To be pure (physical sound, clear, unadulterated; Levitically, uncontaminated; morally, innocent or holy)
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טָהֵר is a verb meaning to be clean or pure, to become clean, or to cleanse or pronounce clean, with the active sense shaped by stem and context. It is prominent in priestly texts that regulate the status of persons, objects, and spaces, and it also appears in prayers and prophetic promises of cleansing from sin and idolatry.
Reader summary
Full entry for טָהֵר (H2891) · Open the biblical lexicon
טָהֵר is a verb meaning to be clean or pure, to become clean, or to cleanse or pronounce clean, with the active sense shaped by stem and context. It is prominent in priestly texts that regulate the status of persons, objects, and spaces, and it also appears in prayers and prophetic promises of cleansing from sin and idolatry.
The BSB source-word alignment has 94 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include of the one to be cleansed (6), and you will be clean (4), clean (4), to cleanse (4), and he will be clean (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 35:2. Its strongest book concentrations include Leviticus (43), Ezekiel (12), Numbers (10), 2 Chronicles (7).
This entry includes 3 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
טָהֵר is a verb meaning to be clean or pure, to become clean, or to cleanse or pronounce clean, with the active sense shaped by stem and context. It is prominent in priestly texts that regulate the status of persons, objects, and spaces, and it also appears in prayers and prophetic promises of cleansing from sin and idolatry. These uses are related, but ritual status and moral guilt must not be treated as identical categories.
Leviticus uses the verb for priestly cleansing and clean-status determinations within procedures God gives Israel. Those procedures may include washing, waiting, sacrifice, examination, or priestly action depending on the case. It is therefore too broad to say that every ritual occurrence teaches that people can do nothing toward purification or that God alone performs each cleansing act directly. The larger system is God-given, while individual texts assign different human and priestly responsibilities.
Psalm 51 asks God to cleanse the psalmist from sin and uses purity language in a penitential register. Ezekiel 36:25 promises that God will cleanse exiled Israel from uncleanness and idols as part of national restoration, the gift of a new heart, and the Spirit’s work. These passages employ cleansing language morally and covenantally without proving that every earlier ritual use was merely a visible symbol for invisible guilt.
For teaching, טָהֵר helps readers distinguish ceremonial restoration, moral cleansing, and prophetic renewal while seeing their place in the canon’s account of access to God. New Testament purification texts can be traced as later canonical developments, but the Hebrew verb itself does not predict every detail of Christ’s atonement or the Spirit’s sanctifying work.
ṭāhēr appears roughly 95 times in the Hebrew Bible, concentrated in Leviticus, Numbers, and the Psalms. Its ritual home is the priestly literature of the Pentateuch, where it governs the status of persons, objects, and spaces in relation to the sanctuary. Its prophetic deployment — especially in Ezekiel and the lament psalms — lifts that ritual grammar into the register of covenant restoration and inner renewal.
Because on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you, and you will be clean from all your sins before the Lord.
The Day of Atonement text places ṭāhēr at the centre of Israel's annual liturgical calendar. Cleanness here is not achieved by Israel's effort but declared over them through the high-priestly ritual — atonement precedes cleanness, and both are Yahweh's gift. This is the most important occurrence for understanding the word's theological weight in the Law.
Wash me clean of my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
David's penitential psalm deploys ṭāhēr as a plea addressed directly to God, not to a priest. This shifts the verb from its cultic setting into a prayer register, revealing that Israel understood ritual purity as pointing toward something God does in the conscience, not merely in the ceremony. The Psalm drives the verb toward its deepest possible meaning.
Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Hyssop was the instrument of Levitical sprinkling (Lev. 14:4, 6; Num. 19:18). David invokes the ritual implements of cleansing not as a request for a ceremony but as metaphor for what God alone can do — a moral and spiritual laundering that exceeds any temple rite. The hyperbole 'whiter than snow' signals the complete sufficiency of divine cleansing.
I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.
Ezekiel's new-covenant vision places ṭāhēr in a passage of eschatological restoration. The divine 'I will cleanse you' is paired with the gift of a new heart and a new spirit (36:26), demonstrating that in the prophets, ritual cleanness language becomes the vehicle for announcing the inward transformation that God promises to accomplish for exiled Israel.
Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the skin disease. Then he shall pronounce him clean and release the live bird into the open field.
The priestly procedure uses H2891 for declaring or effecting clean status after the prescribed sprinkling. The occurrence shows the verb within a concrete ritual process involving examination, priestly action, and the rite God commanded. It should be distinguished from Psalm 24:4, whose “clean hands” and “pure heart” use other Hebrew terms.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Ranges from physical cleansing through ritual purity to moral innocence; fundamentally means freedom from contamination.
Ranges from physical cleansing through ritual purity to moral innocence; fundamentally means freedom from contamination.
to be pure (physical sound, clear, unadulterated; Levitically, uncontaminated; morally, innocent or holy) BDB: be clean Usage: be (make, make self, pronounce) clean, cleanse (self), purge, purify(-ier, self).
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 95 lexical occurrence verses.
טָהֵר is a primitive root - no further derivation.
The final purification emphasizes restored covenant holiness.Nehemiah 13:23-31
Purification restores holiness and rightful worship after corruption.Nehemiah 13:4-9
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
טָהֵר appears in different cleansing settings. Leviticus uses it within procedures that restore or declare clean status; Psalm 51 turns to God for cleansing from sin; Ezekiel 36 promises cleansing from idolatry in Israel’s restoration. These contexts invite canonical reflection, but teachers should not collapse ritual impurity into personal guilt or describe every rite as an ineffective attempt at self-purification.
The Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16 joins atonement and cleansing from sins before the Lord. Psalm 51 and Ezekiel 36 deepen the moral and covenantal use of cleansing language. Hebrews 9 compares the ritual sanctification of the flesh with Christ’s blood cleansing the conscience. That comparison both acknowledges the old rites’ appointed effect and declares the superiority of Christ’s work.
Pastorally, this verb can help a congregation distinguish status, guilt, and transformation while looking to God’s appointed provision in each covenantal setting. The point is not to despise embodied rites or external obedience but to follow Scripture’s own movement from particular cleansings to the New Testament’s explicit claims about Christ and the Spirit.
Lev.16.30
טָהֵר occurs in several verbal stems. The Qal commonly describes being or becoming clean, while the Piel commonly has a causative or declarative sense such as cleansing or pronouncing clean; reflexive forms can describe purifying oneself. Exact force must be determined from the morphology and syntax of each occurrence. These stem differences do not map automatically onto later categories such as positional truth versus ethical effort, so they should not be used to diagnose legalism or passivity by grammar alone.
Hebrews 9:13-14 states that ritual blood and ashes sanctify for purification of the flesh and then argues how much more Christ’s blood cleanses the conscience. This comparison honors the appointed ritual effect while asserting Christ’s superior, inward work. First John 1:9 uses καθαρίζω for cleansing from unrighteousness, and Revelation 7:14 portrays the redeemed washing their robes in the Lamb’s blood.
Ezekiel 36 also contributes important background for New Testament new-birth and Spirit language. These connections form a canonical trajectory, but Revelation does not say it is the final fulfillment of everything H2891 “always pointed toward. ”