peresh

The standard lexica agree on the sense. BDB glosses the noun "faecal matter found in intestines of victim," and HALOT gives "contents of the stomach and intestines, dung," both stressing that it is matter contained within the slaughtered animal rather than voided feces. All seven occurrences belong to the Priestly source (Exodus 29:14; Leviticus 4:11; 8:17; 16:27; Numbers 19:5), where the peresh is burned outside the camp, plus the twofold prophetic reuse in Malachi 2:3. The internal Hebrew etymology is weak: the traditional derivation from the root prsh "to make distinct, declare" is widely regarded as folk etymology, and the meaning rests instead on cognates, especially Arabic farth "contents of the stomach, chyme" (Qur'an 16:66) and the Aramaic/Syriac cognate, which point to semi-digested gut contents. The versions are revealing: the Septuagint uses ordinary kopros "dung" in the Pentateuch but the technical zoological term enystron "maw, abomasum" in Malachi, confirming the "stomach contents" nuance, while the Vulgate reads plain excrement throughout (fimus, stercus). On the cult, Jacob Milgrom treats the whole-animal burning of the purification offering as disposal of what has absorbed sanctuary impurity, with the peresh swept up as the most obviously unusable part; scholars debate whether the substance is inherently impure or simply worthless (Milgrom, Gane, Kiuchi, Douglas), and the burning of the red heifer's dung together with its intact body (Numbers 19:5) remains only partly explained, the "reduce it all to ash" reading being the most economical (see Milgrom, "The Paradox of the Red Cow"; Baumgarten, "The Paradox of the Red Heifer"). Malachi 2:3 is a recognized crux: commentators divide over whether the preceding word is "seed/descendants" or the priestly "arm/shoulder" (so the LXX and Wellhausen), and over the unexpressed subject of the closing clause, though the noun peresh itself is textually stable throughout.