* See besides Stade. op, cit., the Commentaries of Klttel and Bcnzinger, esp, the latter's Introduction, p. xviff., where an intiTesting study will be fotind of the gradual growth of the accretions with which I Kiil"*-*! is now overgrown ; also Humey'l art. Kings in the present work, vol. il. m;i\ and his Holes 'on the Ucbrew Text oj the Books of Kings, in toe.
496
SHEWBREAD
SHEWBREAD
corrupt, but capable with the help of the LXX of easy emendation, we read thus (as emended) : ' In front of the sanctuary [this also=P'3 'Holy of Holies'] was something liUe an altar of wood, three cubits in hei;L;ht, and the len<;th thereof two cubits, and the breadth two cubits ; and it had corners, and its base and its sides were of wood. And he said unto me : This is the table that is before J" ' (Ezk 41-'- — ; so substantially Comill and all recent commentators). Here, then, we have not the altar of incense, but once more the table of shewbread. The twofold circumstance that it is here expressly termed an altar, and is of plain wood without a gold covering, is a strong argument in favour of Stade's restoration of the text of 1 K, discussed above. Ezekiel's table of shewbread resembled in its general outline the similar altar- tables so often seen on the Assyrian monuments (see last section) ; its height was half as much again as its length, and in section it formed a square of at least 3 ft. in the side. The projec- tions or ' horns ' were, no doubt, similar to those of the Assyrian altars (see, e.g., Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Chaldca and Assyria, i. pp. 143, 255, etc. ).
In the temple of Zerubbabel, consecrated in the 6th year of Darius (B.C. 516), the table of shew- bread, we may safely infer, had its place in the outer sanctuary, although we have no information as to whether or not it was modelled on Ezekiel's altar-table. After the introduction of the Priests' Code it may have been remodelled according to the instructions there given (Ex 2o'-"'-); we may at least, with some measure of certainty, suppose that it was then overlaid with gold, since Antiochus Epiphanes, when he carried off the spoils of the temple (1 Alac 1"), would scarcely have taken the trouble to remove a plain wooden altar. The well- informed author of 1 Maccabees, in the passage cited, includes among the spoils not only the table itself, but ' the flagons and chalices and censers of gold ' used in the ritual of the table (see for these art. Tabernacle, section on Table of Shewbread). The provision of the shewbread, it should be added, was one of the objects to which were de- voted the proceeds of the tax of one-third of a shekel instituted by Nehemiah (10*', cf. Jos. Ant. III. X. 7, § 255).
Here atteDtion may b« called to two non-canonical Jewish writers who allude to the subject of this article. The earlier of the two is pseudo-Hccatit-us, whose date is usually assumed to be the Rri cent. B.C. (Schiirer, GJV iii. 465 ; but Willrich, Juden u. Griechen, etc., 20 f., argues for a date in the Macca- b:»an period). This writer, in a passage preserved (or us by Josephus (c. Apion. i. 22), describes the second temple as 'a large edifice wherein is an altar (jSmui;), and a candclalinim (Xt/x^'o*). both of gold, two talents in weight.' The former term, in the light of what has been said above with regard to the altar-tables of Solomon and Ezekiel, we must identify with the table of shewbread. The other writer referred to is pseudo- Aristeas, whose date falls within the century 200-100 b.c. In his famous letter, purporting to give an account of the origin of the Alexandrian version of the OT, he gives the rein to a lively imagination in his description of a shewbread table of unex- ampled magnificence — all of gold and precious gems, and of unsurpassed artistic workmanship — which Ptolemy Philadelphus i« said to have presented to the temple at .Jerusalem (see Wendland's or Tliackeray's edition of Aristeas' letter^tr. by the former in Kautzsch's Apokri/phen u. Pseiidfpiffrapheii, ii, 6 ff.). This table is admitted to have bad no existence outside the pages of Aristeas.
To resume the thread of our narrative, we find tliat on the re-dedication of the temple (B.C. 165) Judas Maccabanis had new furniture made, includ- ing the shewbrea<l table (1 Mac 4"), — now, we may be sure, constructed in entire conformity to the re- quirements of Ex 25^"-, — upon which the loaves were duly set forth (v."). This table continued in use till the destruction of the temple by Titus in A.D. 70. Rescued from the blazing pile, it figtired along with the golden candlestick and a roll of the law in the triumph a>\arded to the
victorious general (Jos. B-T vil. v. 3-7, esp. 5, § 148). Thereafter, these were all deposited by Vespasian in his newly built temple of Peace (ib. v. 7), while a representation of the triumph formed a conspicu- ous part of the decoration on the Arch of Titus, erected subsequently. Few remains of classical antiquity have been so frequently reproduced as the panel of the arch on which are depicted the table and the candlestick, borne alott on the shoulders of the Roman veterans (see illustration under MusiC, vol. iii. p. 462). Both seem to have remained in Rome till the sack of the city by Genseric, king of the Vandals, in 455, by whom they were transferred to Carthage, the site of the new Vandal capital in Africa. From Caithage they were transferred to Constantinople by Beli- sarius, in whose triumph they again ligured. On this occasion a Jew, it is said, working on the superstitious awe felt by Justinian for these sacred relics, induced the emperor to send them back to Jerusalem. They probably perished finally in the sack of .lerusalem by Chrosroes, the Persian, in 614 (see Reinach, ' L'Arc de Titus,' in HE J 20, p. Ixxxvf., in book form, 1890; Knight, 27ie Arch of Titus, 112ff.).