Word study

Unclean

6 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “unclean”. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “unclean” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • טָמֵא ṭâmêuncleantranslated this way 75 times of its 85 uses · Strong’s H2931Adjective  ·  Translated: unclean 67, defiled 6, unclean person 2, ceremonially unclean 2

    Leviticus 5:2 Or if a person touches anything unclean— whether the carcass of any unclean wild animal or livestock or crawling creature— even if he is unaware of it, he is unclean and guilty.

    Numbers 9:6 But there were some men who were unclean due to a dead body, so they could not observe the Passover on that day. And they came before Moses and Aaron that same day

    Full study and all 78 verses →
  • טָמֵא ṭâmêbe or become uncleantranslated this way 74 times of its 158 uses · Strong’s H2930Verb  ·  Translated: unclean 47, defiled 38, defile 23, pronounce him unclean 10

    Leviticus 5:3 Or if he touches human uncleanness— anything by which one becomes unclean— even if he is unaware of it, when he realizes it, he is guilty.

    Numbers 19:7 Then the priest must wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; after that he may enter the camp, but he will be ceremonially unclean until evening.

    Full study and all 141 verses →
  • טֻמְאָה ṭumâhuncleannesstranslated this way 6 times of its 32 uses · Strong’s H2932Noun  ·  Translated: uncleanness 15, unclean 5, impurities 3, impurity 2

    Leviticus 7:20 But if anyone who is unclean eats meat from the peace offering that belongs to the LORD, that person must be cut off from his people.

    Judges 13:7 But he said to me, ‘Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son. Now, therefore, do not drink wine or strong drink, and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite to God from the womb until the day of his death.’”

    Full study and all 29 verses →
  • נִדָּה niddâhimpuritytranslated this way 4 times of its 26 uses · Strong’s H5079Noun  ·  Translated: menstruation 4, menstrual period 3, purification 3, of 3

    Leviticus 15:19 When a woman has a discharge consisting of blood from her body, she will be unclean due to her menstruation for seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.

    Lamentations 1:17 Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed against Jacob that his neighbors become his foes. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

    Full study and all 22 verses →
  • טָהוֹר ṭâhôrclean, puretranslated this way 3 times of its 89 uses · Strong’s H2889Adjective  ·  Translated: pure 37, clean 31, ceremonially clean 11, unclean 3

    Genesis 7:2 You are to take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate; a pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate;

    Deuteronomy 23:10 If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he must leave the camp and stay outside.

    Full study and all 84 verses →
  • לֹא lônottranslated this way 3 times of its 4,657 uses · Strong’s H3808Adverb  ·  Translated: no 309, not 269, never 218, will not 156Full study and all 3,775 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀκάθαρτος akáthartosunclean, impuretranslated this way 29 times of its 31 uses · Strong’s G169Adjective  ·  Translated: unclean 29, impure 1, impurities 1

    Matthew 10:1 And calling His twelve disciples to Him, Jesus gave them authority over unclean spirits, so that they could drive them out and heal every disease and sickness.

    Mark 1:23 Suddenly a man with an unclean spirit cried out in the synagogue:

    Full study and all 30 verses →
  • κοινός koinóscommon, shared, uncleantranslated this way 4 times of its 13 uses · Strong’s G2839Adjective  ·  Translated: unclean 4, impure 3, defiled 2, common 2

    Romans 14:14 I am convinced and fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.

    Revelation 21:27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices an abomination or a lie, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

    Full study and all 11 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

What the Bible says about unclean: passages by topic →

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.