What Does Leviticus 24:6 Mean?

And you shall set them in two rows, six to a row, upon the pure table before the LORD.

Leviticus 24:6 · SDV

Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.

Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the LORD.

THE KEY

The “rows” are more than a count: the bread is deliberately arrayed, so fullness appears as ordered provision before the LORD.

THE MEANING

You are shown fullness as ordered provision: twelve loaves occupy two equal rows on the pure table before the LORD. Each portion has a place within the whole.

THE ROOT

מַעֲרָכוֹת

maʿărākōt

GROWS FROM

עָרַךְ

ʿārakh

to arrange, set in order

The KJV’s “rows” translates a form of ⁨עָרַךְ⁩, meaning to arrange or set in order. The bread’s meaning is carried not only by how much is there, but by the formed pattern that places every portion before the LORD.

ALSO GROWS

maʿărākhāh: an array or arrangement

מַעֲרָכָה

This related form names the ordered pattern itself, echoing how the loaves are placed in rows.

ʿērekh: value or valuation

עֵרֶךְ

This branch connects arrangement with measured worth: each portion is counted and given a defined place in the whole.

THE PATTERN

Provision becomes visible as each portion is given a place within an ordered whole.

And you set upon the table the bread of the face before me always.

Exodus 25:30 · SDVThe bread is placed on the table before the LORD, making provision part of an ordered presence.

And they fell back in garden plots, by hundreds and by fifties.

Mark 6:40 · SDVThe crowd is arranged into groups before the loaves are shared, giving the provision a form everyone can receive.

Let all things become well shaped, and in rank.

1 Corinthians 14:40 · SDVThe same pattern appears in shared life: what is held in common takes its place within a fitting order.

THE THREAD

You lay out a table before my face, in full view of those who press me. You make my head rich with oil; my cup is soaked full.

Psalm 23:5 · SDV

“Preparest” comes from the same root, ⁨עָרַךְ⁩ (ʿārakh), meaning to arrange or set in order. The shared root joins Leviticus’s rows with the Psalm’s prepared table: provision arranged in the presence of the LORD.

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