StrongerBible

parash

פָּרָשׁ

HebrewH6571“horseman, horse, ...”

Appears 57 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 50:9Exo 14:9Exo 14:17Exo 14:18Exo 14:23Exo 14:26Exo 14:28Exo 15:19Jos 24:61Sa 8:111Sa 13:52Sa 1:62Sa 8:42Sa 10:181Ki 1:51Ki 4:26(5:6)1Ki 9:191Ki 9:221Ki 10:26 (2×)2Ki 2:122Ki 13:142Ch 8:9Isa 28:28Jer 4:29Ezk 26:10Nam 3:3
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradepa-RASHnoun

What parash means

1

a war-horse: a horse bred and harnessed for battle, especially a chariot-team horse

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyContested

This is the older and more basic of the word's two senses: the animal itself. In a handful of passages the surrounding words make the animal reading unavoidable, because the word stands beside other animals or is compared to one.

Hebrew has a common, all-purpose word for a horse (sus), so when this rarer word means the animal it usually points to a specific kind: the trained war-horse, often the horse yoked to a chariot. That is why a trade list can name horses, war-horses, and mules side by side as three separate goods, and why a poet can liken a swarm of locusts to charging horses.

Which English word fits a given verse is genuinely debated, because the same spelling can also mean the man who handles the horse (see the next meaning). Where the verse sets the word against another animal, the animal reading is the natural one.

Jos 24:6Isa 28:28Isa 31:1Ezk 27:14Jol 2:4
2

a fighting man who works with horses: a chariot crewman in early times, a mounted soldier in later times

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

The word's other sense is the man rather than the animal: the warrior who fought with horses. What that looked like changed over the centuries, and that change is the key to reading the word well.

In the earliest periods, armies in the region did not fight from horseback at all. They fought from chariots, and a loose rider was only a scout or messenger. Organized cavalry as a battle force did not exist anywhere nearby until roughly the ninth century before Christ. So when the oldest texts describe Pharaoh's pursuers at the sea or Solomon's huge horse establishment, the men in view are chariot crews and chariot-horse handlers, not cavalry. The traditional English rendering "horsemen" quietly imports later cavalry into a world that had none, which is why the head counts in Solomon's stables make no sense as a count of riders.

From the late eighth century before Christ onward, the great empires (Assyria, Babylon, then Persia) did field real cavalry, and from that point the word does mean a mounted soldier on horseback. The two shades below track that history: the chariot crewman of the early texts, and the mounted rider of the later ones.

Nuances

2aa chariot crewman or chariot-team handler, in periods before mounted cavalry existed
Gen 50:9Exo 14:9Exo 14:17Exo 14:18Exo 14:23Exo 14:26Exo 14:28Exo 15:191Sa 8:111Ki 4:26(5:6)1Ki 9:191Ki 9:22
2ba mounted soldier on horseback, in the later periods when cavalry was a real battlefield force
TranslatabilityApproximate
Ezr 8:22Neh 2:9Jer 4:29Jer 46:4Ezk 23:6Ezk 23:12Ezk 26:7Ezk 26:10Ezk 38:4Dan 11:40Nam 3:3Hab 1:8

What scholars say about parash

The classical lexica disagree on whether there is one lemma or two: BDB splits a primary noun parash I "horse, steed" (a rarer synonym of sus) from a derived nomen professionis parash II "horseman" (reconstructed as a qattal-form */parras/), while HALOT, DCH, and Gesenius-18 treat a single polysemous lexeme glossed "team/chariot-horse; horseman." The cognate set is Common Semitic and rich on the animal side (Arabic faras "horse" vs. faris "horseman"; Sabaic, Qatabanic, Geez, Modern South Arabian), with Militarev and Kogan reconstructing Proto-Semitic *paras- "horse"; the rider sense dominates in Aramaic and Syriac parrasa, matching BDB's geminate reconstruction. Modern lexicography and military history (Ap-Thomas 1970; Cantrell 2011; Yadin; Littauer and Crouwel; Drews; Dezso) converge on a diachronic reading: organized cavalry did not exist in the region before roughly 900 BCE, so in Pentateuchal, Solomonic, and early-monarchic texts the word denotes a chariot-horse or chariot crewman, with the 1 Kings 10:26 ratio of about 8.5 parashim per chariot decisive against a cavalry reading (so Cogan AB, Mulder HCOT, Sweeney OTL); only from the late eighth century (Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian armies) does it denote a mounted soldier. Egyptologists (Spalinger, Hoffmeier) and the Kurkh Monolith confirm the absence of cavalry behind the Exodus and ninth-century Israelite material. The animal reading is exegetically forced where the word stands beside other animals or in animal similes (Joel 2:4; Ezek 27:14; Isa 28:28, 31:1), and the LXX itself oscillates among hippeus "horseman," anabates "mounter/rider," and hippos "horse" (Isa 31:1; Josh 24:6). The verb parash "to separate, declare" (H6567) and the noun peresh "dung" (H6569) share the consonants but are coincidental homographs, not derivationally related; the older folk-etymology deriving the cavalry noun from "to separate" is rejected by BDB, HALOT, DCH, Gesenius-18, and TDOT, and the ancient versions render the three words in three separate lexical fields.

Where scholars disagree about parash

Whether this is one word with a range of meaning or two unrelated words spelled alike (a noun for the horse and a separate noun for the horseman).

  • majorityOne polysemous lexeme covering both the horse and the horseman, since morphologically only the one plural form is attested and context alone selects the sense.; HALOT, 3:977, s.v. פרשׁ; Clines, DCH, 6:787, s.v. פרשׁ
  • minorityTwo distinct nouns: a primary parash I "horse, steed" and a derived agent-noun parash II "horseman."; Brown, Driver, and Briggs, BDB, 832b-833a, s.v. פרשׁ I and II
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • Koehler, Baumgartner, and Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), 3:977, s.v. פרשׁlexicon
  • Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB), 832b-833a, s.v. פרשׁ I and IIlexicon
  • Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), 6:787, s.v. פרשׁlexicon
  • G. Mayer, 'סוּס sûs,' in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), 10:178-193lexicon
  • VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE), 3:687-688lexicon
  • D. R. Ap-Thomas, 'All the King's Horses: A Study of the Term פרש,' in Proclamation and Presence, ed. Durham and Porter (London: SCM, 1970), 135-151article
  • Deborah O'Daniel Cantrell, The Horsemen of Israel: Horses and Chariotry in Monarchic Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011)monograph
  • Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Discovery, 2 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963)monograph
  • Mary A. Littauer and Joost H. Crouwel, Wheeled Vehicles and Ridden Animals in the Ancient Near East (Leiden: Brill, 1979)monograph
  • Robert Drews, Early Riders: The Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe (London: Routledge, 2004)monograph
  • Mordechai Cogan, I Kings, Anchor Bible 10 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 222-223, 318-322commentary
  • Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 64-66commentary
  • Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 25-48, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 75-78commentary
  • Nahum M. Sarna, Exodus, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 1991), 73, 76commentary
  • James L. Crenshaw, Joel, Anchor Bible 24C (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 121-124commentary
  • A. Militarev and L. Kogan, Semitic Etymological Dictionary, vol. 2: Animal Names (Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2005), no. 182lexicon

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of פָּרָשׁ

m p absolute

פָּרָשִׁים

Gen 50:9, Exo 14:28, Jos 24:6, 1Sa 13:5, 2Sa 1:6, 2Sa 8:4, 2Sa 10:18, 1Ki 1:5

m p construct

פָּרָשָׁיו

Exo 14:9, Exo 14:17, Exo 14:18, Exo 14:23, Exo 14:26, Exo 15:19, 1Sa 8:11, 1Ki 9:22

m s absolute

פָּרָשׁ

Jer 4:29, Nam 3:3

m s construct

פָּרַשׁ

Ezk 26:10