טהר
purification
also: purity, purifying fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 time (50%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (50%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 2 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H2892 appears — 2 distinct verses across 2 books. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Exodus 1 verse
Psalms 1 verse
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
At its core, טהר (ṭôhar) means “purification.” It is rare — just 2 verses in the entire Hebrew Bible. Its uses cluster heavily in Exodus (50% of all occurrences). First canonically at Exodus 24:10, it enters the text early. Not a single-sense word, it carries 2 senses, among them “purity” and “purifying”. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2892 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 2
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 2 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,807
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,807 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 2 occurrences in the concordance →
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 2 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 50%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 50%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Purifying 2×
- American Standard Version†: Purifying 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Clear 1×, Splendor 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Purity 1×, Splendor 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2892 across 4† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2892 across 4† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2892 across 2† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2892 across 2† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 0 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
טהר I purity, purifying
טהר II clearness, lustre
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
טֹ֫הַר n.[m.] purity, purifying
[ טֳהָר ], or [ טְהָר ] n.[m.] clearness, lustre —only ψ 89:45
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from טהר (ṭâhêr) (H2891) — to cleanse.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
טָהֵר
- [to be bright, to glitter,]
- 1. to be clean, pure, esp. to be levitically clean; to be unsusceptible of levitical uncleanness. Neg. X, 8 שט׳ שעה אחת which has been declared clean once. Mikv. II, 2 עד שיודע שט׳ until it is ascertained that it has become clean. Ib. III, 2 ויִטְהֲרוּ העליונים מן וכ׳ so that the waters coming from above become cleansed from the impurity of the lower waters. Neg. VII, 4 ויִטְהַר ממנו and is declared clean from it (the last scall); a. fr.
- 2. to be cleared, removed. Ber. 2ᵇ, v. next w.
- 1. to purify, make (levitically) clean; to absolve from sin. Yoma VIII, 9 מי מְטַהֵר וכ׳ who is it that absolves you? Ib. (ref. to Jer. XVII, 13) מה מקוה מט׳ וכ׳ as the ritual bath (v. מִקְוֶה) cleanses the unclean, so does the Lord &c.; a. fr. e.g. Jeremiah 17:13
- 2. to keep clean, guard against contact with unclean things. R. Hash. 16ᵇ חייב … לטַהֵר את עצמו וכ׳ one is bound to keep one’s self clean for the festive days.
- 3. to declare טָהוֹר, to decide in favor of cleanness. Snh. 17ᵃ bot. מי שיודע לטַ׳ וכ׳ one who knows how to prove a creeping thing to be clean. Ib. אני אדון ואֲטַהֲרֶנוּ I will argue and prove it to be clean. Eduy. VIII, 7 לטמא ולטַ׳ to decide on unclean and clean; a. v. fr.—Part. pass. מְטוֹהָר, pl. מְטוֹהָרִים. Ber. 2ᵇ, v. preced.
- 4. to become clean. Snh. 94ᵇ מיד ט׳ it becomes clean at once. Ḥull. 60ᵇ טִיהֲרוּ; Gitt. 38ᵃ טהרו, v. סִיחוֹן.
- to become clean. Tanḥ. Metsora 7 נִטְהֲרָה וכ׳ she became clean on the eighth day. Ib. ונִטְהֶרֶת and becomes clean; a. fr.
- to be cleansed, to cleanse one’s self; to amend. Yoma 38ᵇ בא לִטָּהֵר מסייעים אותו (Ms. M. 2 להִטָּהֵר) if one is willing to do good, he will be assisted; Sabb. 104ᵃ; Yalk. Prov. 935 לִיטָּהֵר; a. e.—Yoma VIII, 9 (85ᵇ) לפני מי אתם מִיטַּהֲרִים Mish. a. Y. ed. (Bab. ed. מִטַּ׳) before whom do you cleanse yourselves (from sin)?; a. e.
טְהֵר
- 1. to be clean (usually דכי). Ber. 2ᵇ וט׳ גברא, v. infra.
- 2. to be cleared away, be gone. Ib. 2ᵃ, sq. (ref. to Lev. XXII, 7 ובא השמש וטהר) ממאי דהאי … והאי וטהר ט׳ יומא דלמא … ט׳ גברא how do you know that this uba hash-shemesh means his sunset (the finished sunset of the seventh day, v. Ms. M. in Rabb. D. S. a. l.), and v’taher means, the day is gone; may be uba &c. means the approach of his evening (beginning sunset. Tosaf. a. l.; Rashi: the arrival of his (eighth) morning), and v’taher (referring to the man) means, the man becomes clean (by means of his sacrifice, Rashi). e.g. Leviticus 22:7
- 3. (denom. of טִיהֲרָא) to be noon-time. Yoma 59ᵃ, a. e., v. טִיהֲרָא a. next w.
- to declare clean. B. Mets. 84ᵇ טַהֲרִינְהוּ he declared them clean.
טֹהַר
- preced. wds.)
- 1. the pure, real surface (of gold). Yoma V, 6 על טָהֳרוֹ של מזבח (or טְהָרוֹ) immediately on the top of the golden altar (free from coals or ashes, v. גִּילּוּיָא). Men. 97ᵃ על טהרו של שולחן (Ms. M. על השל׳) immediately on the golden table.
- 2. (cmp. חָזֶה) the centre of the front. Yoma 59ᵃ (one opinion explain. טהרו של מזבח, v. supra) פלגיה דמזבח the centre of the altar front, as people say, טהר טיהרא והוי פלגא דיומא ‘the noon-light shines’ meaning by tihara the middle of the day; ib. 15ᵃ; Zeb. 38ᵇ
טִהָר
- v. sub. טִיה׳.
טִיהָר
- (v. טַהֲרָה) bright sky after rain. Ber. 59ᵃ Ms. F.; Y. ib. IX, 13ᵈ; Yalk. Is. 335 נראה שמים בטִהֲרוֹ (read: רקיע).
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 2 distinct written forms H2892 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| לָ/טֹֽהַר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 24:10 | 1 |
| מִ/טְּהָר֑/וֹ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Psalms 89:44 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2892, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 1 verse that also exists in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 2 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
