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. 24:7), “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. 4:7), 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. 24:5-9).
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. 25:9,10; Matt. 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.”
Moreover, just as Christ is here seen “instantly,” representing and sustaining each of the twelve tribes, in spite of their utter failure, so He represents and sustains His believing people now. They are “accepted in the Beloved,” and presented and sustained before God, a delight to Him; as seen in all the fragrance of the pure frankincense of His name, and work, and Person (Lev. 23:15-21; Jas. 1:18). All the preciousness that belongs to Him in God’s sight is the measure of our acceptance in God’s well-pleasing (John 17:23). How wonderful, when for a moment we look at ourselves!
Memory Verse “FOR I AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST: FOR IT IS THE POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION TO EVERY ONE THAT BELIEVETH.” Rom. 1:16.
The meek will He guide in judgment,
The meek will He teach His way.
He promised to guide forever,
And He will provide today.
ML-05/24/1970