Qedem – East or "Distant in Time" (קדם) In Hebrew thought, space and time are the same. So, the present time relates to where you are now; and a distant place assumes a distant time (past or future). That's why qedem is used for both space and time, e.g. "he drove the man out, he placed on the east (קדם) of Eden cherubim." (Genesis 3:24) and "I thought of the former days, the years of long ago (קדם)." (Psalm 77:5) With this basic understanding of the Hebrew word קדם (qedem), let’s consider the pictographs for this word, where we find an interesting correlation between the letters of this word and its meaning. The first letter, reading from right to left, is the letter quph, a picture of the “sun at the horizon.” The second letter is the dalet, a picture of a tent door, which allows “movement” in and out of the tent. The last letter is the mem, a picture of water and can represent a “sea” or more specifically, the Mediterranean Sea. When we put all of this together we get, “The sun at the horizon moving toward the sea,” a perfect Hebraic description of the “east.” Keep in mind that Hebrew definitions are often dynamic rather than static. What I mean by this is that we define a noun as a person, place or thing. But Hebrew nouns are more about the action of a person, place or thing. For instance, a Hebrew definition of a mountain is not just a “mountain,” but “the head rising up out of the ground.”