‘Holiness’ connotes an offering, while in related languages the cognate qudš is a goddess, and the plural qdšm denotes gods in general (see vol. I, p. 527). More remote parallels are ʿaštārôt ‘Astarte-goddesses’ or ‘young animals’ (Deut 7:13; 28:4, 18, 51) and ʾăšērâ ‘(the goddess) Asherah’ or a ‘sacred pole’ (NOTE to 34:13). At a remove of over two millennia, it is hard to know, let alone to understand, what used to happen at the Israelite Topheth and analogous shrines along the Mediterranean.