Colour Terms in the Old Testament

The OT semantic field of 'colour' is presented as a coherent, interdependent, and graded linguistic structure. The relevant lexical items are organized under the following categories: primary (basic) terms; secondary and tertiary terms; terms for pigments, dyes, painting and paints; and terms for stains, speckles, and other phenomena related to colour. Proper names, and names of objects which carry 'colour' associations are discussed as well. Many OT texts are discussed in detail. Finally, the OT colour field is compared to its Mishnaic Hebrew counterpart, and an Appendix dealing with the renewal of the same lexical sector within modern spoken Hebrew brings the study up to the present.