HORSE

HORSE (Heb. סוּס). The present-day horse is descended from the wild species which formerly roamed the steppes of Asia   and Africa in herds and of which only one species survives today in Central Asia. The horse was introduced into the Near East from Iran, whence its Sumerian name "donkey of the mountain," i.e., from the other side of the Zagros. Manuals for the care of horses survive in Ugaritic, Hittite, and Akkadian. Characteristic of the Middle East region is the swift Arab horse, the Equus caballus orientalis, drawings of which are common on Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian steles. Being largely mountainous, Ereẓ Israel was not noted for breeding horses, which are by nature animals of the steppes and plains. They were consequently regarded as a luxury and something strange in Ereẓ Israel. In the Pentateuch the king is admonished that "he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses" (Deut. 17:16). The prophets similarly warned against promoting horse breeding (Isa. 2:7; 31:1; Hos. 14:4; et al.). In the plain the horse and iron chariots were formidable implements of war (Judg. 4:13). A powerful description of the war horse is given in Job (39:19–25). Having imported horses, Solomon bred and traded in them (I Kings 10:28–29). "A chariot of the sun" harnessed to horses, which was used in idolatrous worship, was removed by King Josiah (II Kings 23:11). Although Isaiah (28:28) describes how corn was threshed by driving horses over the threshing floor (parash here means "horse," fars in Arabic), the horse was apparently not much used as a draft animal in biblical times, being in this respect not particularly efficient in Ereẓ Israel. Hence the ox, mule, and ass were preferred for the purpose; the horse was used for war. The earliest military use of the horse was to pull the chariot. Mounted cavalry do not appear until the first pre-Christian millennium. In mishnaic and talmudic times, too, the horse was not highly regarded as a draft animal, one baraita enumerating its six drawbacks in this respect (Pes. 113b). Nonetheless, Rav in Babylonia cautioned his pupil Rav Assi not to "live in a town in which no horse neighs and no dog barks," since the horse senses an enemy and warns its owners (Pes. 113a; and see rashi ibid.). The horse sleeps for a very brief period, according to a Midrash for only 60 respirations at night (Suk. 26b), and hence in the Talmud one who takes a nap is said to "sleep like a horse" (Ber. 3b). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: F.S. Bodenheimer, Animal and Man in Bible Lands (1960), 49. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. Cohen and D. Sivan, The Ugaritic Hippiatric Texts: A Critical Edition (1983); D. Pardee, Les texts hippiatriques (1985); M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (1988), 288; E. Firmage, in: ABD, 6, 1136–37. (Jehuda Feliks / S. David Sperling (2nd ed.)