פִּקּוּד (piqqûd) is a Hebrew noun for a precept or appointed instruction. The selected psalms speak of the Lord's precepts, so their authority is located in the God who gives them rather than in the personal preferences of a teacher.
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Full entry for פִּקּוּד (H6490) · Open the biblical lexicon
פִּקּוּד (piqqûd) is a Hebrew noun for a precept or appointed instruction. The selected psalms speak of the LORD's precepts, so their authority is located in the God who gives them rather than in the personal preferences of a teacher.
The BSB source-word alignment has 24 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Your precepts (15), from Your precepts (2), His precepts (2), on Your precepts (2), for Your precepts (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Psalms 19:8. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (24).
פִּקּוּד (piqqûd) is a Hebrew noun for a precept or appointed instruction. The selected psalms speak of the Lord's precepts, so their authority is located in the God who gives them rather than in the personal preferences of a teacher. Psalm 19:8 describes them as right and as bringing joy to the heart. Psalm 119:4 calls for diligent keeping, while verse 27 asks God to make their way clear. Delight, obedience and the need to be taught belong together in these passages.
The noun is one of several instruction terms in the psalms, and its presence does not create a separate category detached from law, commandments or testimonies. Psalm 119:104 connects understanding gained from the precepts with hatred of false ways. Teaching can therefore hold the goodness of divine instruction alongside the learner's dependence and moral discernment, without treating possession of a religious rule list as salvation or giving a leader's demands the Lord's authority.
These selected uses present the Lord's precepts as right, requiring diligent keeping, needing explanation, and forming discernment against false ways. Their poetic neighbors enrich the argument without establishing rigid dictionary compartments among instruction terms.
The precepts of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart; the commandments of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
The precepts' rightness and the joy they bring belong within praise of the Lord's instruction. The surrounding prayer for cleansing prevents joy from being reduced to complacency about one's own obedience.
You have ordained Your precepts, that we should keep them diligently.
The speaker acknowledges that the precepts are ordained for diligent keeping. The following wish for steadfast ways shows a learner responding to the obligation rather than claiming effortless achievement.
Make clear to me the way of Your precepts; then I will meditate on Your wonders.
The request for understanding of the precepts' way appears within a stanza asking for revival and strength. Learning is prayerful dependence amid weakness, not merely collecting technical information.
I gain understanding from Your precepts; therefore I hate every false way.
Understanding from the precepts leads the speaker to reject false ways. The preceding delight in God's words ties discernment to received instruction rather than to confidence in personal superiority.
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. properly, appointed , i.e. a mandate (of God; plural only, collectively, for the Law)
properly, appointed, i.e. a mandate (of God; plural only, collectively, for the Law) BDB: precept Usage: commandment, precept, statute.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
פִּקּוּד is built from this root:
Psalm 119 does not present the Lord's appointed instruction as an object that can be admired while the learner remains untouched. Verse 4 calls for diligent keeping, verse 27 asks for the way to be made clear, and verse 104 connects understanding with rejection of false ways. These movements require both teachability and action. The psalmist's prayers for revival and strength also resist the assumption that knowledge of the right rule proves spiritual self-sufficiency.
Psalm 19 places the precepts' rightness and joy within a wider praise of God's trustworthy instruction that ends in a request for cleansing and acceptable speech. Teaching this word should therefore be glad without trivializing sin and demanding without presenting obedience as the purchase of grace. The New Testament's description of Scripture training believers for good works can be brought alongside its explicit account of salvation through faith in Christ. That canonical relationship comes from the larger passages, not from an extra meaning concealed inside the Hebrew noun.
Ps.119.4
This noun belongs to the psalms' vocabulary for the Lord's instruction. Precepts appear alongside commands, statutes and testimonies, with the surrounding poem emphasizing rightness, trustworthiness and obedient response rather than defining a rigid technical system of synonyms.
The psalms commend receiving the Lord's instruction with delight, understanding and diligent response. Second Timothy 3:15-17 sets Scripture's training within a passage that explicitly locates salvation in faith in Christ Jesus. This supports Christian obedience as a taught response to God's word, while preventing a rule list from becoming a replacement for Christ or treating a Greek instruction term as another direct H6490 occurrence.