טָמֵאṭâmêʼ

unclean

Pronunciation: taw-may' · Hebrew/Aramaic (Old Testament) · H2931

Meanings

1. ethically and religiously (Isaiah 6:5; Ezekiel 22:5; Job 14:4)

2. ritually

a. unclean for a, dead (Deuteronomy 12:15; Deuteronomy 12:22; Deuteronomy 15:22)

3. specifically of places (Leviticus 14:40; Leviticus 14:41; Leviticus 14:45)

Same root

Where it appears

Appears 88 times in the Bible.

  • Leviticus 5:2 “Or suppose you unknowingly touch something that is ceremonially unclean, such as the carcass of an unclean animal. When you realize what you have done, you must admit your defilement and your guilt. This is true whether it is a wild animal, a domestic animal, or an animal that scurries along the ground.
  • Leviticus 7:19 “Meat that touches anything ceremonially unclean may not be eaten; it must be completely burned up. The rest of the meat may be eaten, but only by people who are ceremonially clean.
  • Leviticus 7:21 If you touch anything that is unclean (whether it is human defilement or an unclean animal or any other unclean, detestable thing) and then eat meat from a peace offering presented to the Lord, you will be cut off from the community.”
  • Leviticus 10:10 You must distinguish between what is sacred and what is common, between what is ceremonially unclean and what is clean.
  • Leviticus 11:4 You may not, however, eat the following animals that have split hooves or that chew the cud, but not both. The camel chews the cud but does not have split hooves, so it is ceremonially unclean for you.
  • Leviticus 11:5 The hyrax chews the cud but does not have split hooves, so it is unclean.
See every passage

Source: Brown, Driver and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), public domain; markup by unfoldingWord, CC BY (github.com/unfoldingWord/Brown-Driver-Briggs-Enhanced).