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Concept
Showbread
Summary
Showbread (לחם הפנים Leḥem haPānīm, literally: "Bread of the Faces"), in the King James Version: shewbread, in a biblical or Jewish context, refers to the cakes or loaves of bread which were always present, on a specially-dedicated table, in the Temple in Jerusalem as an offering to God. An alternative, and more appropriate, translation would be presence bread, since the Bible requires that the bread be constantly in the presence of God ().
Within the Torah, the showbread is mentioned exclusively by the Priestly Code and Holiness Code, but certain sections of the Bible, including the Books of Chronicles, Books of Samuel, and Books of Kings, also describe aspects of them. In the Holiness Code, the showbread is described as twelve cakes baked from fine flour, arranged in two rows on a table; each cake was to contain "two tenth parts of an ephah" of flour () (approx 4.9 pounds). The biblical regulations specify that cups of frankincense were to be placed upon the rows of cakes, and the Septuagint, but not the Masoretic Text, states that salt was mixed with the frankincense; the frankincense, which the Septuagint refers to as an anamnesis, (a hapax legomenon), constituted a memorial (azkarah), having been offered upon the altar to God ().
According to Chronicles, the Kohathite clan had charge of the baking and setting in order of the bread, suggesting that there were secret extra requirements in preparing the bread, known only to the Kohathites. Since leavened products were prohibited from the altar, and the cakes are not described as being offered upon it, it is possible that the showbread was leavened; however, as they were carried into the inner part of the sanctuary, it is highly probable that they were unleavened.
The cakes were to be left on the table for a week, and then be replaced with new ones on the Sabbath, so that there were always fresh loaves on the table, and those that had started going stale were removed; the biblical text states that the Jewish priests were entitled to eat the cakes that had been removed, as long as they did so in a holy place, as it considered the bread to be holy.
Official source
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