ma'arekhet

The lexica are agreed and brief. BDB gives "row, pile" and HALOT "row, layer," both restricting the noun to the loaves of the bread of the Presence; DCH lists the same range under the ערך root. The noun is a nominal formation from ערך "to arrange, lay in order," the verb Leviticus 24:8 itself uses of the weekly setting of the loaves, and it stands beside two other nominals of the root, maʿarakhah (chiefly of troops in battle array, with Exod 39:37 and Judg 6:26 as the non-military exceptions) and maʿarakh (Prov 16:1, of the mind's arrangements). Distribution is the notable feature: two occurrences in the Holiness legislation of Leviticus 24, then seven in Chronicles, Nehemiah, and nowhere else, where lechem hammaʿarekhet has become the Chronicler's standard designation for what the earlier Priestly material calls lechem happanim (Exod 25:30; 1 Sam 21:7). Japhet treats the phrase as characteristic Chronistic temple vocabulary. Milgrom, discussing Leviticus 24:5-9, weighs whether the twelve loaves lay flat in two rows of six or were stacked in two piles, a question later rabbinic description of the table and its supporting rods answers in favour of stacks; the lexical glosses "row" and "pile" preserve both options, and the ambiguity concerns the physical referent rather than the sense of the noun. Haran situates the installation within the sanctuary's permanent furnishings, noting its character as a perpetual, non-consumed offering eaten by the priests. The Greek tradition renders the phrase with prothesis, "a setting forth," which is the form the designation takes in the New Testament.