Vocabulary

The Old Testament references the objects of Israel’s unique bread-laying ritual in two distinct ways. The first involves the vocabulary of presence: “bread of the presence” (לֶחֶם הַפָּנִים, lechem happanim), “table of the presence” (שֻׁלְחַן הַפָּנִים, shulchan happanim). While פָּנִים (panim) can refer to one’s “face,” or “head,” it often refers more generally to one’s physical presence. In Exodus, God instructed Moses to place the bread “before me” (לְפָנַי, lephanay)—before God’s presence in the most holy place (Exod 25:30). Such language assumes that a localized presence of the deity—often called God’s “glory” (כָּבוֹד, kavod)—was proximate to the ritual bread and the table on which it was arranged (Sommer, The Bodies of God, 12–57, 80–108).

Some streams of Israelite tradition grew increasingly disconnected to the idea that the deity’s presence locally inhabited a sanctuary space (1 Kgs 8:27; Isa 66:1; Jer 23:24b; Sommer, Bodies of God, 58–79, 109–23). The second way in which the Old Testament references Israel’s bread-laying ritual avoids the anthropomorphic connotations of presence vocabulary. Chronicles and Nehemiah use vocabulary that reflects the bread’s arrangement in piles (מַעֲרֶכֶת, ma'arekheth) as prescribed in Lev 24:6: “the bread of the pile” and “the table of the pile.” Second Chronicles 4:19 is the only exception to this, though it is likely a quotation from 1 Kgs 7:48. Additionally, Numbers 4:7 and 2 Chr 2:3 describe the bread or pile as “regular” (תָּמִיד, tamid), referring to the prescription that it appear “regularly” (Exod 25:30).