Snow supplies a comparison of whiteness, an example of weather that waters the earth and practical images involving refreshment or household preparation. Isaiah's invitation to reason speaks of scarlet sins becoming white as snow within a call to cease evil and seek justice.
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Full entry for שֶׁלֶג (H7950) · Open the biblical lexicon
Snow supplies a comparison of whiteness, an example of weather that waters the earth and practical images involving refreshment or household preparation. Isaiah's invitation to reason speaks of scarlet sins becoming white as snow within a call to cease evil and seek justice.
The BSB source-word alignment has 20 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include and on a snowy (2), of snow (2), snow (2), than snow (2), [as white] as snow (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 4:6. Its strongest book concentrations include Job (5), Proverbs (3), Psalms (3), Isaiah (2).
Snow supplies a comparison of whiteness, an example of weather that waters the earth and practical images involving refreshment or household preparation. Isaiah's invitation to reason speaks of scarlet sins becoming white as snow within a call to cease evil and seek justice. Psalm 51 asks for washing and cleansing in a confession of wrongdoing. Isaiah 55 names rain and snow that water the earth before comparing their work with the Lord's effective word.
Proverbs uses snow in a harvest comparison and in a household prepared for cold. Exodus describes Moses' hand as leprous like snow within an appointed sign and its reversal. These distinct uses do not make pale skin moral superiority, illness personal guilt or snow an independent means of spiritual cleansing. Read the comparison and its stated purpose, and keep ordinary weather and human care visible.
Snow's visible whiteness serves confession and a cleansing promise, while precipitation, refreshing imagery, household clothing and Moses' sign have different purposes. Color comparison supplies no racial or medical judgment.
“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool.
The snow comparison addresses scarlet sins within the chapter's call to cease evil and seek justice.
Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
The praying speaker asks for purification and washing in a confession that seeks cleansing rather than claiming innocence.
For just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return without watering the earth, making it bud and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat,
Rain and snow water the earth and supply seed and bread before the passage's word comparison.
Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest is a trustworthy messenger to those who send him; he refreshes the soul of his masters.
The coolness of snow in harvest is a comparison for a trustworthy messenger refreshing those who send him.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household, for they are all clothed in scarlet.
The household is not afraid of snow because it has been clothed, within the poem's practical care.
Furthermore, the Lord said to Moses, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, his hand was leprous, white as snow.
Moses' hand becomes leprous like snow as an appointed sign, followed by its restoration in the next verse.
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. White precipitation associated with purity and cleansing in biblical imagery and metaphor
White precipitation associated with purity and cleansing in biblical imagery and metaphor
snow (probably from its whiteness) BDB: snow Usage: snow(-y).
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 20 lexical occurrence verses.
שֶׁלֶג 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.
The object snow does not carry a single moral meaning everywhere it appears. Isaiah 1's promise uses whiteness to contrast the addressed sins while the chapter calls for justice, care of the oppressed and a changed way of life. Psalm 51 voices a request for cleansing within confession. Isaiah 55 describes precipitation watering the earth before the Lord's comparison concerning His effective word.
Proverbs' trustworthy messenger and prepared household concern service and practical care. Moses' hand is an appointed sign in the commission account and is restored in the following action; it cannot diagnose present illness. Teach each comparison with its surrounding movement. A congregation can confess wrongdoing, seek cleansing and care for its neighbors without turning a visible color into racial superiority.
It should not shame a person whose skin or body is affected by illness, nor treat snow or a copied gesture as a means of spiritual or medical cure.
Ps.51.7
The noun names snow, while its syntax supplies comparisons or actual precipitation. Twenty local BSB tokens in twenty verses remain distinct from canonical twenty; existing artifact transliteration is retained and no skin-color theology or medical causation follows from the noun.
Hebrews 9:11-28 develops cleansing through Christ's sacrifice, contrasts it with the earlier ritual setting and speaks of a cleansed conscience for service to the living God. This is a canonical cleansing comparison, not a quotation of every snow verse or a claim that snow itself provides the cleansing Hebrews describes.