Meaning of the Hebrew root 'pqd'

The Hebrew root ‘pqd’ is grossly misuderstood and mistranslated. The problem with this word is that it is found in the Bible in various contexts prompting the translator to come up with a different meaning in many instances depending on the context. What they don’t realize is that even though CBH (classical Biblical Hebrew) is a relatively poor language with a small vocabulary and the speaker or writer of Hebrew can therefore express himself with a word that can be applied in several ways, yet such words can have one and only one primary meaning.

The secondary meanings of pqd used for translation purposes are: miss, remember, reserve, count.

The primary meaning of pqd as a noun is an item that is temporarily cared for by a person who does not own it. The item is thus a "temporary burden" upon the niphqad (trustee).

The best example of the pqd root used in this way in JE is Gen 41:36 RSV: the food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine... (wehayah ha’akel lepiqqadon le’arets). But the RSV is not even consistent with its translation of this root two verses earlier: let Pharaoh proceed to appoint overseers over the land... (weyepaqqed piqqedim ‘al ha`arets). In one verse it means overseers and in the next verse it means reserve food? Unlikely!

Rather, Piqqadon here is borrowed from the primary meaning of the word as used in Lev 5:21. Piqqadon is an object that is entrusted to a friend to watch over it and guard it temporarily so that it will be available at a later time to the owner. The piqqadon is thus an object of burden to the trustee. Likewise, the food shall be "carried by the land" or "entrusted to the land" during the seven fat years so that it is available later during the seven lean years. weyepaqqed piqqedim ‘al ha`arets means: Paraoh shall place the food as a temporary burden over the land.
Likewise, whenever the root pqd is used as a verb referring to an army, it means to provide battle equipment to troops, which they are responsible to guard and care for temporarily. When the battle is over they must return the equipment.

י וַיַּשְׁכֵּם יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בַּבֹּק%