A male ass (from its dun red )
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H2543 names a male donkey, an important animal for riding, transport, agriculture, household wealth, and relief work. 14, the donkey rests on the Sabbath with children, servants, livestock, and foreigners, extending covenant rest across a household's dependent life.
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Full entry for חֲמוֹר (H2543) · Open the biblical lexicon
H2543 names a male donkey, an important animal for riding, transport, agriculture, household wealth, and relief work. 14, the donkey rests on the Sabbath with children, servants, livestock, and foreigners, extending covenant rest across a household's dependent life.
The BSB source-word alignment has 96 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include donkeys (20), the donkey (10), a donkey (6), and donkeys (6), donkey (6).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 12:16. Its strongest book concentrations include Genesis (17), Exodus (12), 1 Samuel (10), Judges (10).
H2543 names a male donkey, an important animal for riding, transport, agriculture, household wealth, and relief work. In Deut. 5. 14, the donkey rests on the Sabbath with children, servants, livestock, and foreigners, extending covenant rest across a household's dependent life. In 1Sam. 8. 16, Samuel warns that a king will take the people's best servants, cattle, and donkeys for his own use, exposing royal extraction.
In Zech. 9. 9, Zion's righteous and victorious king comes humbly riding on a donkey. H2543 opens teaching on humane rest, ordinary service, limits on political power, and humble kingship. It does not make poverty inherently holy, promise every possession protection from rulers, or treat the donkey as a fixed symbol in every narrative.
H2543 appears as mount, pack animal, agricultural asset, transport for vulnerable people, plunder, property, collateral, food in siege, and royal image. Its ordinary utility makes its treatment economically and morally significant.
But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox or donkey or any of your livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do.
Sabbath rest includes the household's donkey and other livestock as well as servants, children, and resident foreigners.
And he will take your menservants and maidservants and your best cattle and donkeys and put them to his own use.
Samuel warns that a human king will seize the people's best servants, cattle, and donkeys for royal purposes.
Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your King comes to you, righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Zion's coming king is righteous and victorious yet humble, riding on a donkey and its colt.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Beast of burden valued for strength and stubbornness; vehicle for kings and humble folk alike
Beast of burden valued for strength and stubbornness; vehicle for kings and humble folk alike
a male ass (from its dun red) BDB: (he)-ass Usage: (he) ass.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 96 lexical occurrence verses.
חֲמוֹר is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H2543 represents the ordinary infrastructure of biblical life. A donkey carries people and goods, supports farming, and can be a vulnerable household's significant asset. Deuteronomy therefore brings it into Sabbath rest; worship limits productivity for the good of servants, foreigners, and animals alike. Samuel's kingship warning names seizure of donkeys as part of a larger pattern in which concentrated power turns subjects and property toward itself.
Zechariah offers a different royal picture: the coming king is righteous, victorious, and humble on a donkey, and the surrounding promise removes war equipment and speaks peace to nations. The animal does not make all riding humble, but the prophetic contrast matters. Faithful application values routine labor, builds rest into economic life, resists exploitative authority, and receives Jesus' enacted kingship without romanticizing poverty.
God's king comes with true authority that does not depend on the symbols and extraction of human empire.
Zech.9.9
H2543 is a Hebrew noun for a male donkey. Narrative verbs such as saddle, ride, load, take, drive, or bind establish its function, while prophetic parallelism can place it within a royal image.
All four Gospels present Jesus' entry into Jerusalem through donkey and colt imagery from Zechariah, identifying Him as Israel's king while His path moves toward the cross rather than conventional conquest.