Pekod
Pe'kod (Heb.Pekod', פּקוֹד, visitation),a symbolical appellative applied to the Chaldaeans in Jer 1; Jer 21, and to the Chaldaeans in Eze 23:23, in the latter of which passages it is connected with Shoa and Koa, as if these three were in some way subdivisions of "the Babylonians and all the Chaldaeans." Authorities are undecided as to the meaning of the term. It is regularly formed from the root pcakd, "to visit," and in its secondary senses means "to punish," and "to appoint a ruler:" hence Pekod may be applied to Babylon in Jeremiah 1 as significant of its impending punishment, as in the margin of the A.V. "visitation." But this sense will not suit the other passage, and hence Gesenius here assigns to it the meaning of "prefect" (Thesaur. p. 1121), as if it were but another form of pakid. It certainly is unlikely that the same word would be applied to the same object in two totally different senses. Hitzig seeks for the origin of the word in the Sanscrit bhavan, "noble" — Shoa and Koa being respectively "prince" and "lord;" and he explains its use in Jeremiah 1 as a part for the whole. The Sept. treats it as the name of a district (Φακούκ; Alex. Φούδ) in Ezekiel, and as a verb (ἐκδίκησον) in Jeremiah. Fiirst, however, remarks (Heb. Lex. s.v.) that the name is selected in Jeremiah by assonance with פָּקִד, to punish (1, 18), and , פּקֻדָּה (1, 27, 31), while the association in Ezekiel shows it must have been a people. Hence he suggests the Poetyrians of Herodotus (3:93; 7:67), and the city of Pekod in the Talmud (Jerus. Nedarim, 10), both in Babylonia. SEE KOA.
