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SOAP (bôrîth) occurs in EV [Note: English Version.] (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘sope’) only in Jer_2:22 (washing of the person) and Mal_3:2 (operations of the fuller). Properly bôrîth denotes simply ‘that which cleanses.’ The cognate word bôr is commonly rendered ‘cleanness,’ but in Job_9:30, Isa_1:25 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] gives ‘lye.’ Soap in the modern sense of the word was unknown in OT times, and we do not know what precisely is referred to by bôrîth. As in Jer_2:22 nether (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘nitre’ [wh. see]), a mineral alkali, is set in antithesis to bôrîth, it is supposed that the latter was some kind of vegetable alkali which, mixed with oil, would serve the purposes of soap. This may be confirmed by the fact that in Jer_2:22 and Mal_3:2 LXX [Note: Septuagint.] renders bôrîth by poia = ‘grass.’
J. C. Lambert.