The Shewbread

by G. Prasher. | Category: The Tabernacle | Sept 1959

"And thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before Me alway."

(Exodus 25.80)

Such was the command of the Lord when He had given instructions for making the table. Twelve cakes were made from fine flour, each of two tenth parts of an ephah, and they were set upon the pure table before the LORD every sabbath day, in two rows, six on a row. See Leviticus 24.5-9.

They were a memorial of God's people in covenant relationship with Himself, and they also were provision for the priests. We will first consider the materials, and then deal with the purposes of the loaves.

THE FINE FLOUR

The fine flour is a delightful shadow of Christ in His softness in the hand of God, and His yieldingness to the Holy Spirit's influence. When the hand is put into fine flour how easily the impressions from the skin are left in the soft, impressionable substance ! Thus God's perfect Servant was susceptible to the hand of God, and the Spirit found in Him One who never resisted Him, who never quenched or grieved the gentle, heavenly Dove. How different, alas, it is so often with us! How prone we are to resist the kindly, gracious influence of the Person of God's Holy Spirit! Of Israel Stephen said, "Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye" (Acts 7.51); and though He will never depart from the believer, yet how solemn to think of our possibly carrying about with us, within these bodies which are His temple, a gracious Friend who is quenched and grieved by reason of our hardness of heart!

Which of us has not marvelled at the evenness of the Lord's character, and the perfect balance He ever maintained toward His God, and in respect to human relations? We have gazed wonderingly at His munificence as He fed the five thousand men, beside women and children, and the frugality which directed the gathering up of the broken pieces that remained over. His rising from sleep, in which His humanity was so manifest, to still the tempest which tossed Gennesaret's waters,-which obeyed His omnipotent voice and sank to rest and peace has surely filled our souls with awe and adoration. The tender compassion that attracted Him to the weeping widow of Nain, whose only son was being carried to the grave, operated in perfect harmony with the mighty power which clothed the words, "Young man, I say unto thee, Arise."

"What grace, 0 Lord, and beauty shone Around Thy steps below!"

The meal offering, which speaks so preciously of the Lord's life on earth, had for its basic ingredient fine flour, and there is much in common between the loaves of shewbread and the meal offering on this account. They both set forth the humble, patient life which marked the Man of Sorrows-sorrows and sufferings beyond our feeble comprehension

""'or ever on Thy burdened heart

A weight of sorrow hung:

Yet no ungentle, murmuring word

Escaped Thy silent tongue.

In His doing well that whereunto every child of God is called, the Lord Jesus was faced with determined opposition and persecution. The powers of darkness found most willing tools in men of almost every shade of human thought and He who loved righteousness and hated iniquity was the target of their evil aim. "It became Him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory to make the Author (Captain) of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Hebrews 2.10). He, "Though He was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been made perfect, He became unto all them that obey Him the Author of eternal salvation" (Hebrews 5.8, 9).

He who was altogether righteous could not pass through this unrighteous world without encountering the enemy ; and in the measure that we are like Him to that extent we too will require to bear the brunt of ungodly opposition. With Him there was no angling to secure the favour of the influential; there was no watering down of truth to make it more palatable to the perverted tastes around Him. In this we should note He has left us an example that we should follow His steps. "All that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."

Besides all this the perfect Man with sympathies so complete, perfect, could not look upon the sufferings of others and fail to suffer with them, as witness His groans and tears near the grave of Lazarus, which caused the Jews to say "Behold how He loved him!" He did not weep to be in the fashion that day; rather it was His perfect being, so harrowed by the ravages of sin which brought such sorrow and grief, giving expression to the pangs that were within.

THE MILLING PROCESS

We ask, "How is the fine flour produced?" and our thoughts turn to the milling process. The grains of corn are passed between the upper and nether stones of the mill where they are bruised and crushed. To obtain the fine flour this milling process is essential. It clearly speaks of sufferings. Often we use the phrase as a figure of speech, he has passed through the mill. Speaking reverently, no one has gone through the mill as did the blessed Lord Jesus. How severely He was crushed! There was the upper stone, the trials from the hand of God; and the lower stone, the powers of darkness, with man so often an agent of those powers. But what was the result 6f these daily trials" They merely manifested the fine flour. It gave expression to that gentleness, lowliness, harmlessness, and faithfulness which ever characterized the God-Man here below. To change the metaphor, He was the Plant which the more It was crushed the more Its fragrance was emitted.

Thy foes might hate, despise, revile,

Thy friends unfaithful prove;

Unwearied in forgiveness still

Thy heart could only love."

PIERCED CAKES

The Hebrew for cakes is challah, from chahial, to puncture, bore, pierce or wound. In the making of the cakes there was the suffering indicated by the baking, whether on a flat plate, or baken in the oven; but here is something additional. Each cake or loaf bore the marks of wounding, and thus in the shadow we see the truth set forth by the prophet Isaiah, "His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men" (52.14). Of Joseph, the Spirit of God says," His soul entered into the iron" (Psalm 105.18, R.V.M.); here, shall we not say, the iron enters into His soul. The boring or drilling process suggests long, drawn-out agony, and is so different from the high explosive effect which can, without time for sufferings, involve death.

PURE FRANKINCENSE

Upon each row of bread was put the pure frankincense. This reminds us of the fragrance which ever ascended to God from His perfect Servant. We, too, should enjoy His fragrance, and should experience more of the meaning of the words,

My Beloved is unto me as a bundle (bag) of myrrh,

That lieth betwixt my breasts.

My Beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna-flowers

In the vineyards of Engedi" (Song of Songs 1.13, 14).

Where Christ is, the place is aromatized, and God His Father never fails to appreciate to the full the sweet fragrance of His name, His Person and His work.

The root thought in the word translated frankincense is the quality of whiteness, and we judge this is another connecting link with that righteousness which stands out so prominently in the teaching of the loaves of shewbread: but of this more later.

THE SONS OF KORAH

"Some of the sons of the priests prepared the confection of the spices. And Mattithiah ... the Korahite, had the set office over the things

baked in pans. And some of their brethren, of the sons of the Kohathites, were over the shewbread, to prepare it every sabbath" (1 Chronicles 9.80-32). Among the honours that fell to the sons of Kohath was that of preparing the bread. When we recall how that these sons of Korah were snatched form the jaws of hell (Numbers 16), how precious it is to consider them in this holy employ within the house of God! We, too, have been similarly snatched from doom, and, if within His house today, may also find occupation in preparing the bread of our God. This will be something on which we shall feed, and which, having become life and strength to us, we shall be found presenting before God from overflowing hearts (compare Leviticus 3.11; 21.17, 22). This is that which goes up from the altar, which altar is Christ; and may it ever be that when we appear in holy array to give unto God we may be found with something that we have prepared!

BREAD OF THE FACES

The term shewbread does not convey much to the English reader, and we may wonder what is the signification of the word. The literal rendering of the Hebrew is bread of the faces. Let us think of the twelve loaves set out before the LORD with their fragrant covering of frankincense, and recall that there were twelve tribes of Israel. We consider that the loaves thus upon the table represent God's redeemed people. There Israel were seen in all the blessed perfection of Christ Himself. Surely it was upon this pure gold-covered table that the LORD was gazing when He exclaimed through Balaam,

"He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob,

Neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel" (Numbers 23.21).

Had He looked within the tents of the people iniquity and perverseness would have been easily traced. Alas ! as in our own case, failure was too often in evidence but, blessed be God, there is a place where He sees His people in the' perfection of His Son-that is in Christ.

Reach my blest Saviour first,

Take Him from God's esteem,

Prove Jesus bears one stain of sin,

Then tell me I'm unclean."

The golden crown which was round about the table is again of interest here, as the word zer, translated crown, is thought to come from the word zahrar, to bind Bound within the enclosure of those crowns were the twelve pierced cakes, and bound up in the bundle of life are all the children of God.

We are thus reminded of the truth of eternal life, which the LORD gives to all who believe on Him. "This life is in His Son" (1 John 5. 11).

FELLOWSHIP

We now come to a very important aspect of the truth contained in the shewbread of the pure table namely that of fellowship. When the bread had been before God' all wee , and He had beheld the faces of His people before Him in perfection, these loaves were removed from the table and fresh loaves put there in their place. This bread became the food of the priests, the sons of Aaron. First of all the frankincense had to be given to God. It was all for Him, and the statute demanded that God have His portion first. Then when God had received His portion in the sweet smelling incense, what remained, the bread, was eaten by the priests. God and His servants were thus feeding together. This was fellowship.

CLEANNESS ESSENTIAL TO FELLOWSHIP

"It shall be for Aaron and his sons; and they shall eat it in a holy place: for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the LORD made by fire by a perpetual statute" (Leviticus 24.9). "Whosoever he be of all your seed throughout your generations, that approacheth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto the LORD, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from before Me: I am the LORD" (Leviticus 22.3). These verses show that to have fellowship with God the person must be clean as to himself, and also be in a clean place. This finds its counterpart in the New Testament in the words, "If we say that we have fellowship with Him (God), and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1.6, 7), The sons of Aaron feeding upon the shewbread speak to us of priestly ones feeding on Christ. Possibly there is nothing that hinders more our feeding on Christ than our lack of keeping ourselves clean. Unconfessed sin will cause defilement, and make fellowship with God impossible. But encouraging are the words, " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1.9). He is faithful and will keep His promise; He is righteous because the work of Christ enables Him to act in perfect righteousness.

Spiritual growth is always dependent upon prayer and feeding on the word, wherein we find Christ. John says, "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." Like Aaron's sons, the priests, may we walk in the light. As they ministered in the sanctuary they did so in the light of the lamps, which were fed by the pure olive oil, which speaks of the light of the Holy Spirit.

G. Prasher. | Sept 1959
The Tabernacle