beged

This is by far the most common use of the word, and it is broad. It names the cloth a person puts on, whatever its rank or purpose: the plain robe of an ordinary Israelite, the rich clothing of a king, the holy vestments of a priest, the mourner's torn coat, even a cloth thrown over the furniture of the tabernacle. The word itself does not specify the kind of clothing; the setting does.

Because clothing sat so close to a person's identity and standing in this culture, the word carries far more than fabric. To put on or take off a garment marks a change of state: grief, when it is torn; humility, when it is exchanged for sackcloth; honor, when fine clothing is given as a gift. The purity laws treat a garment almost as an extension of the body, something that can catch defilement and must be washed clean.

The senses below are not different words. They are the one idea of a worn covering, seen in the different places it shows up most often in the text.

This is a separate word that happens to be spelled the same. It is the act of betraying a trust, of dealing falsely with someone who had reason to count on you. It belongs to the family of the verb that means to act treacherously, not to the family of clothing, even though the two words look identical on the page.

It is rare as a noun. Its most memorable appearance is a deliberate piling-up of sound, where the prophet stacks the noun beside related verb forms so that the line almost rings with the repeated consonants of betrayal. The effect in English is something like saying the treacherous have treacherously betrayed with treachery.