SHOWBREAD
(lit.: “bread of the presence”).
These were twelve loaves, placed in the Tabernacle in two rows of six on the golden table of the holy place, where they were constantly before the Lord.
They were renewed every Saturday. The priests ate, in the holy place, the bread taken from the table (Ex. 25:30; Lev. 24:5-9; 1 Sam. 21:6; Mt. 12:4).
In Hebrew, these twelve loaves were designated by the following expressions:
perpetual bread,
showbread (Num. 4:7);
continuous placement (2 Chr. 2:4).
Josephus states that these were unleavened bread (Ant. 3:6, 6).
Each loaf contained two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour, the amount used for the guests of honor and for the king’s table (Gen. 18:6; 1 Kings 4:22). This fine flour figured in various offerings (Lev. 2:1; 5:11, etc.).
The twelve loaves represented the twelve tribes of Israel (Lev. 24:7; cf. Ex. 28:10-12; 24:4; 28:21). This bread symbolized the uninterrupted communion of the people with Jehovah, the author of the goods that the Israelites enjoyed and that they used for his service.
They also represented Christ, the bread of life, sufficient for all his people.
The Kohathites were in charge of preparing these breads every Sabbath (1 Chr. 9:32).
The table, made of acacia wood covered with gold, had a gold molding all around it, and also four gold rings, one at each corner. Two bars passed through them for transportation.
This table measured two cubits in length, one in width, and one and a half in height (Ex. 25:23-29; for transportation, cf. Num. 4:7, 8). The table was in the holy place, on the north side, to the right of the entrance to the Tabernacle (Ex. 40:22).
Solomon’s Temple had ten tables for the shewbread. It appears that only one table was used at a time, just as only one lampstand was lit at a time (1 Chr. 28:16; 2 Chr. 4:8, 19; 13:11; Ant. 8:3, 7). This is why 1 Kings 7:48 and 2 Chron. 29:18 only mention a table.
Antiochus Epiphanes seized this table from Zerubbabel’s Temple, but Judas Maccabeus replaced it with a new table (1 Mac. 1:22; 4:49). Titus had her taken to Rome (Wars 7:5, 5); she was depicted as part of the spoils of war on Titus’s Arc de Triomphe.