ASS (אָתﯴן, H912, strength, endurance, she-ass all Eng. VSS; חֲמﯴר֒, H2789, of reddish color. Ass, he-ass KJV, ASV; ass, he-ass, foal, ass colt all Eng. VSS; עַ֫יִר, H6555, young ass, foal, ass colt RSV; πῶλος, G4798, colt all Eng. VSS; ὑιός, son, foal of an ass; ὄνος, G3952, ass all Eng. VSS; ὀνάριον, G3942, young ass all Eng. VSS). English ass is diminutive, prob. derived from Lat. asinus through Celtic, and is a very old word. It is now generally obsolete except in Biblical, figurative, and zoological usage. Donkey has replaced it entirely for the domestic form; this is a recent word (1785) of unknown, perhaps slang, origin. Colt is the young of a member of the horse tribe; in OT and NT used for young ass only, except in Genesis 32:15, “camels and their colts.” Foal (πῶλος, G4798), is almost synonymous with colt. He-ass and she-ass are still used occasionally for male and female, correctly referred to as stallion and mare. Jackass is sometimes heard, and hence jennyass or jenny, more rarely.

1. Origin. The ass is derived from the N African Wild Ass (Equus asinus) which once existed in several races from Somalia through the Libyan desert to Morocco. Three of these races survived into the Rom. period: one in NW Africa; another in Nubia, between the Nile River and Red Sea; the third in Somalia. The first of these is extinct and the second prob. so; the third is now protected and just survives. Ancient Egyp. evidence suggests that the ass may have been used first in Libya, but its main development was in the Nile Valley, and the Nubian race is prob. its main ancestor. Its domestication began at least in early Dynastic period (early third millennium b.c.) and perhaps many centuries earlier than that. It is listed as being sent from Libya as tribute, and illustrated on panels c. 2650 b.c. As happened with other species also, domestication prob. was attempted in several different areas, with subsequent mixing of the stock.

2. Description and uses. Gray and brown are the most common body colors, but there are true albinos, with no shoulder stripe, black, piebald and skewbald. A few varieties may lack the vertical stripe on the shoulder, but most have both this and the clearly marked line along the back. The widespread legend that this stripe, forming a cross, dates from the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem is pure fancy; it is inherited from the wild ancestor. Donkeys have now developed into many varieties, some as large as a thoroughbred horse, with others smaller than Shetland ponies. The home of the Nubian Wild Ass is semidesert mountain, so that it is both sure-footed and able to manage on poor forage. In contrast the horse came from grassy plains, so it needs easier going and better food. For this reason the horse never replaced the ass in hill country or even around the desert edge, and for many centuries the ass has been the basic transport of poorer people, both nomadic and settled. Asses carried the loads and, at least for part of the journey, the women and children; the men seldom rode. In this way an average of twenty m. a day could be maintained. The donkey spread slowly across Europe and did not reach Britain until c. 10th cent. a.d.; although donkeys may still be seen widely in western Europe they are used for serious working in only a few areas, including Ireland.

3. History of ass in Palestine and Mesopotamia. The ass first appears in the Biblical record at Genesis 12:16 among the gifts that Pharaoh gave Abram, but this was not Abram’s first meeting with an ass. The spread into Asia may have been slow, but there are records from Tell Duweir and Jericho of early third millennium b.c., and soon after this from all over Pal. and Syria. It is still uncertain when and where the ass reached Mesopotamia. Tablets from Chagar Bazar, c. 1800 b.c., list three different breeds and their rations, which proves it had been there for some time. This is important for it concerns Abram and his journey from Ur to Canaan, c. 1800 b.c. The first part would have been made up of the Euphrates or Tigris Valley to Harran, lying in the watershed between them. The stage across Syria to Pal. includes large stretches of near desert, which could not possibly be crossed by a large family party without the use of transport animals. Until camels came into service shortly afterward (see Camel), pack asses were used for these desert crossings.

4. Importance to Hebrews. The capacity to survive in hard, rough country made the ass esp. valuable in E Mediterranean lands. It had a range of uses, including grinding corn by using the grindstone (Matt 24:41), and pulling simple plows; the OT gives no real evidence for the ass pulling any wheeled vehicle. Isaiah 21:7 “chariot of asses” (KJV) is tr. “troop of asses” (ASV) and “riders on asses” (RSV). One of the latter seems more likely. Even a light wooden plow was more than one animal could manage efficiently and, since many households owned only one ass, it was—and still is—usual to harness an ox and an ass together. This was forbidden by Mosaic law (Deut 22:10) perhaps primarily for its moral lesson, but it was also humane, for these two have different gaits and do not work comfortably in a common yoke. Like all members of the horse tribe the ass was unclean for meat under Mosaic law, for it has single hoofs and is not a ruminant. It is thus a measure of the people’s desperation that an ass’s head was sold for eighty shekels (thirty-two ounces) of silver when Ben-hadad besieged Samaria (2 Kings 6:25).

5. Significance in Biblical narrative. The two main Heb. words cannot easily be differentiated in their usages but אָתﯴן, H912, is found mostly in two incidents—of Balaam (Num 22) and Saul’s father’s asses (1 Sam 9 and 10). Throughout the OT the ass is portrayed as one of the basic possessions of the ordinary Heb. and out of 138 occurrences only some twelve are other than wholly literal. The many detailed instructions about the treatment of asses (e.g. Exod 21:33) emphasize this. There are also at least four injunctions about the safety of asses (Exod 23: 4, 5, 12; Deut 22:4) perhaps primarily because a poor owner’s living depended on his single ass, but there is also a humane content quite foreign to general sentiment in Arab lands today. The status of the ass has changed little through the ages; it finds few mentions in NT, but it is notable that the Lord twice comments on the kind treatment of livestock, including asses (Luke 13:15; 14:5). Large numbers of asses are sometimes mentioned, e.g. Job 42:12 “a thousand she-asses,” but in most cases the word is sing., e.g. Job 24:3, “they drive away the ass of the fatherless,” giving the impression that the ordinary folk had just one. However, it was not thought undignified for wealthy men to ride on asses, and on two occasions it is specifically recorded that sons of the current judge of Israel did so (Judg 10:3, 4; 12:13, 14). There are many similar cases (e.g. 2 Kings 4:22). There is some evidence that in Pal. and surrounding countries it was correct in peacetime for a king to ride on an ass, perhaps because the horse was so closely associated with war. Zechariah 9:9 “Your king comes to you;...humble and riding on an ass” is consonant with this (cf. v. 10 “the chariot...and the war horse”) and it is re-echoed in Matthew 21:5. The use of asses on ceremonial occasions continued in some Moslem countries; until recently the family of the Sultan of Zanzibar rode on asses in processions. For four centuries the Eng. word “ass” has been a metaphor for stupidity, but there is no hint of this in either OT or NT, even in two proverbial contexts, which are complimentary rather than the reverse: Proverbs 26:3, “A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass”; Isaiah 1:3, “The ass [knows] its master’s crib.” See also Horse; Mule; [http://biblegateway/wiki/Ass WILD ASS].

Bibliography C. W. Hume, The Status of Animals in the Christian Religion (1956); F. E. Zeuner, A History of Domesticated Animals (1963) ch. 15.