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 Leviticus — 26 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.
Leviticus
- Leviticus 3:17 חֻקַּ֤ת n c bs cs "'It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings, that you shall eat neither fat nor blood.'"
- Leviticus 7:36 חֻקַּ֥ת n c bs cs which Yahweh commanded to be given them of the children of Israel, in the day that he anointed them. It is their portion forever throughout their generations.
- Leviticus 10:9 חֻקַּ֥ת n c bs cs "Drink no wine nor strong drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the Tent of Meeting, that you don't die: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations:
- Leviticus 16:29 לְ/חֻקַּ֣ת prep + n c bs cs "It shall be a statute to you forever: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and shall do no manner of work, the native-born, or the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you:
- Leviticus 16:31 חֻקַּ֖ת n c bs cs It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict your souls; it is a statute forever.
- Leviticus 16:34 לְ/חֻקַּ֣ת prep + n c bs cs "This shall be an everlasting statute for you, to make atonement for the children of Israel once in the year because of all their sins." It was done as Yahweh commanded Moses.
- Leviticus 17:7 חֻקַּ֥ת n c bs cs They shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat idols, after which they play the prostitute. This shall be a statute forever to them throughout their generations.'
- Leviticus 18:3 וּ/בְ/חֻקֹּתֵי/הֶ֖ם conj + prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 3mp You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived: and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you; neither shall you walk in their statutes.
- Leviticus 18:4 חֻקֹּתַ֥/י n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs You shall do my ordinances, and you shall keep my statutes, and walk in them: I am Yahweh your God.
- Leviticus 18:5 חֻקֹּתַ/י֙ n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances; which if a man does, he shall live in them: I am Yahweh.
- Leviticus 18:26 חֻקֹּתַ/י֙ n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs You therefore shall keep my statutes and my ordinances, and shall not do any of these abominations; neither the native-born, nor the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you;
- Leviticus 18:30 מֵ/חֻקּ֤וֹת prep + n c bp cs Therefore you shall keep my charge, that you do not practice any of these abominable customs, which were practiced before you, and that you do not defile yourselves with them: I am Yahweh your God.'"
- Leviticus 19:19 חֻקֹּתַ/י֮ n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs "'You shall keep my statutes. "'You shall not crossbreed different kinds of animals. "'you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; "'neither shall there come upon on you a garment made of two kinds of material.
- Leviticus 19:37 חֻקֹּתַ/י֙ n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs You shall observe all my statutes, and all my ordinances, and do them. I am Yahweh.'"
- Leviticus 20:8 חֻקֹּתַ֔/י n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs You shall keep my statutes, and do them. I am Yahweh who sanctifies you.
- Leviticus 20:22 חֻקֹּתַ/י֙ n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs "'You shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my ordinances, and do them; that the land, where I am bringing you to dwell, may not vomit you out.
- Leviticus 20:23 בְּ/חֻקֹּ֣ת prep + n c bp cs You shall not walk in the customs of the nation, which I am casting out before you: for they did all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.
- Leviticus 23:14 חֻקַּ֤ת n c bs cs You shall eat neither bread, nor roasted grain, nor fresh grain, until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God. This is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
- Leviticus 23:21 חֻקַּ֥ת n c bs cs You shall make proclamation on the same day: there shall be a holy convocation to you; you shall do no regular work. This is a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
- Leviticus 23:31 חֻקַּ֤ת n c bs cs You shall do no manner of work: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
- Leviticus 23:41 חֻקַּ֤ת n c bs cs You shall keep it a feast to Yahweh seven days in the year: it is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall keep it in the seventh month.
- Leviticus 24:3 חֻקַּ֥ת n c bs cs Outside of the veil of the Testimony, in the Tent of Meeting, shall Aaron keep it in order from evening to morning before Yahweh continually: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.
- Leviticus 25:18 חֻקֹּתַ֔/י n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs "'Therefore you shall do my statutes, and keep my ordinances and do them; and you shall dwell in the land in safety.
- Leviticus 26:3 בְּ/חֻקֹּתַ֖/י prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs "'If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;
- Leviticus 26:15 בְּ/חֻקֹּתַ֣/י prep + n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant;
- Leviticus 26:43 חֻקֹּתַ֖/י n c bp cs + sfx pers 1cs The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them: and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.
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.
