טָהוֹר

נָקִי nâqîy · H5355 · innocent, free from obligation, not liable

Both words occupy overlapping semantic space in the sphere of purity, innocence and cleanness; "clean" appears in both, along with related concepts such as pure, innocent and blameless.

בַּר bar · H1249 · son, at the age of ...

Both lexemes denote ritual or moral cleanness and purity, with overlapping senses — both are glossed as clean or pure — and are distinct Hebrew words that could substitute for each other in appropriate contexts.

זַךְ zak · H2134 · pure, pure > innocent

Both words denote purity and cleanness; The second word is glossed "pure," and in extended use "innocent."

טָמֵא ṭâmêʼ · H2931 · unclean, impure

The direct lexical opposite of טָהוֹר, denoting ritual or moral defilement/uncleanness.

καθαρός katharós · G2513 · clean, clear, pure

Greek καθαρός directly renders Hebrew טָהוֹר across ritual purity, moral cleanness, and physical cleanliness contexts, functioning as the standard LXX equivalent for the Hebrew term's semantic range.

ἁγνός hagnós · G53 · pure, without defect

Greek ἁγνός emphasizes moral purity and innocence (particularly in ethical/cultic contexts), while Hebrew טָהוֹר denotes ritual cleanness and ceremonial purity under Levitical law, though both terms share the core semantic domain of purity/cleanness and are genuine translation equivalents across the LXX corpus.

Pure002003001014

טָהוֹר is the standard adjective for ritual purity, describing clean animals fit for sacrifice or eating, as the clean animals Noah was to take in sevens (Genesis 7:2, 8).

Clean002001001011

טָהוֹר denotes ritual cleanness, most commonly of animals permitted for sacrifice or food, illustrated repeatedly in the flood narrative's distinction between clean and unclean animals (Genesis 7:2, 7:8, 8:20).

Innocent002003003015

The same word extends to moral innocence in the idiom "clean hands," illustrated at Job 17:9 ("the one who has clean hands will grow stronger") — a genuine figurative extension of ritual cleanness to blamelessness of conduct.

Good002001001031

The same word is also used of fine or pure quality, especially of precious metal, illustrated repeatedly in the tabernacle's "pure gold" overlay (Exodus 25:11, 25:17, 25:24) — a genuine sense of excellence or fineness distinct from ritual cleanness.

Great002001002012

This entry carries no independent "Great" sense of its own; its genuine senses (ritual cleanness, moral innocence, and fineness of quality) do not concern magnitude or greatness. The domain is bundle-shared with a related sense.

Right002001003013

The same word touches on moral rightness in contexts contrasting the clean/righteous with the unclean/wicked, as at Ecclesiastes 9:2 ("for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for the clean") — a genuine, if narrow, extension paralleling its Innocent sense above.

Words formed from the same root. They share a form, not always a meaning.

Meanings adapted from the UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament, © United Bible Societies, CC BY-SA 4.0 and the UBS Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew (from the Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew), © United Bible Societies, CC BY-SA 4.0; MACULA Greek Linguistic Datasets, available at https://github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-greek/, licensed CC BY 4.0; MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets © 2022-2024 by Biblica, Inc., CC BY 4.0. Westminster Leningrad Codex (tanach.us). OpenScriptures Hebrew Bible morphology (hb.openscriptures.org), CC BY 4.0.