HOLY, holiness — the root sense is 'set apart, cut off from the common.' 'The place on which you stand is holy ground' (admat-qodesh, 3:5) is the first patch of EARTH in the Bible called holy — and the ground is admah, Adam's own soil (Genesis 2:7), made holy by nothing but the Presence standing on it. (The seventh day was 'made holy' first, Genesis 2:3 — holiness begins in TIME, then touches a PLACE here, and will fill the tabernacle by the book's end.) Not a quality of the dirt, but of Who is there. → first discussed at Exod 3:5