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# טָמֵא

Biblical Hebrew · Strong's H2931

**unclean** — used 88 times in the Hebrew Bible. Below: its meanings with their sources, MACULA's glosses, and 2 verses word for word and in JPS 1917.

## Meaning

### OpenScriptures lexical index

unclean [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/tanakh/1496/2931/#m1)

### Brown–Driver–Briggs 1906

טָמֵא²: adj. unclean [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/tanakh/1496/2931/#m2)

**The whole BDB entry:** adj. unclean;—ט׳ Lv 5:2 + 58 times; cstr. טְמֵא 22:4 + 3 times; f. טְמֵאָה 5:2 + 11 times; cstr. טְמֵאַת Ez 22:5, 10; pl. טְמֵאִים Lv 11:8 + 10 times;—unclean, ethically and religiously ט׳ שׂפתים Is 6:5(×2) unclean of lips; ט׳ השׁם Ez 22:5 defiled of name, infamous; טהור מִטּ׳ Jb 14:4. ritually: of persons, ‖ טהור Dt 12:15, 22; 15:22 Ec 9:2; ט׳ נפשׁ Lv 22:4 (H); (אדם) ט׳ לנפשׁ unclean for a (dead) person Nu 5:2; 9:6, 7, 10 (P) = ט׳ נפשׁ Hg 2:13; elsewhere for various reasons Dt 26:14; Lv 5:2; 13:11, 36, 44, 45(×2), 46; 15:2, 25, 33 Nu 19:13, 17, 19, 20, 22 (all P), 2 Ch 23:19; Is 64:5 Ez 4:13; 22:10 La 4:15. of animals Lv 5:2(×4); 7:21(×2); 11:4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31; 27:11, 27 Nu 18:15 (all P), Lv 20:25(×2) (H), Dt 14:7, 8, 10, 19. of things in gen. Lv 11:35(×2), 38; 15:26 Nu 19:15 (all P), Is 52:11; food Ju 13:4 Ho 9:3; houses Je 19:13; leprosy Lv 13:15, 51, 55; 14:44, 57 (P); offering Hg 2:14. persons and things in general כל טמא Lv 7:19, 21 (P); הבדיל בין הט׳ ובין הטהור Lv 10:10; 11:47; הודיע בין (ה)ט׳ לטהור Ez 22:26; 44:23; of aliens Is 52:1 (‖ עָרֵל), perhaps also 35:8. specif. of places: מקום ט׳ unclean place (place of refuse away from holy place and human habitation) Lv 14:40, 41, 45 (P); טמאה ארץ land on the east of the Jordan separated from the land of the tabernacle of י׳ Jos 22:19 (P); so אדמה ט׳ a foreign land Am 7:17.

Why these entries: BDB: headword, part of speech agrees, 78 of its verses cited, 1 words shared with the glosses, lists its Strong's number (2 candidates); OSHB: headword, part of speech agrees, 1 words shared with the BDB entry, 1 with the glosses (2 candidates)

## Glosses

MACULA's English glosses of the word in the text, with how often each is used: unclean (31); \[is\] unclean (23); \[are\] unclean (7).

## In the verses

[Job 14:4](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/JOB.14.4/) · [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/JOB.14.4/#tree)

מִֽי־יִתֵּ֣ן טָ֭הוֹר מִטָּמֵ֗א לֹ֣א אֶחָֽד׃

*Word for word:* who? will.he.make a.clean.\[thing\] from an.unclean.\[thing\] not one.\[person\]

*JPS 1917:* Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.

[Deuteronomy 14:19](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/DEU.14.19/) · [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/DEU.14.19/#tree)

וְכֹל֙ שֶׁ֣רֶץ הָע֔וֹף טָמֵ֥א ה֖וּא לָכֶ֑ם לֹ֖א יֵאָכֵֽלוּ׃

*Word for word:* and every (the).swarming.thing of the.insect \[is\].unclean it to you not they.will.be.eaten

*JPS 1917:* And all winged swarming things are unclean unto you; they shall not be eaten.

## On Mova

- [This word in the Tanakh dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/tanakh/w/2931.html) on Mova free.
- [Trees and pragmatics of its meanings](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/tanakh/1496/2931/): every English meaning parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.

Sources. The words, their counts, glosses and the word-for-word renderings: MACULA Hebrew (the Westminster Leningrad Codex; Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0). Meanings: the OpenScriptures lexical index (CC BY 4.0), Brown–Driver–Briggs 1906 and Jastrow 1903 (public domain, via Sefaria); Targum Onkelos from Sefaria (public domain). Translation: JPS 1917 (public domain, from eBible.org).