how to say “innocent” in Hebrew

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/חף-מפשע-#.m4a” /]תָּמִים, חַף מִפֶּשַׁע

The Hebrew word תמים[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/חף-מפשע-#.m4a” /], in Biblical Hebrew, means complete, finished. It later came to be used as innocent, though often with a connotation of naivete.

Take the words of the woman to her man with big plans, in this song:

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/חף-מפשע-#.m4a” /]אל תהיה כל כך תמים.

Don’t be so naive.

Then there’s innocent in the sense of not guilty. The term there is חף מפשע[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/חף-מפשע-#.m4a” /] – literally, clean of crime (חף[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/חף-מפשע-#.m4a” /] in this sense appears in the biblical Book of Job, 33:9).

For example:

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/חף-מפשע-#.m4a” /]לא צריך לרחם עליו, הוא לא בדיוק חף משפע… 

You don’t need to feel bad for him, he’s not exactly free of guilt…

and

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/חף-מפשע-#.m4a” /]איך עושים דברים כאלה לאנשים חפים מפשע?

How do they do such things to innocent people?

Note the hard p sound in חפים[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/חף-מפשע-#.m4a” /].