Bible Talks: The Table of Showbread

From: Messages of God's Love: 1970

• 3 min. read • grade level: 9

Exodus 25:23-30²³Thou shalt also make a table of shittim wood: two cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. ²⁴And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, and make thereto a crown of gold round about. ²⁵And thou shalt make unto it a border of an hand breadth round about, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about. ²⁶And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof. ²⁷Over against the border shall the rings be for places of the staves to bear the table. ²⁸And thou shalt make the staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be borne with them. ²⁹And thou shalt make the dishes thereof, and spoons thereof, and covers thereof, and bowls thereof, to cover withal: of pure gold shalt thou make them. ³⁰And thou shalt set upon the table showbread before me alway. (Exodus 25:23‑30)

LIKE THE ARK the golden table was made of shittim wood, covered with pure gold, with a crown of gold round about. There was also on it a border of a handbreadth, with a golden crown to the border. Upon this table were placed the twelve loaves in two rows, called the showbread, a loaf for every tribe of Israel; and on each row was the pure frankincense (Lev. 24:7⁷And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the Lord. (Leviticus 24:7)), “for a memorial, an offering made by fire unto the Lord.”

This table was made of the same material as the ark; and so it brings before us Christ as the One who ever bears His people up before God.

These loaves were called “the continual bread” (Num. 4:7⁷And upon the table of showbread they shall spread a cloth of blue, and put thereon the dishes, and the spoons, and the bowls, and covers to cover withal: and the continual bread shall be thereon: (Numbers 4:7)), and it was always before the Lord. It was made of fine flour, “taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant,” and was replaced with fresh loaves every sabbath. That which was taken away was for Aaron and his sons, to eat in the holy place (Lev. 24:5-9⁵And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth deals shall be in one cake. ⁶And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the Lord. ⁷And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the Lord. ⁸Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. ⁹And it shall be Aaron's and his sons'; and they shall eat it in the holy place: for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the Lord made by fire by a perpetual statute. (Leviticus 24:5‑9)).

The twelve tribes of Israel then were ever before God, but in connection with Christ, for He is the object of God’s counsels. It was of Israel that He came and He deigned to have a memorial of them on this table before God.

The frankincense put upon the loaves typifies the sweet fragrance of Christ to God. Thus Israel is maintained before God, covered with all the fragrance of Christ, and this through all their night of unbelief by virtue of what He is in Himself, and of the work He has done. So we have here the promise of their restoration and blessing in the coming day.

Perhaps the Apostle was thinking of “the continual bread” when He said, “our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night,” (Acts 26: 7), although at the moment he spoke, ten of the tribes had been lost among the nations for centuries, and the remnants of the other two had crucified Christ. But though “buried among the nations,” God does not forget them. “Can a woman forget her sucking child? Yea, they may forget; yet will I not forget thee.” How can He when sustained by the great antitype of the golden table, and compassed about by the sovereign power of His eternal throne, just as those twelve loaves were surrounded by the “border of a handbreadth,” with its crown of pure, imperishable gold. We know that that sovereign power will yet gather His elect from the four winds of heaven, with the great sound of a trumpet in the day of Israel’s jubilee (Lev. 25:9,10⁹Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. ¹⁰And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. (Leviticus 25:9‑10); Matt. 24:31³¹And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:31)), and present them in Himself a worthy and acceptable portion from the great harvest, which in His own time the God of the whole earth shall reap.

These are precious truths, dear reader, and although you may not yet be able to fully enter into them, we trust you will not be content until you can do so, because they show forth in a wonderful way “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”