Good (as an adjective) in the widest sense; used likewise as a noun, both in the masculine and the feminine, the singular and the plural (good, a good or good thing, a good man or woman; the good, goods or good things, good men or women), also as an adverb (well)
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טוֹב is a broad Hebrew adjective meaning good and, by context, pleasant, desirable, beneficial, fitting, beautiful, or morally right. It can describe God, people, land, food, counsel, appearance, words, circumstances, or outcomes.
Reader summary
Full entry for טוֹב (H2896) · Open the biblical lexicon
טוֹב is a broad Hebrew adjective meaning good and, by context, pleasant, desirable, beneficial, fitting, beautiful, or morally right. It can describe God, people, land, food, counsel, appearance, words, circumstances, or outcomes.
The BSB source-word alignment has 562 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include good (99), Better (29), the good (23), . . . (22), is good (17).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 1:4. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (68), Proverbs (62), Ecclesiastes (52), Genesis (41).
טוֹב is a broad Hebrew adjective meaning good and, by context, pleasant, desirable, beneficial, fitting, beautiful, or morally right. It can describe God, people, land, food, counsel, appearance, words, circumstances, or outcomes. No single theological definition governs every occurrence, and an interpreter must ask what is called good, by whom, and in what respect.
Genesis 1 repeatedly says God saw that his works were good and concludes that the completed creation was very good. In that setting טוֹב affirms God’s favorable evaluation of the ordered world. The text supports claims about creation’s goodness and fitness for God’s purposes, but it does not say every created thing “corresponds to God’s nature” or is saturated with an abstract substance of goodness.
Genesis 2:18 says it is “not good” for the man to be alone before the fall. That statement identifies an incompleteness God addresses by making the woman; it prevents teachers from claiming that “not-good” first entered the world through Genesis 3. The fall brings sin, curse, alienation, and death, but the lexical contrast must follow the narrative’s actual uses.
Elsewhere Psalm 34:8 invites worshipers to taste and see that the Lord is good, Micah 6:8 says God has told humanity what is good, and Jeremiah 29:11 promises the exiles a future and hope after the appointed period in Babylon. Jeremiah’s “plans for welfare/good” belongs first to that corporate exilic promise and should not become a guarantee that every hardship will soon yield a personally preferred outcome.
For teaching, טוֹב can connect creation, God’s character, ethical discernment, beneficial gifts, and fitting action while preserving its ordinary descriptive range. Human judgments of good can be mistaken, but the adjective itself does not function only as a technical declaration of God’s nature.
Gen.1.4 — the first occurrence of טוֹב sets the pattern for the entire canonical use: God Himself is the one who evaluates, and His evaluation is the standard. The light is good because God sees it and declares it so — goodness originates in and is defined by God's own character and creative intention.
Genesis 1 is where the word discovers its theological gravity. Before a human being speaks a word in Scripture, before law is given or covenant made, God speaks — and what He says repeatedly is: this is good. The rhythm of the creation week is structured by divine evaluation. Each act of God's creative ordering is seen, assessed, and declared good. This is not a casual modifier. It is a declaration that what God has made corresponds to His own nature and intention. The world, as God first made it, is a world saturated by and aligned with divine goodness.
From that foundation, טוֹב moves into the full life of Israel's covenantal experience. The law itself is good (Ps. 119:68). Wisdom and its fruit are good. Land and harvest are good. Words spoken in season are good. The word is generous in its reach precisely because goodness touches every dimension of life when it is lived in right relationship with God. But the Psalms focus the word's center of gravity: God Himself is good, not merely God's gifts. Psalm 34:8 is a preacher's text precisely because it refuses to let goodness become a category about circumstances alone. The Lord Himself is the object of the tasting.
In the prophetic literature, טוֹב bears the weight of hope. Jeremiah 29:11 is often quoted as reassurance, and rightly so, but its full force is covenantal: God's good plans have not been undone by Israel's failure or Babylon's power. His intentions toward His people remain shaped by goodness, not by abandonment. Micah 6:8 takes the same word in an ethical direction: what is genuinely good has already been disclosed. The question is not what goodness is — God has answered that. The question is whether God's people will live it. Justice, covenant love, and humility before God are not additions to goodness. They are its human shape.
The broader canonical movement toward the NT is real and is grounded in the LXX rendering of טוֹב by ἀγαθός (G18). Jesus' response to the rich young ruler in Mark 10:18 — 'No one is good except God alone' — does not simply quote a Greek philosophical maxim. It echoes the consistent OT witness that goodness originates in God, belongs properly to God, and is evaluated by God. The pastoral gift of טוֹב is that it refuses to let goodness drift loose from its source. What is good is what God is and what God makes and what God ordains — and Israel is invited to come near enough to taste that for themselves.
The canonical movement of טוֹב begins in creation and runs through covenant and law, through Psalms and wisdom literature, and through prophetic summons and hope. The word does not narrow as Scripture develops — it deepens. God's goodness is the ground of creation (Genesis 1), the invitation of worship (Psalm 34, 100), the content of ethical life (Micah 6:8), and the anchor of hope in exile (Jeremiah 29:11).
The NT counterpart is G18 (ἀγαθός), which inherits this same range of sense and is brought to its fullest expression in the teaching and person of Jesus, who alone is truly and fully good (Mark 10:18). The connection is direct: what Genesis 1 declared over creation, and what the Psalms testified of God's character, finds its final standard in the one who is good in Himself.
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.
Hebrew word. good (as an adjective) in the widest sense; used likewise as a noun, both in the masculine and the feminine, the singular and the plural (good, a good or good thing, a good man or woman; the good, goods or good things, good men or women), also as an adverb (well)
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.
טוֹב is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
This word opens several distinct scriptural questions: what God declares good in creation, why Genesis 2:18 names a not-good condition before the fall, how the Psalms confess the Lord’s goodness amid suffering, and what Micah calls good in covenant life. Teachers can join those witnesses without forcing every occurrence into one philosophical definition.
It corrects the claim that Genesis 3 introduced the Bible’s first “not good,” because Genesis 2:18 already uses that phrase. It also corrects a prosperity reading of divine goodness and a universalized reading of Jeremiah 29:11. The exilic promise is real and hopeful, but its timing, audience, and corporate setting govern the application.
Begin with the range of טוֹב rather than a single abstract definition. Genesis 1 presents God’s favorable evaluation of creation; Genesis 2:18 identifies a condition he will remedy; Psalm 34:8 invites trust in the Lord; Micah 6:8 concerns conduct God has made known. If Jeremiah 29:11 is used, retain the seventy-year exile and the letter’s corporate audience before moving to Christian hope through wider canonical promises.