Clear; Clearness

Clearness - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

CLEARNESS, n.

1. Freedom from foul or extraneous matter; purity; as the clearness of water, or other liquor.

2. Freedom from obstruction or incumbrance; as the clearness of the ground.

3. Freedom from fogs or clouds; openness; as the clearness of the sky. It generally expresses less than brightness or splendor. Exo 24.

4. Distinctness; perspicuity; luminousness; as the clearness of reason, of views, of arguments, of explanations.

5. Plainness, or plain dealing; sincerity; honesty; fairness; candor.

6. Freedom from imputation of ill.

7. Freedom from spots, or any thing that disfigures; as the clearness of the skin.

kler, kler'-nes (bar; diablepo): Equivalent of several Hebrew and Greek words for bright, unclouded, shining without obstruction, distinct, brilliant; "clearer than the noon-day" (Job 11:17): "clear as the sun" (So 6:10); "clear shining after rain" (2Sa 23:4); "clear heat in sunshine" (Isa 18:4); "clear as crystal" (Re 21:11). Adverb, "clearly," for distinctly (Mt 7:5; Mr 8:25; Ro 1:20). Noun, "clearness," for brilliancy, in Ex 24:10, "as the very heaven for clearness."

From this physical, it is applied, in a moral sense, to character, as spotless and free from guilt, or charge, or obligation "from oath" (Ge 24:8); "from transgression" (Ps 19:13). Hence, the verb "to clear" means juridically to declare or prove innocent, to vindicate (Ge 44:16; Ex 34:7; Nu 14:18; compare hagnos, 2Co 7:11, the Revised Version (British and American) "pure") "Be clear when thou judgest" (Ps 51:4) refers to the proof and vindication of the righteousness of God.

H. E. Jacobs