ma.cha.neh denotes an encampment, especially the gathered position of an army, and also the ordered community enclosure of Israel.

The term most often marks the encampment of a force in conflict, identified with groups such as the Philistines, Israelites, or Assyrians and entered, attacked, or abandoned. It also denotes Israel's organized communal enclosure, with movement into and out of it and activity regulated at its boundary.

1. Military encampment or deployed force · dominant

   Construct singular forms identify the Philistine position in 1 Samuel 13:17 and 1 Chronicles 11:18, where a raiding party comes out from it and three men break through it. Absolute singular forms likewise mark a force's occupied site: in 2 Kings 7:7 the APB renders the abandoned tents, horses, and donkeys as left in “the camp just as it was,” while 2 Kings 19:35 places the Assyrians there when they are struck down.

   1 Samuel 13:171 Chronicles 11:181 Samuel 14:151 Samuel 28:52 Kings 7:72 Kings 19:35
2. Israel's communal encampment · common

   Absolute singular forms describe a bounded collective setting in Deuteronomy 23:10 and Deuteronomy 23:11: a man must go outside it and later return into its midst. In Exodus 19:17 Moses brings the people out from it to meet God, and 1 Samuel 4:5 depicts the ark arriving there as all Israel shouts.

   Deuteronomy 23:10Deuteronomy 23:11Deuteronomy 23:12Exodus 19:171 Samuel 4:51 Chronicles 9:19

In the Anselm Project Bible: Across these verses the APB commonly presents the setting as “camp” or “camps,” including a force's camp and the place from which people go out or into which they return. It also uses “people who were camping” in 1 Kings 16:16; these are verse-level renderings rather than definitions.