חֻקָּה
statute
also: ordinance, limit, enactment, something prescribed fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Both
- Attested as both masculine and feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H2708 appears in the Book of Ezekiel — 20 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Ezekiel
- Ezekiel 5:6 חֻקּוֹתַ֔/י וְ/חֻקּוֹתַ֖/י n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs conj + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are round about her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.
- Ezekiel 5:7 בְּ/חֻקּוֹתַ/י֙ prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you are turbulent more than the nations that are round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my ordinances, neither have done after the ordinances of the nations that are round about you;
- Ezekiel 11:20 בְּ/חֻקֹּתַ֣/י prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs that they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
- Ezekiel 18:9 בְּ/חֻקּוֹתַ֧/י prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs has walked in my statutes, and has kept my ordinances, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, says the Lord Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 18:17 בְּ/חֻקּוֹתַ֖/י prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs who has withdrawn his hand from the poor, who has not received interest nor increase, has executed my ordinances, has walked in my statutes; he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live.
- Ezekiel 18:19 חֻקּוֹתַ֥/י n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs Yet say you, Why does not the son bear the iniquity of the father? when the son has done that which is lawful and right, and has kept all my statutes, and has done them, he shall surely live.
- Ezekiel 18:21 חֻקּוֹתַ֔/י n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs But if the wicked turn from all his sins that he has committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
- Ezekiel 20:11 חֻקּוֹתַ֔/י n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs I gave them my statutes, and shown them my ordinances, which if a man do, he shall live in them.
- Ezekiel 20:13 בְּ/חֻקּוֹתַ֨/י prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they didn't walk in my statutes, and they rejected my ordinances, which if a man keep, he shall live in them; and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them in the wilderness, to consume them.
- Ezekiel 20:16 חֻקּוֹתַ/י֙ n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs because they rejected my ordinances, and didn't walk in my statutes, and profaned my Sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols.
- Ezekiel 20:19 בְּ/חֻקּוֹתַ֖/י prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs I am Yahweh your God: walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them;
- Ezekiel 20:21 בְּ/חֻקּוֹתַ֣/י prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs But the children rebelled against me; they didn't walk in my statutes, neither kept my ordinances to do them, which if a man do, he shall live in them; they profaned my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.
- Ezekiel 20:24 וְ/חֻקּוֹתַ֣/י conj + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs because they had not executed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes, and had profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols.
- Ezekiel 33:15 בְּ/חֻקּ֤וֹת prep + n c bp cs if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that which he had taken by robbery, walk in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die.
- Ezekiel 37:24 וְ/חֻקֹּתַ֥/י conj + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs My servant David shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my ordinances, and observe my statutes, and do them.
- Ezekiel 43:11 חֻקֹּתָי/ו֩ חֻקֹּתָ֖י/ו n c bp cs + sfx pers 3ms n c bp cs + sfx pers 3ms If they be ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the form of the house, and the fashion of it, and the exits of it, and the entrances of it, and all the forms of it, and all the ordinances of it, and all the forms of it, and all the laws of it; and write it in their sight; that they may keep the whole form of it, and all the ordinances of it, and do them.
- Ezekiel 43:18 חֻקּ֣וֹת n c bp cs He said to me, Son of man, thus says the Lord Yahweh: These are the ordinances of the altar in the day when they shall make it, to offer burnt offerings thereon, and to sprinkle blood thereon.
- Ezekiel 44:5 חֻקּ֥וֹת n c bp cs Yahweh said to me, Son of man, mark well, and see with your eyes, and hear with your ears all that I tell you concerning all the ordinances of the house of Yahweh, and all the laws of it; and mark well the entrance of the house, with every exit of the sanctuary.
- Ezekiel 44:24 חֻקֹּתַ/י֙ n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs In a controversy they shall stand to judge; according to my ordinances shall they judge it: and they shall keep my laws and my statutes in all my appointed feasts; and they shall make my Sabbaths holy.
- Ezekiel 46:14 חֻקּ֥וֹת n c bp cs You shall prepare a meal-offering with it morning by morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and the third part of a hin of oil, to moisten the fine flour; a meal-offering to Yahweh continually by a perpetual ordinance.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
At its core, חקה (chuqqâh) means “statute.” Scripture first uses it in Genesis 26:5. It appears 101 verses across 15 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. The word gravitates to Leviticus (26%), then Ezekiel and Numbers. Beyond its headline sense, its full sense range takes in “ordinance”, “limit”, and “enactment”. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2708 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 101
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 101 distinct verses.
- 15 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 15 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #408
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 408 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 101 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 101 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 54 verses · 53%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 41 verses · 41%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 6%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Statutes 48×, Shall be a statute 10×, Statute 8×
- American Standard Version†: Statutes 46×, Statute 7×, Shall be a statute 6×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Statutes 60×, Statute 26×, Customs 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Statutes 53×, Statute 15×, Statute of 7×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2708 across 104† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2708 across 104† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 23 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2708 across 104† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2708 across 109† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
7 senses and sub-senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 7 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
- 1. sg. statute, of special ritual laws: of passover Ex 13:10 (J); elsewhere only in P (and H), חקת הפסח Ex 12:43; Nu 9:12, 14; ח׳ התורה Nu 19:2; 31:21; ח׳ משׁפט Nu 27:11; 35:29; ח׳ עולם Ex 12:14, 17; 27:21; 28:43; 29;9; Lv 3:17; 10:9; 16:29, 31, 34; 23:21, 31; 24:3; Nu 10:8; 15:15; 18:23; 19:10, 21 (all P), Lv 17:7; 23:14, 41 (H); חֻקָּה אַחַת לַגֵּר ולאזרח Nu 9:14; 15:15. e.g. Exodus 13:10
- 2. pl. statutes:
- a. of nature ח׳ שׁמים Jb 38:33; Je 33:25; of moon and stars Je 31:35; of weeks of harvest Je 5:24. e.g. Job 38:33
- b. fig. of a firmly established custom ח׳ עמרי Mi 6:16; ח׳ הגוי(ם) Lv 20:23 (H); 2 K 17:8; ח׳ העמים Je 10:3; idolatry ח׳ ישׂראל 2 K 17:19; sexual offences Lv 18:30 (H). e.g. Micah 6:16
- c. ח׳ דוד statutes of David 1 K 3:3. e.g. 1 Kings 3:3
- d. ‖ משׁפטים 2 S 22:23 = ψ 18:23 (of the law known to David); ‖ מצות ψ 89:32; ברית וח׳ 1 K 11:11; elsewhere of the prescriptions of the codes of D, H, P, Ez: usually חקות ומשׁפטים Lv 18:5, 26; 19:37; 20:22 (H), 25:18; Nu 9:3 (P), 1 K 11:33 Ez 5:7; 11:20; 18:9; 20:11, 13, 19, 21; preceded by מצות Dt 30:16; followed by מצות Lv 26:15 (H), Dt 11:1; 1 K 6:12; תורה ומצוה 2 K 17:34; or else משׁפטים וחקות Lv 18:4; 26:43 (H), Ez 5:6(×2); 18:17; 20:16, 24; 37:24; preceded by מצות Dt 8:11; in diff. order, ח׳ מצות ומ׳ ועדות 1 K 2:3; frequently also ח׳ ומצות Lv 26:3 (H), Dt 6:2; 1 K 11:38; 2 Ch 7:19; or מצות (ו)ח׳ Dt 10:13; 28:15, 45; 30:10; 1 K 9:6; 11:34; Ez 43:11 (Co), 2 K 17:13; foll. by תורות Gn 26:5 (R); מצות ועדות וח׳ 2 K 23:3; תורה וח׳ Je 44:10; ותורה וח׳ ועדות 44:23; ח׳ ותורות Ez 44:5; 43:11 (Co); תורות יח׳ 44:24; special ordinances are ח׳ המזבח Ez 43:18; ח׳ בית י׳ Ez 44:5; ח׳ חיים Ez 33:15 (which are life to those who keep them); ח׳ עולם תמיד (𝔊 𝔖 𝔙 Talm Co del. עולם) Ez 46:14. e.g. 2 Samuel 22:23
- e. phrases of obedience are הלך ב׳ Lv 18:3; 20:23; 26:3 (H), 1 K 3:3; 6:12; 2 K 17:8, 19; Je 44:10, 23; Ez 5:6, 7; 11:20; 18:9, 17; 20:13, 16, 19, 21; 33:15; שׁמר Lv 18:4, 5, 26; 19:19, 37; 20:8, 22 (H), Gn 26:5 (R), Dt 6:2; 8:11; 10:13; 11:1; 28:45; 30:10, 16; 1 K 2:3; 9:6; 11:11, 34, 38; 2 K 17:13; 23:3; Ez 18:19, 21; 37:24; 43:11; 44:24; עשׂה Lv 25:18 (P), Dt 28:15; 1 K 11:33; עשׂה כח׳ 2 K 17:34; בח׳ אֶשְׁתַּעֲשָׁ֑ע ψ 119:16; phrases of disobedience are מאס ח׳ Ez 20:24 מאס בח׳ Lv 26:15 (H); געל Lv 26:43 (H); עזב 2 Ch 7:19; חלל ψ 89:32.—[חֹק and חֻקָּה differ somewhat in shade of meaning and frequency in various writings: e.g. חֹק oftener in Jb ψ Pr (חֻקָּה not at all Pr, once Jb), and in Chr (חֻקָּה only 2 Ch 7:19); חֻקָּה often in K, rarely in Hex. except in P (H); in proph., חֹק occurs Am 2:4; Is 5:14; 24:5; Mi 7:11; Je 3 times, Ez 6 times, חֻקָּה only Ez, Je (6 times) and Mi 6:16; חֻקִּים especially in Dt and ψ 119, חֻקּוֹת especially in H, Ez and sometimes (8 times) Dt; חֹק עוֹלָם usually = due, חֻקַּת ע׳ much more often statute, ordinance, etc.] e.g. Leviticus 18:3
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
n.f. Ex 13:10 something prescribed, enactment, statute;—ח׳ Nu 9:14 + 2 times; cstr. חֻקַּת Ex 12:14 + 28 times; pl. חֻקּוֹת Je 5:24 + 12 times; חֻקֹּת Lv 20:23; Je 31:35; sf. חֻקּוֹתַי Gn 26:5 + 14 times; חֻקֹּתַי Lv 18:4 + 21 times etc.;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from חק (chôq) (H2706) — statute.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
חֹק
- , v. חוֹק, חוּקָּה.
חָקָה
- , v. חקי
חקי
- , Pi. חִיקָּה (b. h.; denom. of חֹק)
- 1. to draw circles, to survey. Gen. R. s. 39, end (ref. to Gen. XII, 9) מְהַקֶּה והולך וכ׳ surveying as he went along, with the direction towards the Temple. e.g. Genesis 12:9
- 2. to imitate a person’s customs, to follow a person’s footsteps. Sifra K’dosh. beg. (ref. to Lev. XIX, 2) פמליא של מלך מה עליה להיות מְחַקָּה למלך Rab. (ed. פ׳ למלך ומה וכ׳) what is the duty of the King’s retinue?—To follow in the wake of the King; (Yalk. Lev. 604 מְחַכָּה). Ḥull. II, 9 שלא יְחַקֶּה וכ׳ that he may not appear to imitate the customs of the heretics. e.g. Leviticus 19:2
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 59 distinct written forms H2708 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 95 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 101 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
- Genesis 26:5
- Exodus 12:14
- Leviticus 3:17
- Numbers 9:3
- Deuteronomy 6:2
- 2 Samuel 22:23
- 1 Kings 2:3
- 2 Kings 17:8
- 1 Chronicles 29:19
- 2 Chronicles 7:19
- Job 38:33
- Jeremiah 5:24
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
