Hebrew word · H6506

פִּרְדָּה

hapirdah

female mule

The female form of pered, "mule." A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

she-mule, mule

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of 1 Kings 1:44

Range of meaning

The female form of pered, "mule." A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. In the Hebrew Bible this exact feminine word appears only in 1 Kings 1:33, 38 and 44, each time for "the king's mule." The masculine pered appears elsewhere for the mounts of royal princes and as costly tribute.

Against the English

Every major English version correctly says "mule." But to a modern reader a mule is a stubborn farm animal, a beast of burden, even a joke. In Israel it was a prestige animal that belonged to the royal family.

How it drifted

The English word is accurate. What has changed is the animal's social standing. In the industrial and modern West, mules became ordinary working stock. In Iron Age Israel they were scarce, imported and expensive.

Used elsewhere in the period

David's sons ride mules (2 Samuel 13:29), and Absalom is riding one when he dies (2 Samuel 18:9). Mules come to Solomon as tribute along with gold, silver and horses (1 Kings 10:25). Merchants from Beth-togarmah trade them (Ezekiel 27:14). Leviticus 19:19 forbids crossbreeding animals, which likely meant Israel imported mules rather than bred them, and that made them even rarer. Across the ancient Near East, kings honoured someone by having him ride the royal mount: Joseph in Pharaoh's second chariot (Genesis 41:43), Mordecai on the king's own horse (Esther 6:8-9).

Where it appears

1 Kings · 3

  1. 1 Kings 1:33 הַפִּרְדָּ֖ה the mule

    “Take my servants with you,” said the king. “Set my son Solomon on my own mule and take him down to Gihon.

  2. 1 Kings 1:38 פִּרְדַּ֖ת [the] mule of

    Then Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, along with the Cherethites and Pelethites, went down and set Solomon on King David’s mule, and they escorted him to Gihon.

  3. 1 Kings 1:44 פִּרְדַּ֥ת [the] mule of

    And with Solomon, the king has sent Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, along with the Cherethites and Pelethites, and they have set him on the king’s mule.

    Here: "The female mule of" the king. This was David's own personal mount, a rare and costly animal. Riding it in public showed everyone that this man now held the king's place.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.