food
le.chem denotes bread or food for eating and provision, including loaves and bread set apart for designated use.
The term most often names bread or food supplied, carried, eaten, withheld, or used to sustain people. It also occurs for loaves and for bread identified with a table, rows, offerings, or an observance, where the surrounding clause marks its designated setting.
Senses in use
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Bread or food for eating and provision · dominant
The singular form occurs in clauses of eating, supplying, and distributing provisions: in 1 Kings 13:19 the APB renders the man of God as having “ate food in his house,” while 1 Kings 17:6 describes bread and meat brought morning and evening. It can denote counted loaves in a gift or supply, as 1 Samuel 10:4 renders “two loaves of bread,” and can stand with water in sustaining hidden prophets in 1 Kings 18:4.
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Bread in designated sacred observance · occasional
Construct-form occurrences identify bread by its assigned setting. In Exodus 25:30 the APB renders food placed continually before God on the table; 1 Kings 7:48 and 2 Chronicles 4:19 likewise mention the table or tables with “the bread of the Presence.” In Deuteronomy 16:3, it occurs in the instruction to eat unleavened bread called “bread of affliction.”
In the Anselm Project Bible: Across these verses, the APB variously uses “bread,” “food,” “loaves,” and “meal,” especially in contexts of eating, gifts, and provision. In table and observance contexts it uses phrases such as “bread of the Presence” and “bread of affliction”.