To visit (with friendly or hostile intent); by analogy, to oversee , muster , charge , care for , miss , deposit , etc.
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פָּקַד is one of the richest verbs in the OT precisely because it is one of the most difficult to translate with a single English word. English translations render it as visit, attend to, appoint, muster, number, punish, and several others — because פָּקַד is the verb for the act of a superior giving attention to something under their authority in a way that changes the situation.
Reader summary
Full entry for פָּקַד (H6485) · Open the biblical lexicon
פָּקַד is one of the richest verbs in the OT precisely because it is one of the most difficult to translate with a single English word. English translations render it as visit, attend to, appoint, muster, number, punish, and several others — because פָּקַד is the verb for the act of a superior giving attention to something under their authority in a way.
The BSB source-word alignment has 303 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include numbered (15), I will punish (14), numbers (12), those registered (12), and their registration numbered (10).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 21:1. Its strongest book concentrations include Numbers (103), Jeremiah (49), 1 Samuel (18), Exodus (18).
פָּקַד is one of the richest verbs in the OT precisely because it is one of the most difficult to translate with a single English word. English translations render it as visit, attend to, appoint, muster, number, punish, and several others — because פָּקַד is the verb for the act of a superior giving attention to something under their authority in a way that changes the situation.
The common thread across all its uses is the movement of a superior's attention toward someone or something, with consequences that follow. BDB identifies the range: to visit (in any sense — for blessing or for judgment), to attend to, to appoint, to deposit with, to number, to muster (troops), to commission. The word is currently counted by the local OT index at about 304 uses in the OT and is the foundational term for divine visitation — the moment when God turns his attention toward a person or people and acts.
The theological weight of פָּקַד in the OT oscillates between blessing and judgment. 'The Lord visited Sarah' (Gen 21:1) — the result is the birth of Isaac, the fulfillment of the promise. 'The Lord visited the Egyptians' (Exod 4:31 context; 12:12) — the result is the plagues and the Exodus. 'I will visit their transgression with the rod' (Ps 89:32) — the result is discipline.
'When you visit men, what are you doing to them?' (Ps 8:4 — though this verse uses פָּקַד to name the wonder of God's attention to humanity). The double edge of פָּקַד — it can mean a visit of blessing or a visit of judgment — is part of its theological content. When the OT says God פָּקַד his people, both possibilities are open until the context clarifies. The Exodus confession in Exod 4:31 — when Moses delivers the message and the people hear that 'the Lord had visited the children of Israel' — produces worship (שָׁחָה), because they know this פָּקַד is a visitation of liberation.
The word runs through Genesis to Revelation: from God remembering and visiting the barren (Gen 21:1) to God visiting the imprisoned Joseph (Gen 50:24-25) to God visiting the nations in judgment. The NT's ἐπισκέπτομαι (to visit, to attend to) carries the same range.
פָּקַד is currently counted by the local OT index at about 304 uses in the OT and functions as a major verb for divine attention with consequences. Its range spans blessing visitations (God attending to barren women, imprisoned persons, his people in distress), judgment visitations (God accounting for sin and punishing the guilty), administrative functions (mustering troops, appointing officials), and the theological confession that God has not forgotten his people.
All uses share the structure of a superior's attention that changes what it lands on.
Now the Lord attended to Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what He had promised.
The birth of Isaac uses פָּקַד for God's visitation of Sarah. 'The Lord visited Sarah as he had said' — the פָּקַד is the fulfillment of the earlier promise (Gen 17:21, 18:10). God's attention turning toward the barren woman produces the birth of the promised son. This is the blessing register of פָּקַד at its fullest: the divine visitation opens the closed womb and brings life from impossibility.
The verb signals not merely that God remembered his promise but that he acted on it — the visitation is normally consequential.
Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me and said: I have surely attended to you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.
The Exodus commission uses פָּקַד for God's attention to Israel's bondage in Egypt. 'I have surely visited you' (פָּקֹד פָּקַדְתִּי — the absolute infinitive intensifying the verb) is the theological declaration: God's attention has turned toward Israel's suffering, and the visit will produce liberation. The repetition of the verb (infinitive absolute + finite verb) is the Hebrew way of expressing certainty and completeness: this is not a tentative divine glance but a sovereign purposive visitation.
The promise Moses is to carry to the elders is that the פָּקַד they had been waiting for has arrived.
What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You care for him?
The creation psalm uses פָּקַד for God's attention to humanity amid the vast cosmos: 'what is the son of man, that you attend to him (פָּקַד him)?' The astonishment of the psalm is that the God who made the moon and the stars bends his attention toward the creature made of dust. פָּקַד here is wonder, not threat — the marvel that the sovereign whose attention determines outcomes has turned that attention toward humanity.
Hebrews 2:6-9 cites this verse in application to Christ: the Son of Man who was made lower than the angels but whom God 'visited' (ἐπεσκέψω) and crowned with glory.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely visit you and bring you up from this land to the land He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Joseph's deathbed declaration uses פָּקַד as the promise he passes on to his brothers: 'God will surely פָּקַד you.' The same intensified form as Exodus 3:16 (פָּקֹד יִפְקֹד). Joseph is setting the future visitation of liberation — the Exodus — in the context of the patriarchal promise. The people who will be visited are the people whose bones Joseph asks to be carried up when that visitation comes (50:25).
Moses carries out that request: Exodus 13:19 notes that he took Joseph's bones, 'for he had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, God will surely פָּקַד you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.' The πָּקַד of the Exodus is the fulfillment of Joseph's deathbed prophecy.
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. Visit encompasses divine oversight—both gracious remembrance and punitive judgment—with covenantal accountability.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 304 lexical occurrence verses.
פָּקַד is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Denotes covenant reckoning. Hosea 9:7-9
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
פָּקַד is the word that ends waiting. When God פָּקַד his people, the long silence is broken, the deferred promise arrives, the suffering that seemed forgotten is not forgotten. The OT characters who are in bondage or barrenness or exile wait for פָּקַד — they wait for the divine visitation that will change their situation. Joseph dies still waiting, but he is confident enough to give instructions for what to do with his bones when the visitation finally comes.
He will have been dead for generations, but he knows it will come. The preacher who holds פָּקַד has the word that addresses the experience of waiting for God when God seems not to have noticed. Sarah was barren for decades. Israel was in bondage for four centuries. Joseph was in a pit and then a prison. The word the OT uses to describe what God finally does in each case is פָּקַד: he turns his sovereign attention toward the one who has been waiting, and the situation changes.
But the double edge of the word must not be softened. פָּקַד can mean a visit of judgment as well as a visit of blessing. 'I will visit their transgression with the rod' (Ps 89:32). 'On the day I visit, I will visit their sin on them' (Exod 32:34). The divine attention that brings liberation also brings accountability. The preacher should not reduce פָּקַד to a comfortable word about divine care — it is the word for God's consequential attention, which can be the best or the most serious thing that could happen to you, depending on what you are doing when it arrives.
Exod.3.16
פָּקַד is a qal verb with a very wide semantic range. BDB's definitions run to several columns: to visit, to attend to, to look after, to deposit/entrust, to appoint, to number/muster, to miss, to punish. The unifying concept is the attention of a superior that produces a change in the situation of the object of that attention. The intensified form (infinitive absolute + finite verb: פָּקֹד פָּקַדְתִּי) appears in key texts (Gen 50:24-25, Exod 3:16) to express certainty and completeness.
The noun forms include פְּקֻדָּה (visitation, oversight) and פָּקִיד (officer, overseer, one appointed). The LXX translates פָּקַד with ἐπισκέπτομαι (to visit, look after), ἐπισκοπέω (to oversee), and several other verbs depending on context. The NT's ἐπίσκοπος (bishop, overseer) and ἐπισκοπή (oversight, visitation) carry the administrative dimension of פָּקַד.
The Lukan use of ἐπισκέπτομαι for the Incarnation (Luke 1:68, 7:16) is the theological climax of the OT פָּקַד tradition.
The NT's ἐπισκέπτομαι carries the full weight of the OT's פָּקַד in its most concentrated uses. Luke 1:68 — Zechariah's Benedictus at the birth of John the Baptist — is the NT's clearest identification of the Incarnation as the long-awaited divine visitation: 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited (ἐπεσκέψατο) and redeemed his people.' The vocabulary is the Exodus vocabulary: God had promised to פָּקַד his people (Exod 3:16, Gen 50:24-25), and the birth of the Messiah is that visitation.
Luke 7:16 repeats the pattern: 'God has visited his people' is the response to the raising of the widow's son. Hebrews 2:6-9 cites Psalm 8:4's פָּקַד language to describe the Incarnation: the Son of Man whom God 'visited' (ἐπεσκέψω) was made lower than the angels for a time and then crowned with glory. The NT's episkopos (bishop/overseer) is the administrative dimension of פָּקַד institutionalized: the one who exercises divine visitation-attention toward the community on God's behalf.
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