תָּמִים
complete
also: whole, entire, sound fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H8549 appears in the Book of Genesis — 2 distinct verses. 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.
Genesis
- Genesis 6:9 תָּמִ֥ים adj Adjective ms This is the history of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. Noah walked with God.
- Genesis 17:1 תָמִֽים adj Adjective ms When Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yahweh appeared to Abram, and said to him, "I am God Almighty. Walk before me, and be blameless.
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.
תמים (tâmîym) is a Hebrew adjective most often rendered “complete.” The King James Version usually renders it “without blemish,” while modern versions prefer “unblemished” (Berean Standard Bible) — see the renderings breakdown. With 85 verses in 14 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in Leviticus, which alone accounts for 25% of its uses. It also covers “whole”, “entire”, and “sound”, alongside “complete” — see its full sense range. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H8549 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 →
- 85
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 85 distinct verses.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #455
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 455 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 85 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
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 85 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 44 verses · 52%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 21 verses · 25%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 20 verses · 24%
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).
- King James Version: Without blemish 38×, Perfect 8×, Without spot 6×
- American Standard Version: Without blemish 27×, Old without blemish 15×, Perfect 11×
- Berean Standard Bible: Unblemished 29×, Blameless 11×, Without blemish 10×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Perfect 26×, Unblemished 26×, Blameless 12×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H8549 across 91 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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 H8549 across 93 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 21 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 H8549 across 91 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H8549 across 92 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
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 5 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.
- 1. complete, whole, entire, Jb 36:4 תְּמִים דֵעוֹת, 37:16. e.g. Job 36:4
- 2. whole, sound, healthful, of men Pr 1:12 (‖ חַיִּים); vine Ez 15:5; usually of sacrif. animals, P; Ex 12:5 + 40 times, so Ez 43:22 + 10 times e.g. Proverbs 1:12
- 3. complete, entire, of time: day Jos 10:13; year Lv 25:30; sabbaths 23:15. e.g. Joshua 10:13
- 4. sound, wholesome, unimpaired, innocent, having integrity: of God’s way ψ 18:31 = 2 S 22:31; work Dt 32:4; law ψ 19:8; elsewhere of man Gn 6:9 17:1 (P; both ‖ אלהים (לִפְנֵי) הִתְהַלֵּךְ אֵת); ת׳ עם י׳ Dt 18:13 ψ 18:24, c. ל in ‖ 2 S 22:24; often c. דֶרֶךְ way: דֶּרֶךְ ת׳ ψ 101:2; ת׳ בִּדְרָכֶ֫יךָ Ez 28:15; תְּמִימֵי דָ֑רֶךְ Pr 11:20 ψ 119:1; וַיַּתֵּר ת׳ דרכו֯ 2 S 22:23 ‖ וַיִּתֵּן ת׳ דַּרְכִּי ψ 18:33; הלך בדרך ת׳ 101:6; דֶּרֶךְ om., הלך תמים, Pr 28:18 ψ 15:2; לב ת׳ 119:80; = noun (late), man of integrity Pr 11:5 Jb 12:4; pl. Pr 2:21; 28:10 ψ 37:18. e.g. Psalms 18:31
- 5. as neuter adj. = subst. what is complete, entirely in accord with truth and fact: דֹּבֵר ת׳ Am 5:10; אִם־בֶּאֱמֶת וּבְת׳ עֲשִׂיתֶם Ju 9:16, 19; עִבְדוּ י׳ בְּת׳ וּבֶאֱמֶת Jos 24:14 (E); integrity גְּבַר ת׳ ψ 18:26 (cstr. Ges§ 93 s; ‖ 2 S 22:26 גִּבּוֹר), 84:12; הֹלְכִים בְּת׳.—1 S 14:41 v. תֹּם 4. e.g. Amos 5:10
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
adj. complete, sound;—ת׳ Gn 6:9 +; f. תְּמִימָה Lv 3:9 +; cstr. תְּמִים Jb 36:4; 37:16; pl. תְּמִימִים Ez 43:25 +; תְּמִימֹת Lv 23:15; cstr. תְּמִימֵי ψ 119:1 Pr 11:20;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from תמם (tâmam) (H8552) — to be complete.
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.
תָּמִים
- without physical blemish; perfect; upright. Zeb. 116ᵃ ודלמא נח … ת׳ כתיב ביה might not Noah himself have had an organic defect? (It cannot be, for) it is written of him, he was perfect (Gen. VI, 9); ודלמא ת׳ בדרכיו but may this not mean, perfect in his ways of life? Bekh. IV, 1 (26ᵇ) בין ת׳ בין בעל מום (Bab. ed. תַּם) whether unblemished or blemished; a. fr.—Pl. תְּמִימִים, תְּמִימִין. Zeb. VIII, 8. Tem. III, 5 אם באו ת׳ when they appear unblemished. Y. Yoma VII, end, 44ᶜ שבשעה שהיו ישראל ת׳ היו מכוונין וכ׳ (not שבע׳) when the Israelites were perfect (God-fearing), they (the Urim and Tummim) directed their way. Gen. R. s. 44, beg. (ref. to Ps. XVIII, 31) אם דרכיו ת׳ וכ׳ if his ways are perfect, how much more is he perfect himself!; (Yalk. Sam. 161 אם דרכו תמים וכ׳); a. fr.—Fem. תְּמִימָה. Ḥull. 11ᵃ משום ת׳ because the Law (Lev. III, 9) says t’mimah (whole); a. e.—Pl. תְּמִימוֹת. Men. 66ᵃ (ref. to Lev. XXIII, 15) אימתי … שבתות ת׳ וכ׳ when do you get seven complete weeks? When you begin to count from the evening. Pesik. Haʿomer, p. 69ᵇ, a. e., v. יֵשׁוּעַ; a. e. e.g. Genesis 6:9
תְּמִים
- Targ. Y. II, Lev. XXII, 27 ת׳ (Jacob). Targ. II Esth. I, 2; a. e.—Pl. תְּמִימִין, תְּמִימֵי. Targ. Prov. XIII, 6. Ib. XXVIII, 10; a. e.
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 47 distinct written forms H8549 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H8549, 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
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 80 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 85 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
- Genesis 6:9
- Exodus 12:5
- Leviticus 1:3
- Numbers 6:14
- Deuteronomy 18:13
- Joshua 10:13
- Judges 9:16
- 1 Samuel 14:41
- 2 Samuel 22:24
- Job 12:4
- Psalms 15:2
- Proverbs 1:12
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.
