The tabernacle and Christ

The Table of Showbread

In the tabernacle of Moses · Exodus 25 to 40 · Bread

The table of showbread stood in the holy place bearing twelve loaves set fresh before God every week, the bread of the Presence. It spoke of God feeding his people and of their fellowship at his table. Jesus took up the same picture when he said, I am the bread of life, offering himself as the food the soul cannot live without.

And thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before me alway.Exodus 25:30 (KJV)

What the table was

And thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before me alway. The table was made of acacia wood overlaid with pure gold, with a golden crown or rim around it, and on it were set twelve loaves of fine flour in two rows of six. The name showbread, or shewbread, means the bread of the face or of the presence, the bread that stood continually before the face of God.

Every sabbath the priests replaced the loaves with fresh ones, and the bread that was removed was eaten by the priests in the holy place, for it was most holy. Beside the bread stood dishes and spoons and bowls of gold, and frankincense was set upon the rows. Week by week, without fail, the bread lay fresh before the LORD.

What it meant for Israel

The twelve loaves stood for the twelve tribes of Israel, all of them held continually before God, remembered and provided for. The table was a table of fellowship, for in the ancient world to eat together was to be at peace and in communion. Here was bread in God's house, always fresh, always present, a standing sign that God feeds his people and keeps them before his face.

It also declared that life with God is not only forgiveness at the altar but nourishment at the table. The same God who received the sacrifice spread bread before his people. Israel was not merely pardoned; it was fed, and its tribes were kept in remembrance before the Lord as surely as the loaves were kept upon the gold.

How it points to Christ

Here the connection lies very close to the surface, for Jesus deliberately used this language of himself, though Scripture does not name the showbread table itself as his type, so we hold the object as devotional reflection while resting the truth on his own plain words. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. As the showbread was always before God and given to sustain his priests, so Christ is set before us and given to sustain our souls.

He drew the line himself back to the wilderness, where Israel first learned to eat bread from heaven: Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever. The bread on the golden table, fresh each week and never absent, is a fitting shadow of the one who is never withdrawn from those who come to him.

The name of the platform on which you read this, The Living Bread, is taken from these very words. To feed on Christ is to trust him, to take him into the center of the life as bread is taken into the body, and to find that the soul which feeds on him shall never finally hunger. The table stood in the holy place, in the light of the lampstand, because the life of fellowship with God is a life fed by Christ himself.

Bread of the Presence, and a place at the table

The name the bread carried is worth pausing over: it was the bread of the Presence, the bread that stood continually before the face of God. It was not stored in a cupboard but displayed on a golden table, in the open, in the light, always there. So the God of Israel was pictured as a host who keeps bread set out in his house, ready, never withdrawn. The table was an act of hospitality frozen into gold, a standing sign that God means to feed those who come to him.

The twelve loaves, one for each tribe, were also a picture of the people themselves held before God, remembered and provided for, none forgotten. In Christ that circle is opened to all nations, and yet the same tenderness holds: he knows his own by name and keeps them before the Father's face. To feed on the bread of life is not only to receive from him but to be remembered by him, set in the light of his presence and never left off the table.

And there is more here than nourishment; there is fellowship. In the ancient world to eat together was to be at peace, to belong. Jesus made a meal the memorial of his death, taking bread and saying, This is my body which is given for you, and he promises that he will yet sit down with his own at the marriage supper of the Lamb. The showbread on the golden table, fresh every week, was leaning toward a table where the Bread himself is host and food and friend, and where there is a place kept for everyone who comes to him. That is why this platform is called The Living Bread, for the whole invitation of the gospel can be spoken as an invitation to eat and live.

Bread that was never absent

The one unbroken rule of the table was that the bread must never fail. Thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before me alway, God said, and alway is the heart of it. The loaves were changed every sabbath, but the table was never bare; as the old bread was taken away the new was already set, so that in all the years of the tabernacle there was not one day when the bread was missing from before the face of God. The provision was constant, unfailing, always ready.

That constancy is the comfort of the bread of life. Christ is not offered to us for a season and then withdrawn; he is set before us alway, never absent, never used up, always fresh for the one who comes. In every generation, in every hour of need, the table is spread and the bread is there. He that cometh to me, Jesus said, shall never hunger, for the God who kept bread on the golden table without a single missing day keeps his Son before his people forever.

Jesus' words I am the bread of life (John 6:35) are explicit and self-chosen, and he ties them to Israel's bread from heaven (John 6:48-51). The showbread table itself is not named in the New Testament as a type, so the object is treated as a devotional reflection while the truth rests on Jesus' own plain teaching.

Related: The golden lampstand · The altar of incense · Get the app · The whole tabernacle