Pekod

Pekod surfaces twice in prophetic oracles, both times as part of the eastern world ranged against or judged by Yahweh. In Jeremiah it is paired with Merathaim as a target of the sword sent against Babylon; in Ezekiel it is named in a longer roll of peoples drawn up to come against Oholibah. The two passages place Pekod in the Babylonian-Chaldean orbit.

Target in the Oracle Against Babylon

Jeremiah's long oracle against Babylon turns at one point on a paired summons: "Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod: slay and completely destroy after them, says Yahweh, and do according to all that I have commanded you" (Jeremiah 50:21). Pekod stands beside Merathaim as the named region the attacker is sent against. The command is total — slay and completely destroy — and the agent is acting on Yahweh's orders.

Listed Among the Eastern Forces

Ezekiel uses the name in a different direction. The prophet rehearses the peoples whom Yahweh will bring against the unfaithful Oholibah, and Pekod is among them: "the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, [and] all the Assyrians with them; desirable young men, governors and rulers all of them, princes and men of renown, all of them riding on horses" (Ezekiel 23:23). The list is layered — Babylonians, Chaldeans, Pekod-Shoa-Koa as a triad, Assyrians — and Pekod sits in the middle of it, named in the same breath as the great Mesopotamian powers. Across the two passages the name sits in the eastern world bound up with Babylon — once as a region marked for slaughter alongside Merathaim, once as part of the assembled host Yahweh will bring against Jerusalem.