Exo 25:23-40 | KD | STEP | The Table of Shew-Bread (cf. ). - The table for the shew-bread ( ) was to be made of acacia-wood, two cubits long, one broad, and one and a half high, and to be plated with pure gold, having a golden wreath round, and a “ finish (מסגּרת) of a hand-breadth round about, ” i.e., a border of a hand-breadth in depth surrounding and enclosing the four sides, upon which the top of the table was laid, and into the four corners of which the feet of the table were inserted. A golden wreath was to be placed round this rim. As there is no article attached to זר־זהב in (cf. ), so as to connect it with the זר in , we must conclude that there were two such ornamental wreaths, one round the slab of the table, the other round the rim which was under the slab. At the four corners of the four feet, near the point at which they joined the rim, four rings were to be fastened for בּתּים, i.e., to hold the poles with which the table was carried, as in the case of the ark.

‏ Exodus 25:23-40

The Table of Shew-Bread (cf. Exo 37:10-16). - The table for the shew-bread (Exo 25:30) was to be made of acacia-wood, two cubits long, one broad, and one and a half high, and to be plated with pure gold, having a golden wreath round, and a “finish (מסגּרת) of a hand-breadth round about,” i.e., a border of a hand-breadth in depth surrounding and enclosing the four sides, upon which the top of the table was laid, and into the four corners of which the feet of the table were inserted. A golden wreath was to be placed round this rim. As there is no article attached to זר־זהב in Exo 25:25 (cf. Exo 37:12), so as to connect it with the זר in Exo 25:24, we must conclude that there were two such ornamental wreaths, one round the slab of the table, the other round the rim which was under the slab. At the four corners of the four feet, near the point at which they joined the rim, four rings were to be fastened for בּתּים, i.e., to hold the poles with which the table was carried, as in the case of the ark. Exo 25:29

Vessels of pure gold were also to be made, to stand upon the table (cf. Exo 37:16). קערת, τὰ τευβλία (lxx), large deep plates, in which the shew-bread was not only brought to the table, but placed upon it. These plates cannot have been small, for the silver קערת, presented by Nahshon the tribe prince, weighed 130 shekels (Num 7:13). כּפּת, from כּף a hollow hand, small scoops, according to Num 7:14, only ten shekels in weight, used to put out the incense belonging to the shew-bread upon the table (cf. Lev 24:7 and Num 7:14): lxx θυΐ́σκη, i.e., according to the Etymol. Magn., σκάφη ἡ τὰ θύματα δεχομένη. There were also two vessels “to pour out,” sc., the drink-offering, or libation of wine: viz., קשׂות, σπονδεῖα (lxx), sacrificial spoons to make the libation of wine with, and מנקּיּת, κύαθοι (lxx), goblets into which the wine was poured, and in which it was placed upon the table. (See Exo 37:16 and Num 4:7, where the goblets are mentioned before the sacrificial spoons.) Exo 25:30

Bread of the face (פּנים לחם), the mode of preparing and placing which is described in Lev 24:5., was to lie continually before (לפני) Jehovah. These loaves were called “bread of the face” (shew-bread), because they were to lie before the face of Jehovah as a meat-offering presented by the children of Israel (Lev 24:8), not as food for Jehovah, but as a symbol of the spiritual food which Israel was to prepare (Joh 6:27, cf. Joh 4:32, Joh 4:34), a figurative representation of the calling it had received from God; so that bread and wine, which stood upon the table by the side of the loaves, as the fruit of the labour bestowed by Israel upon the soil of its inheritance, were a symbol of its spiritual labour in the kingdom of God, the spiritual vineyard of its Lord. Exo 25:31-40 (cf. Exo 37:17-24). The Candlestick was to be made of pure gold, “beaten work.” מקשׁה: see Exo 25:18. For the form תּיעשׂה instead of תּעשׂה (which is probably the work of a copyist, who thought the reading should be תּעשׂה in the Niphal, as the י is wanting in many MSS), see Gesenius, Lehrgeb. p. 52, and Ewald, §83b. “Of it shall be (i.e., there shall issue from it so as to form one complete whole) its ירך” (lit., the loins, the upper part of the thigh, which is attached to the body, and from which the feet proceed, - in this case the base or pedestal, upon which the candelabrum stood); its קנה, or reed, i.e., the hollow stem of the candelabrum rising up from the pedestal; - “its גּבעים,” cups, resembling the calix of a flower; - כּפתּרים, knobs, in a spherical shape (cf. Amo 9:1; Zep 2:14); - “and פּרחים,” flowers, ornaments in the form of buds just bursting.