the Berasit Hebrew Dictionary

קדמ

'Qedem' appears to refer to an ancient civilization or the ruins thereof; a remnant of a previous iteration of culture or technology.

Genesis 13:14, Psalm 68:33

The qedim are the ancient people of that civilization.

Genesis 15:19 refers to the 'qedim' people specifically, along with a couple other people groups.

According to Nehemiah 12:24, the character isoy(Jesuah) was descended from these people, as he is referred to as a “son of qedem”.

There are several instances that explicitly link 'qedem' to an earlier and better period in history. Isaiah 23:7 speaks of “a joyous city from days ancient whose antiquity carried her feet far off to dwell”. The book of Ezekiel¹⁾ refers to the “former state” of Sodom and Samaria and promises to make them inhabited “as in former times”. In a similar vein, Psalms 129:6 refers to the former state of green grass before it withers.

'qedem' also appears in Daniel 7:13 which speaks of a mysterious character named “the Ancient of Days”. The book of Daniel makes extensive use of the word, but many of these references are typically rendered into more mundane interpretations.

This culture may have been centered somewhere east of the Levant. This is evidenced by strong contextual correlations between 'qedem' and mezereh meaning “east”.

Because of this fact, most traditional translations misinterpret “qedem” as “east”, but this oversimplification disregards another important aspect of 'qedem'.

It is unclear if there might be any etymological linkage between qedem and qedes, since the presumed root 'qed' is unattested. explore this.