clean: free of whatever would defile it, so that it may be used, approached, or trusted
Underneath this word lies an old picture of brightness: the gleam of refined metal and the clear, cloudless sky. That is why the same word covers a range English splits between "clean" and "pure." At its core it describes something with nothing wrong mixed in, nothing dull or foreign blended into the shine:
- nothing that would bar it from worship
- nothing baser alloyed into the substance
- nothing crooked hidden in the person
In the worship laws it is the opposite of the word for ritually defiled (טמא). A clean animal may be eaten or offered, a clean person may take part in worship, and a clean place is fit for holy use. This is about being fit to approach God, not about hygiene or good behavior: a healthy person can become unfit by touching a corpse, and a clean animal is clean by category, not by being washed. The priest does not just observe this cleanness, he declares it, sorting the clean from the unclean by formal verdict.
The same word describes a material with nothing diluting it, above all "pure gold" for the tabernacle furnishings, along with pure oil, pure incense, and pure silver. Here the old image is closest to the surface: the point is unmixed, refined quality, gold with no baser metal left in it.
Finally it reaches inside a person. A clean heart, clean hands, and pure words are ones with no hidden corruption. The prophets and Psalms press the worship language into this inner sense, insisting that outward cleanness is empty without it, and looking ahead to a day when God himself will sprinkle clean water and cleanse his people from their idols. The shining metal, the fit body, and the clean heart are not three separate words but one word seen from three angles.