls the entire nation a kingdom of priests - Exodus 19:6, “you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” כֹּהֲנִ֖ים kehenim
(3548 includes both singular and plural (see im) forms)
LexID 3548