Showbread

Biblical Text

The Korean term for showbread, jinseolbyeong (陳設餠), means "bread laid out in order." Exodus 25:23-30 commands that a table be made of shittim wood (acacia) and overlaid with gold. It then says, "And thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before me alway" (Exodus 25:30). This table stood on the north side of the Holy Place of the tabernacle, outside the veil (Exodus 40:22-23).

Leviticus 24:5-9 sets out how the showbread was to be made and handled:

• Twelve cakes are baked from fine flour, with two-tenths of an ephah used for each cake.
• The cakes are set on the table in two rows of six, and pure frankincense is placed on each row. The frankincense is offered to the LORD as a memorial, an offering made by fire.
• The bread is replaced with fresh loaves every Sabbath. The bread that is removed is eaten by Aaron and his sons in the holy place.

When the camp moved in the wilderness, the table was covered with a cloth of blue (Numbers 4:7). During the monarchy, a table of showbread also stood in the Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 7:48). First Chronicles 9:32 records that some of the Kohathites of the tribe of Levi prepared the showbread every Sabbath. In 1 Samuel 21:1-6, David, fleeing from Saul, received this "hallowed bread" from Ahimelech the priest at Nob and ate it.

Terminology and Background

In Hebrew the bread is usually called lechem ha-panim, literally "bread of the face," meaning bread set before the face of God, that is, in His presence. The expression "bread of arrangement" is also used. The Septuagint and the New Testament render it with a Greek phrase meaning "bread set forth."

Scripture does not state whether the bread contained leaven, although Jewish tradition holds that it was unleavened. Interpreters also differ on whether the "two rows" were lines laid side by side or two stacked piles.

Significance Across Scripture

The twelve loaves are commonly understood to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. Leviticus 24:8 calls the showbread "an everlasting covenant." This is understood to mean that all Israel stands continually before God and lives under His provision.

In the New Testament, Jesus cites David's eating of the showbread during a dispute over the Sabbath (Matthew 12:3-4; Mark 2:25-26; Luke 6:3-4). He connects this with the statement that God desires mercy rather than sacrifice (Matthew 12:7) and with the declaration that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27-28). Hebrews 9:2 lists the lampstand, the table, and the showbread among the furnishings of the Holy Place.

Interpretations and Issues

• A type of Christ: Christian interpretation often reads the showbread as a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the bread of life" (John 6:35). Some traditions, including the Catholic Church, also connect it with the Eucharist. Others, however, urge caution in assigning symbolic meaning to details the text itself does not explain.
• The Abiathar problem: Mark 2:26 says the event took place "in the days of Abiathar the high priest." The priest named in 1 Samuel 21, however, is Ahimelech, Abiathar's father. Two explanations are most common. One holds that Abiathar, as the better-known high priest of later years, was used to designate the period; the other reads the phrase as "in the passage about Abiathar." This verse is frequently discussed in debates over biblical inerrancy.
• Later traditions: The story that the bread remained warm, as if freshly baked, even after a week is a tradition preserved in rabbinic literature and does not appear in the biblical text.

In the Korean Church

The showbread is often presented alongside the lampstand and the altar of incense in Bible studies on the tabernacle and in exhibitions of tabernacle models. In preaching, it is commonly explained as a picture of Christ, the bread of life, and of a life of faith that feeds daily on the Word.