Perida (Hastings' Dictionary)

The eponym of a dainty of ‘Solomon’s servants,’ Neh 757. In the arallel passage, Ezr 2, the name appears in the orm Peruda (x75; B Φερειδά, A Φαρειδά), and in 1 Es 5% as Pharida (B Φαρειδά, A Φαριδά, Luc. Φαδουρά). PERIZZITE (ὙΠ50)., -ΤῊ6 name of one of the ‘peoples’ which were settled in Palestine before and at the period of the Isr. immigration. When the writers of the OT would characterize the country as it was at that period in respect to population, * Josephus, Ant. xtv. x. 22.

t Reckoned by Th. Reinach, Teztes Relatife au Judaisme, Ρ. 240, xs 75,000 drachmm ere in weight to £3000 sterling) each individual paid two drachmm per annum. PERIZZITE they frequently enumerate a list of six ‘ peoples,’— the Amorite, the Hittite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite (Ex 3° 119 233 3335 341 , Dt 207, Jos 91" 118 128, 28 3°), to which is sometimes added the Girgashite [Dt 7 Jos 3° 244, Neh 95 (where the Hivite is omitted)].

At a later date it is stated that Solomon reduced to slavery all the people in his kingdom who re- mained of the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite (1 Καὶ 9%=2 Ch 87). A yet longer list is given (Gn 15”) in which, while the Hivite is omitted, the Kenite, the Kenizzite, the Kadmonite, and the Rephaim are added.

A very late tradition, on the other hand, speaks of the land as originally inhabited only by the Canaanite, the Perizzite, and the Philistines (2 Es 1”), The Book of Ezra (9") represents the Perizzite as still remaining in the country, a snare and danger to the returned exiles. ith all these writers, however, the Perizzite is nothing but a shadowy name, accepted by tradition as one of the tribes in pre-Israelite Palestine.

In contrast with this, three passages (Gn 13734™, Jg 14), all of which come from the South King- dom historian (J), connect the Perizzites close ay with the Canaanites, and represent them as settl more particularly in the district about Bethel and Shechem.

When Abraham is parting from Lot at Bethel, it is added that the Canaanite and the Perizzite were then in the land; after the scandal at Shechem, Jacob complains that his sons have made him obnoxious to the same two tribes; and, when Judah marches with Simeon to enter upon its conquest, those clans have to do battle in the neighbourhood of Jerus. with these tribes.

+ Some have argued from this collocation that the tribe was one of the aboriginal tribes of Central and South Palestine, which had been dis- possessed of its strongholds by the invading Canaan- ites before Israel appeared upon the scene, and had been reduced to a peasant condition resemblin; that of the Egyp. fellahin, dependent on the domi- nant warlike people (cf. Dillmann on Gn 10%; Riehm, HWB' p. 1193).

The fact that the name does not occur in Gn 10, where the list of the descendants of Canaan is given, is taken to support the suggestion ; while the other fact, that in Gn 15” and Jos 17" the clan is coupled with the prehistoric Rephaim, may show what, at the period when those passages were written, was the opinion among the Jews. On the other hand, Moore(Comm.

on Judges, at 1°) questions whether they were a distinct people at all, and were not rather, as the derivation of the word suggests, a class among the Canaanites, z.e. the inhabitants of unwalled villages, devoted to agriculture. It is noteworthy that 3=pérazi is used in Dt 3° 158 68 for such dwellers in open villages, while n\m5 occurs Ezk 38" Zee 24 for an undefended place.

And it is further note- worthy that in the two former quotations the LXX translates 7» by Φερεζαῖοι (which is its custom- ary translation of Perizzite), while the later Gr. translators render it ἀτείχιστοι, -ι fact which makes it possible that, at the time when the early tr. was made, no difference of pronunciation yet existed between the two Hebrew words. It isan old sugges- tion of Redslob (Alttest. Namen des Isr. Staats, Ὁ.

103), that havvdth (whence Hivites) designated the villages of those who kept cattle, while pérazéth was employed for villages inhabited by an agri- cultural class. The question cannot at present be regarded as settled. A. C. WELCH. In the quotations which are marked with an the LXX (at Dt 2017 only some MSS) adds the Girgashite to the list of six in the Heb. text. t It is true that the Perizzite is coupled (Jos 1715) with the Rephaim, and placed somewhere in the district of Mt.

Ephraim, but this clause (which the LXX omits) must be regarded as either a gloss or a late interpolation. PERJURY