Mule

The offspring of a male ass and a female horse (the offspring of a female ass and a stallion is called a hinny). This English word translates Hebrew pered and pirda (she-mule).

The mule is mentioned about 18x in the OT, almost always as animal ridden on or as an animal of burden (see, e.g., 2 Sam 16:1, ". . . there was Ziba, the steward of Mephibosheth, waiting to meet him. He had a string of donkeys saddled and loaded with two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred cakes of raisins, a hundred cakes of figs and a skin of wine," and 2 Ki 5:17, "'If you will not,' said Naaman, 'please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord'"). Probably the most memorable of these incidents must be the occasion when Absalom rebelled against his father David and as he fled the battle scene his mule went under the tree and his head got caught in one of its branches, leaving him hanging in mid-air while his mule kept on going (2 Sam 18:9).

In Psm 32:9, the mule is pictured in a metaphor as having "no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you."

Because Lev 19:19—"Do not mate different kinds of animals"—specifically proscribes the interbreeding of animals, scholars assume that mules in ancient Israel would have been imported or purchased from non-Israelite neighbours.