good: fittingly answering to what a thing, a person, or a relationship is meant to be, so that it is sound, pleasing, right, or beneficial
This is the everyday Hebrew word for good, and it stretches across nearly the whole range the English word covers and a little more. The thread that ties its uses together is fitness: something is good when it answers well to its purpose, its situation, or a relationship.
- Land that yields is good land
- advice that achieves its end is good advice
- a person who acts as a person should is a good person
- gold of high grade is good gold
- a turn of events that helps rather than harms is good fortune
The same word praises a meal, a law, a wife's beauty, a cheerful mood, the terms of a treaty, and the character of God himself.
The senses below are not separate words but angles on that one idea. Whether the standard being met is practical quality, simple pleasantness, moral rightness, real benefit, or the bond of a covenant depends on what is being judged and on the surrounding words, not on any change in the word itself. That is why a single phrase can hold two of these at once, as when the fruit of Eden is called good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining insight.
Because the word is this broad, Hebrew often pins it down with a partner:
- good in someone's eyes (pleasing to them)
- good of appearance (beautiful)
- good of heart (cheerful)
- to speak good toward someone (offer friendly, even formally binding, terms)
The feminine form frequently stands on its own as a noun for welfare, prosperity, or good things, the concrete good that comes to a person rather than the quality itself.
The word also carries the everyday comparative force of better. Hebrew has no separate word for it, so good plus the little word for from does the work: better a little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure with trouble.