iv. Preparation OF THE Shewbread.— Accord- ing to the express testimony of Josephus {Ant. m. vi. 6), the Mishna, and later Jewish writers, the shewbread was unleavened. Nor does there seem to be anj- valid ground for the assertion, frequently made by recent writers, that it was otherwise in more primitive times. The absence of leaven best suits the undoubted antiquity of the rite, and, moreover, is confirmed by the B.abylonian practice of offering 'sweet' (i.e. unleavened) bread on the tables of the gods (see below). The material in all periods was of the finest of the flour (Lv 24°), which was obtained, according to ilenahoth (vi. 7), by sifting the flour eleven times. The kneading and firing of the loaves in the time of tlie Chronicler was the duty of the ' sons of the Kohathites,' a Levitical guild (1 Ch 9**) ; in the closin" da3S of the second temple their preparation fell to the house or family of Garmu (Yoma iii. 11, Shclfal. viii. 1). The quantity of flour prescribed by the Priests' Code for each loaf (n^n halld) was ' two tenth -parts of an ephah ' (Lv 24' RV), which — reckoning the ephah roughly at a bushel — repre- sents about ^ths of a peck (c. 7J litres), a quantity sufficient to produce a loaf of considerable dimen- sions, recalling the loaves which gave their name to the Delian festival of the MfyoXdpTio.
In the earlier period, at least, the loaves were laid upon the table while still hot ( I S 21"). The later regulations required that they should be arranged in two piles (no-ii^s, see sect. i. above). On the top of each pile, apparently, — on the table between the pUes, according to another tradition, — stood a censer containing ' pure frankincense for a memorial (firix, for which see comni. on Lv 24'), even an offering by fire unto the I.ORD.' Alex- andrian writers give salt in addition (Lv I.e. in LXX; hence, doubtless, Philo, Vit. Mos. ii. 151). The stale loaves, by the same regulations, were removed and fresh loaves substituted every Sab- bath. According to Sukka (v. 7f.), one half went to the outgoing division of priests, the other to the incoming division, by whom they were consumed wthin the sacred precincts.* In order to avoid repetition, further examination of the details given by post - biblical Jewish writers — many of them clearly wide of the mark — regarding the shape and size of the loaves and their arrangement on the table, as well as regarding the nature and purpose of the vessels mentioned. Ex 25^, Nu 4', is reserved for the section on P's table of
* It is a mere conlecture that the shewbread was originally bumtd (Stade, Akadem. Redm, etc, 180, note 15).
SHIBAH
SHIELD
497
ehewbread and its vessels in the general articli! Tauern-aclk.
V. SlUXIFICANCE OF THE RlTE. — The rite ot •the prt'Sfiice-bread' is one of the fairl}' nuiiierons survivals from the pre-Mosaic sta;,'e of the religion of the Hebrews, and coes back ultimately to the naive conception that tlie god, like his worsliipjiers, required and actually partook of material nourish- ment. No doubt, as W. U. Smith hn.^ pointed out, this idea ' is too crude to subsist without niodilica- lion bejond the savage state of society ' (ii6'' 212). In the case of the shewbread, it may be suggested that the odour of the ' hot bread ' (on cnji 1 S 21«t'i) was regarded in ancient times as a ' sweet savour,' like the smell of the sacrilice to J"(Gn 8=', Lv23"'). Id any case the custom of presenting soli<l food on a table as an oblation to a god is too widespread among the peoples of antiquity to permit of doubt as to the origin of the rite among the Hebrews.
The tectigtemia,whlch the Romans borrowed from the Greeks, afToril the most familiar illustration of this practice (see Smith's Z)iV/. of iir. and Horn. Antiqs.'-i r. v.). In the OT itself we hear of Jeremiah's contenijioraries kncadinp cakes for the queen of heaven (Jer 7***), and, at a later date, of the table which even Jews spread to Fortune ((iAl», Is 6511 \i\). In the reli^jious literature of the ancient Babylonians, a;:ain, parti<rularly in the ritual tablets to which the attention of scholars has lately been turned, we find numerous references to the various items of foo<l and drink to be presented to the deities of the Babylonian pantheon. The tables or altars, also, on which the fo<Kl was set out are frequently represented on the monuments (see, t.fj., HenzinKer, lltb. Arch. 3S7 ; Kiehm's HUB' i. 143, etc.). And not only so, but, as Zimmern has recently shown, the loaves of sweet or unleavened bread thus presented are, frequently at least, of the number of 12, 24, or even as many as 30 (see the rcfl. in Zinnnem's Beitrdge ztir Knintmn tier liafJulon. lieliition, lyOl, p. 94 f.). These numbers, we can hardly doubt, have an ostronomicol signilicance, 12 being the number of the signs of the Zodiac, 24 the stations of the moon, and 3fi those of the planets (see 2 K 233 ItVm, Job 3S*'2, and art. Hahvlonia in vol. L p. 218»). The knowledge of this an<'ient pra<-ti<re of offering I'KkJ on the tables of the gods survived to a late period ; see tpist. of Jeremy, v.26ff., and the fragment of Bel and the Dragon (esp. v.U ; note also that the food of Cel comprise<l ' twHvp great measures of fine flour*). Hence, if the loaves of the presence- bread were 12 in number from the earliest times, — though of this we have no early testimony, — we should have another of the rapidly increasing instances of early Babylonian influence in the West (of. Josepnus' association of the 12 loaves with the 12 months, Ant. in. rii. 7).