outward form: the visible shape or figure of a body, and how it looks to the eye
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This word names a body's visible outline, its shape as the eye takes it in. It comes from a verb meaning to trace or mark out a boundary, so at root it is the drawn figure of a thing, its outward form rather than its inner nature.
Most often it appears in a fixed phrase best translated "beautiful of form," a stock way of praising someone's looks. The Bible uses it of a striking cast of people, both women and men:
Rachel, Abigail, and Esther, each called lovely in figure
Joseph, David, and Adonijah, each a handsome man
the captive woman a soldier may find beautiful
The flip side is a form that is marred or wasted. Isaiah's suffering servant has "no form" that would draw a second look, and his appearance is disfigured beyond that of any man; in Lamentations the starving nobles' figures are so blackened they go unrecognized. It pairs so naturally with the word for how a face or scene strikes the eye (מַרְאֶה) that the two run side by side in several of these descriptions, one naming the figure and the other the look.
Nuances
1athe physical build or figure of a body, the shape called beautiful or ill-formed
Names the bodily form, figure, or build of a person, the shape of the frame rather than the general sight of them.1Sa 28:14Jdg 8:18
Stays tied to physical figure even in a comparison, as when an olive tree's fair shape stands for a people's form.Jer 11:16Lam 4:8
Both
Both describe human good looks and are paired in the set descriptions of a beautiful person, where one names the figure and the other the face or overall sight.Gen 29:17Gen 39:6Est 2:7
Both can be drained by suffering, so a sufferer is said to have lost both the form and the look that once marked them.Isa 52:14Isa 53:2
Covers the whole range of what is seen, not just a person's looks: a sight, a spectacle, even a vision shown by God.Exo 3:3Exo 24:17Ezk 1:26
Used for the look of things and conditions, not only people: the visible color of a skin disease the priest inspects, or the look of a tree.Lev 13:3Gen 2:9
Names the act or faculty of seeing itself, what the eyes take in, so it can mean the sight before someone rather than a fixed shape.Deu 28:34Ecc 6:9
תְּמוּנָהa form or likeness as a representation, often the visible shape of God that must not be imaged, where this word is a person's physical build
Describes a person's bodily figure and good looks, the physical attractiveness others notice.Gen 29:17Gen 39:61Sa 25:3
Names the outward form a person actually possesses, whose absence marks someone as unremarkable to look at, as with the servant who had "no form" that we should desire him.Isa 53:2
Says that one thing is LIKE another, a resemblance or comparison rather than the thing's own shape: humanity is made in the divine "likeness".Gen 1:26Gen 5:1
The prophet's hedging word for what a vision only approximates, repeatedly "the likeness of" a creature or a throne where the reality resists plain description.Ezk 1:5Ezk 1:26
Names a pattern or working model to be copied, as when Ahaz sent back the design of the altar he had seen.2Ki 16:10
to'ar in the other biblical languages
εἶδοςGreek“appearance”the Greek word for outward form or appearance, which the old Greek Old Testament uses where the servant has "no form"
Centers on a person's bodily build and good looks, the handsome or lovely figure someone is born with.Gen 29:171Sa 25:3Est 2:7
Names that figure precisely when it is ruined or wasted away, the loss of a form once admired.Isa 52:14Lam 4:8
Both
Both name the outward form or appearance a person or thing presents to the eye, the visible shape by which it is recognized.Luk 9:29Gen 39:6
Both describe a bodily "form" that can be looked upon and judged, which is why the Greek word carries the servant's "no form" of the Hebrew into a body that could be seen.Luk 3:22Isa 53:2
Stretches beyond a physical shape to the abstract idea of "sight," what is actually seen, set against what is only believed or remains invisible.Jhn 5:372Co 5:7
Broadens to mean a "kind" or "sort" of thing, every variety in which something can show up.1Th 5:22
μορφήGreek“form”the Greek word for form in the fuller sense of the shape that expresses what something truly is
Names purely the outward bodily figure and good looks of a person, judged from the outside and making no claim about inner nature: it is the word used of those "beautiful of form", whose attractiveness or handsomeness is what is being described.Gen 29:171Sa 25:3Est 2:7
Both
Both can denote the outward visible form by which a person is perceived or recognized: Jesus appears "in another form" so that his companions fail to know him, much as a figure is identified by the shape of its appearance.Mrk 16:121Sa 28:14
Names the form that outwardly expresses a being's true inner nature, not mere looks: to be in "the form of God" and to take "the form of a servant" describes the essential condition itself made visible, the very mode of existence rather than a physical figure.Php 2:6Php 2:7
What scholars say about to'ar
The noun is derived from the verb תָּאַר "to draw or mark out (a boundary, an outline)," and the standard lexicons (BDB; HALOT) accordingly gloss it "outline, form." BDB distinguishes two uses that align with the split adopted here: the bodily form of individuals, regularly with an adjective of quality in the recurring construct phrase יְפַת/יְפֵה תֹּאַר and its negative counterpart רַע/דַּל תֹּאַר; and the outward appearance or visage more generally (1 Samuel 28:14;Judges 8:18;Isaiah 52:14; 53:2; Lamentations 4:8). It stands in frequent hendiadys-like parallel with מַרְאֶה, the two together forming a stock idiom of physical attractiveness (Genesis 29:17; 39:6; 1 Samuel 25:3;Esther 2:7). TWOT treats the root under the sense of delineating an outline. The term denotes external, perceptible shape throughout and carries no evaluative sense of its own apart from the accompanying adjective.