Notes on Numbers 19:2 and "Cow" Being a Better Rendering of pārâ(h) פָּרָה than "Heifer"

  

a perfect red cow that had no blemish. The traditional rendering of parah as “heifer” is not warranted by the Hebrew, which in no way suggests that the beast is not mature. The red color appears to be associated with the importance of blood in the purification ritual that follows, an association reinforced by the phonetic overlap in Hebrew between dam, “Blood,” and ‘adam, “red.” (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 1:544)

 

 

cow. Hebrew pārāh tells us little about the precise age of the requisite animal, because par ‘bull’ and pārāh ‘cow’ are used rather loosely in biblical Hebrew. English “heifer” designates a cow that has not borne a calf, and it is nowhere near certain that such an animal was intended by the present law. One assumes that a degree of physical maturity is implied by the term pārāh, though we lack detailed information on animal husbandry in biblical Israel. Clearly, a pārāh is older than an ʿeglāh ‘calf’ (female), and, according to Mic 6:6, a yearling is called ʿēgel. (Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 1-20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 4; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 461)

 

 

Taylor Halverson (LDS), in his translation of Num 19:2 also renders it as “a perfect red cow without defect or blemish that has never been under a yoke.”

 

Here are scholarly lexicons on the meaning of פָּרָה in the context of Num 19:2:

 

פָּרָה I _26.0.6 n.f. cow—cstr. Q פרת; sf. פָּדָתוֹ; pl. פָּרוֹת (פָּרֹת); cstr. פָּרוֹת—cow, female bovine (עֶגְלָה is the young ‘female calf’, פֵּר is the adult male, ‘bull’), as sacrifice (Nm 19:2, 5, 6, 9, 10; 1 S 6:7, 7, 10, 12, 14; 4QTohB^a 1_3.7; 4QTohB^b 1.2_1.2 [both [הפרה]] 1.2₃; 4QMMT B₁₃), present (Gn 32:16), trade object (MurEpBeth-Mashiko₃), possession of the wicked (Jb 21:10), animal in the messianic kingdom (Is 11:7), symbol in a dream (Gn 41:2₊₁₀), image of stubborn Israel (Ho 4:16=CD 1₁₃) and of upper-class women in Samaria (Am 4:1). (The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, ed. David J. A. Clines, 8 vols. [Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007], 6:758)

 

 

II פָּרָה: fem. of פַּר, SamP. farra, cf. ? Amorite n.f. parratum (Finkel RA 70 (1976) 48): sf. פָּרָתוֹ, pl. פָּרוֹת: cow Gn 32:16 41:2-27 Nu 19:2 (אֲדֻמָּה), 5f, 9f 1S 6:7 and 10 (עָלוֹת), 12, 14 Is 11:7 Hos 4:16 Jb 21:10; metaphorical פָּרוֹת הַבָּשָׁן Bashan cattle, meaning the prominent and haughty women of Samaria Am 4:1 :: Barstad VT 25 (1975) 286-297: a figurative description of the whole of the population that had fallen into idolotrous practices; cj. Nu 19:2 for חֻקַּת הַתּוֹרָה prp. חֻ׳ הַפָּרָה. † (HALOT)

 

 

1. Occurrences. The terms par/pārâ are related in substance to the word group → בקר bāqār and occur over 150 times (131 and 25, respectively) in the OT; the frequent occurrence of these words in the pentateuchal sacrificial regulations is responsible for this high number.

 

2. Meaning. The frequently used complement ben-bāqār (Lev. 4:3, 14; Nu. 7:15ff.; 8:8; 15:24, etc.; Ezk. 43:19, 23, 25, etc.) provides little information about the meaning of par; although it does indicate that the animal belongs to the category “ox, bovine,” it says nothing about the animal’s age.

 

While GesB translates par as “steer, esp. younger bull (different from ʿēg̱el),” HAL says, “sometimes the animal is a young one.”⁸ Only two passages provide any indication of age along with par, and even this information is uncertain (Jgs. 6:25; 1 S. 1:24–25). The specification of the term par as a “young bull” has been influenced perhaps by the tractate Parah, which discusses the age of an ox suitable for sacrifice and of the heifer required for preparing the water of purification (Nu. 19:2ff.; Mish. Parah 1:2: “but out of respect, do not bring old animals”). According to R. Péter-Contesse, par/pārâ can be understood as a fully grown, i.e., sexually mature, steer (or bull) and cow, while the → עגל ʿēg̱el/ʿeg̱lâ refers to the younger animals. The terms bāqār and šôr would then allegedly refer to the category “ox, bovine,” collectively or as an individual animal without saying anything about age or gender.

 

He also considers the other possibility, namely, that šôr, “bull,” and pārâ, “cow,” belong together, while par is to be translated as “young bull.” Militating against this view, however, is that the OT never uses par = “young bull” to refer to the cultically venerated bull image, but rather ʿēg̱el = “calf.” We have as yet no persuasive etymological explanation of par. Gesenius mentions a root prr with the meanings “cito ferri, currere” (cf. in this regard the name of the river near Damascus, parpar, mentioned in 2 K. 5:12), or “vehi … ut iuvencus dictus sit a vehiculo trahendo,” yet also refers to the possibility of understanding prr = prh in the meaning “fertilis fuit,” which would fit with the mythological context mentioned below. In all probability par is a primary noun. (K.-M. Beyse, “פַּר,” in TDOT 12:67)