International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Clean

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International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Clean


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klēn (Anglo-Saxon cloene, “clear,” “pure”): Rendering four Hebrew roots: בּר, bar, etc., “purify,” “select,” “make shining”; זך, zakh, etc., “bright,” “clean” “pure”; נקי, nāḳı̄, “free from,” “exempt”; טהר, ṭāhēr, “clean,” “pure,” “empty,” “bright” (?) The principal root, rendered “clean” 80 times (the King James Version); occurring in all its forms in various renderings about 200 times; also one Greek root, καθαρός, katharós, etc., akin to castus, “chaste,” “free from admixture or adhesion of anything that soils, adulterates, corrupts” (Thayer's Lexicon). The physical, ritual, ethical, spiritual, figurative uses continually overlap, especially the last four.

1. Physical

The physical use is infrequent: “Wash ... with snow water, and make my hands never so clean” (zākhakh, ; figurative also); “clean provender” (hāmı̄c, the Revised Version (British and American) “savory”; the Revised Version, margin “salted”); “Cleanse ... inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also” (katharos, ); “arrayed in fine linen, clean (katharón) and white” (; the American Standard Revised Version “bright and pure”).

2. Ceremonial

The principal use was the ceremonial; applied to persons, places or things, “undefiled,” “not causing defilement,” or “from which defilement has just been removed”; ṭāhēr, almost exclusively ceremonial, being the chief Hebrew root. Katharos (New Testament), or derivatives, has this use clearly in ; : “Offer for thy cleansing the things which Moses,” etc.; , , : “the cleanness of the flesh,” etc. “Clean” is applied to animals and birds: “of every clean beast” (); “of all clean birds” (); (for list of unclean creatures see Lev 14-20); to places: “Carry forth ... unto a clean place” (); to buildings: “Make atonement for the house; and it shall be clean” (); to persons: “A clean person shall take hyssop” (); to clothing: “garment ... washed the second time, and shall be clean” (); and to objects of all sorts, free or freed from defilement.

3. Ethical or Spiritual

The ethical or spiritual meaning, either directly or figuratively, is found in the Old Testament chiefly in Job, Psalms, the Prophets, whose interest is ethico-religious, rather than ritual, but the predominant uses are found in the New Testament: “Cleanse yourselves (bārar) ye that bear the vessels of Yahweh” (); “How can he be clean (zākhāh) that is born of a woman?” () (principally moral, perhaps with allusion to the ceremonial defilement of childbirth); “The fear of Yahweh is clean” (), that is, the religion of Yahweh is morally undefiled, in contrast to heathen religions; “He that hath clean (nāḳı̄) hands, and a pure heart” (); “Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (ṭāhēr, ); “Therefore said he, Ye are not all clean” (katharos, ). Here, as in and many others, the ritual furnishes a figure for the spiritual, illustrating the Divine purpose in the ritual, to impress, prefigure and prepare for the spiritual. A somewhat similar figurative moral use is found in : “Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean” (katharos, “guiltless,” “unstained”). See also UNCLEAN; PURIFICATION; DEFILEMENT.

Clean. - Adverb (in one case adjective): “utterly,” “wholly”; usually rendering an intensive use of the Hebrew verb as : “He hath made it clean bare” (lit. “stripping he will strip”); : “Arm ... clean dried up”; the King James Version :”Earth is clean dissolved.” Twice it renders a principal verb: : “Passed clean over the Jordan” (literally, “finished with regard to J.”); King James Version: “Shall not make a clean riddance” (literally, “shall not finish the corners”; the American Standard Revised Version “shalt not wholly reap”). Once it renders a noun: : “Is his lovingkindness clean gone for ever?” (“end,” he-'āphēṣ, “has his lovingkindness come to an end?”); and once an adverb “clean (ὄντως, óntōs, “actually,” “really”) escaped” (); but the American Standard Revised Version, following the reading “olı́gōs,” “a little,” “scarcely,” renders “just escaping.”