To visit (with friendly or hostile intent); by analogy, to oversee , muster , charge , care for , miss , deposit , etc.
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פָּקַד (paqad) describes purposeful attention or intervention whose result depends on context. Genesis 21:1 says the LORD attends to Sarah as promised, Genesis 50:24-25 anticipates God's visitation of Israel, Exodus 3:16 announces that God has attended to the people and their treatment in Egypt, and Ruth 1:6 says the LORD visits his people by giving food.
Reader summary
Full entry for פָּקַד (H6485) · Open the biblical lexicon
פָּקַד (paqad) describes purposeful attention or intervention whose result depends on context. Genesis 21:1 says the LORD attends to Sarah as promised, Genesis 50:24-25 anticipates God's visitation of Israel, Exodus 3:16 announces that God has attended to the people and their treatment in Egypt, and Ruth 1:6 says the LORD visits his people by giving food.
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 (paqad) describes purposeful attention or intervention whose result depends on context. Genesis 21:1 says the Lord attends to Sarah as promised, Genesis 50:24-25 anticipates God's visitation of Israel, Exodus 3:16 announces that God has attended to the people and their treatment in Egypt, and Ruth 1:6 says the Lord visits his people by giving food. These are gracious acts of remembered promise and care, not mere observation.
Administrative uses are equally important. Genesis 39:4 appoints Joseph over a household, Genesis 41:34 calls for appointed officials, Numbers 1 repeatedly uses the verb in mustering Israel, Numbers 3:10 concerns priestly appointment, and Second Kings 22:5 entrusts money to overseers of temple work. The common thread is accountable attention, assignment, or reckoning; H6485 is not inherently a supernatural event.
The same focused attention can bring judgment. Exodus 20:5 and 32:34, First Samuel 15:2, Jeremiah 5:9, Amos 3:2, and Zechariah 10:3 use visitation or attending-to language for holding wrongdoing accountable. Translation as punish is contextual, not the verb's only meaning. Because paqad spans care and judgment, claims about a present disaster being divine punishment require direct revelation and cannot be inferred from hardship alone.
Paqad is a verb of active attention. God or humans may attend, visit, appoint, oversee, count, muster, remember for action, or call to account. The resulting benefit or judgment comes from the relationship and context.
The Lord attends to Sarah and acts according to the promise of a son.
Joseph trusts that God will visit Israel and bring the people from Egypt to the promised land.
Moses is to announce that God has attended to Israel and seen what is being done in Egypt.
Moses and Aaron are to muster military-age Israel by divisions.
Moses asks the Lord to appoint a leader over the congregation.
Naomi hears that the Lord has visited his people by giving them food.
God recalls Amalek's violence and announces an act of judgment.
The psalm marvels that God attends to mortal humanity within the grandeur of creation.
Shepherds who scattered the flock are told that God will attend to their evil deeds.
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.
Paqad teaches that biblical visitation is active attention, not simply arrival. God attends to Sarah in faithfulness, to enslaved Israel in deliverance, to a hungry people with provision, and to corrupt leaders in judgment. Numbers and Kings show the word's ordinary administrative side: people are counted, appointed, and entrusted with oversight. This range helps congregations connect care with concrete action and leadership with accountability.
It also blocks sensational claims. A disaster, illness, or loss cannot be labeled divine punishment merely because Scripture sometimes uses visitation language for judgment. Pastoral application should ask what the specific text says God or a human agent attends to, what action follows, and who bears responsibility. Faithful visitation may mean presence, provision, appointment, inspection, correction, or protection.
Exod.3.16
H6485's semantic center is attentive intervention. Visit, attend, appoint, oversee, number, muster, and punish describe different outcomes and constructions rather than one uniform action.
New Testament texts speak of divine visitation, shepherd oversight, appointments, judgment, and God's attention to his people. Those themes continue the range while requiring direct study of their own vocabulary and historical claims.