Tahor is the Torah's word for the state the whole purity system exists to restore, and it has almost nothing to do with dirt. Gold is tahor. The lampstand is tahor. A gathering of water, miqveh mayim, remains tahor when other vessels take on impurity (Leviticus 11:36). None of those things get washed with soap.

The KJV, ESV, NASB, and NIV all render it "clean," and the English drags the word into the bathroom. Clean is what you are after scrubbing. So the Western reader hears the purity laws as ancient sanitation, files them under obsolete, and misses that the word names a standing, not a condition of the skin.

Tahor is clearance for nearness. It is the status that lets a son of Israel walk toward the place where HaShem dwells. That is why David does not ask for a scrubbed conscience but prays "create in me a lev tahor, a pure heart" (Psalms 51:10), and why the new-covenant promise runs through water first: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be tahor" (Ezekiel 36:25). The word is the destination of every immersion.