PARTRIDGE

[Heb., qo·reʼʹ].

The Hebrew name of this bird means the “caller” or “crier.” In the two references to the bird (1 Sam. 26:20; Jer. 17:11), the Latin Vulgate rendered it by the word perdix, and the Septuagint Version had used the Greek equivalent thereof in the latter of the two texts. From perdix comes the English word “partridge.” While the partridge does have a ringing call, some believe its Hebrew name is intended to imitate the grating “krrr-ic” sound the bird makes when it is flushed.

The partridge is a chickenlike (gallinaceous) bird, stout-bodied, smaller than the pheasant, able to run and dodge with great swiftness, seldom resorting to flight and tiring quickly when it does. Among the more common partridges found in Palestine are the sand or desert partridge and the red-legged or chukar partridge. The sand partridge has a sandy buff color to its plumage and a white stripe runs behind the eyes. It is found in the Jordan valley, the Dead Sea region, and along the Wadi Arabah. The chukar partridge has red legs and bill, a white throat trimmed with black and heavily barred feathers on its flanks. In Palestine it is found principally in the hill country. The partridge’s diet consists of insects, grains, berries, and similar fare.

The partridge has a delicate flesh and was hunted as food from ancient times, the hunters often using throwing sticks to bring down the bird when it was flushed from cover. Since the partridge seeks escape by running, dodging behind rocks and other obstacles, and seeking out a hiding place in clefts of rocks or similar places of concealment, David, moving from hiding place to hiding place in his endeavor to evade King Saul’s relentless pursuit, aptly likened himself to “a partridge upon the mountains.”—1 Sam. 26:20; compare Lamentations 3:52.

The text at Jeremiah 17:11, likening the man unjustly amassing wealth to “the partridge that has gathered together [or, possibly, hatched] what it has not laid,” has been the subject of much discussion. Whereas certain ancient writers described the partridge as taking eggs from other hen’s nests and incubating them, present-day naturalists state that none of the birds classified as partridges have such practice. However, the Hebrew lexicon of Koehler and Baumgartner (Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, p. 851) refers to Jewish zoologist Israel Aharoni (1882-1946), a writer of works on Palestinian animal life, as having found “2 layings of 11 eggs each of 2 different females [partridges] in the same nest.” A later source, the Palestine Exploration Quarterly (May-Oct. 1955, p. 133), shows “that the chukor [partridge] lays two clutches of eggs, one for herself and another for the cock.” The cock’s incubating such eggs might have some connection with the meaning of the text, though this cannot definitely be stated to be the explanation. The translation of Jeremiah 17:11 by the Jewish Publication Society reads: “As the partridge that broodeth over young which she hath not brought forth, so is he that getteth riches, and not by right; in the midst of his days he shall leave them,” and the comment thereon in the Soncino Books of the Bible quotes naturalist Tristram as suggesting that the meaning is that the partridge hen commences to sit but, due to her many enemies, human and others, who hunt for her nest to rob it of its eggs, she is speedily deprived of her hopes of a brood.

Whatever the exact meaning, it is evident that the simile used in Jeremiah’s prophecy was one understood by the people of his day. It may be kept in mind that, even among birds belonging to the same family or kind, the different varieties within such family sometimes have very distinct or peculiar characteristics or habits. (Some cuckoos are parasitical, others are not; some eagles hunt fish, others do not; most owls hunt at night, but a few, such as the snowy owl, hunt by day.) The bird described some two thousand five hundred years ago in Jeremiah’s writings could be of a type or variety of partridge no longer in existence.

PARUAH

(Pa·ruʹah) [sprouting, blooming].

Father of the Jehoshaphat who served as Solomon’s food deputy in the territory of Issachar.—1 Ki. 4:7, 17.

PASACH

(Paʹsach) [divider].

Family head in the tribe of Asher; son of Japhlet.—1 Chron. 7:30, 33, 40.

PAS-DAMMIM

(Pas-damʹmim).

Evidently another name for Ephesdammim, a place between Socoh and Azekah.—1 Sam. 17:1; 1 Chron. 11:13.

PASEAH

(Pa·seʹah) [limper].

1. A descendant of Judah in the line of “Chelub the brother of Shuhah.”—1 Chron. 4:1, 11, 12.

2. Forefather of a family of Nethinim, some of whom returned from the Babylonian exile with Zerubbabel in 537 B.C.E.—Ezra 2:1, 2, 43, 49; Neh. 7:51.

3. Father of the Joiada who helped repair the Gate of the Old City in Jerusalem’s wall (455 B.C.E.).—Neh. 3:6.

PASHHUR

(Pashʹhur) [what remains round about].

1. Father of the Gedaliah who was one of the princes of Judah responsible for having Jeremiah thrown into a cistern.—Jer. 38:1, 4, 6.

2. A prince in the delegation King Zedekiah sent to inquire of Jeremiah concerning the future of Jerusalem. (Jer. 21:1, 2) Pashhur also petitioned the king for permission to put Jeremiah in the cistern. (Jer. 38:1, 4, 6) Pashhur is called in these two passages “the son of Malchi[j]ah.” The family of priests returning from Babylonian exile contains a similar link in their genealogy, “Pashhur the son of Malchijah.” (1 Chron. 9:12; Neh. 11:12) If prince Pashhur was indeed a priest, he may be the same as No. 3 below, and perhaps the one from whom the “sons of Pashhur” (No. 4 below) draw their name.

3. A priest, “the son [or descendant] of Immer, . . . the leading commissioner in the house of Jehovah.” Pashhur, objecting to Jeremiah’s prophecies, struck him and put him into the stocks and released him the following day. As a result Jehovah, through Jeremiah, foretold captivity and death in Babylon for Pashhur and, accordingly, changed his name from Pashhur to “Fright all around” (Heb., Ma·ghohrʹ mis·sa·vivʹ) (Jer. 20:1-6), an expression occurring several times in this book.—Jer. 6:25; 20:3, 10; 46:5; 49:29; see No. 2 above.

4. The “sons of Pashhur” were a paternal house of priests, 1,247 of whom returned from the exile with priest Jeshua in 537 B.C.E. (Ezra 2:1, 2, 36, 38; Neh. 7:41) Six of these married foreign wives but sent them away after Ezra arrived in 468 B.C.E.—Ezra 10:22, 44; see No. 2 above.

5. A priest, or the forefather of one who in the time of Governor Nehemiah supported the covenant not to take foreign wives.—Neh. 9:38; 10:1, 3, 8.

PASSOVER

[Heb., peʹsahh, an overleaping, or passing over; Gr., paʹskha].

Passover was instituted the evening preceding the exodus from Egypt. The first Passover was observed about the time of full moon, on the fourteenth day of Abib (later called Nisan) in the year 1513 B.C.E. This was thereafter to be celebrated annually. (Ex. 12:17-20, 24-27) Abib (Nisan) falls within the months March-April of the Gregorian calendar. Passover was followed by seven days of the Festival of Unfermented Cakes, Nisan 15-21. Passover commemorates the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt and the ‘passing over’ of their firstborn when Jehovah destroyed the firstborn of Egypt. Seasonally, it fell at the beginning of the barley harvest.—Ex. 12:14, 24-47; Lev. 23:10.

Passover was a memorial celebration; therefore the Scriptural command was: “And it must occur that when your sons say to you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’ then you must say, ‘It is the sacrifice