“The first part of the tent was called the holy place, and a lampstand, a table, and the sacred loaves of bread were kept there” (Hebrews 9:2 CEV).
These “sacred loaves of bread” were also known as the “Showbread” or “Bread of the Presence” because they were set before God’s presence within the Old Testament tabernacle. These loaves (which we might associate with a type of flatbread today) were rotated on a weekly basis and then given to the priests to eat. There were twelve loaves of Showbread, a number that provided a ready association with the twelve tribes of Israel.
However, this bread meant something more, for Jesus once made use of an incident involving the Showbread to communicate an important spiritual lesson…
“Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. And the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
“But He said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him: how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?” (Mark 2:23-26).
By the first century A.D., Israel’s religious leadership had developed an extensive list of traditional observances associated with the Old Testament Law. One such tradition involved the act of picking individual kernels of grain and eating them on the Sabbath. Since this involved harvesting each kernel and separating the outer husk, Jesus’ disciples had engaged in “work” according to these religious leaders. The issue arose from the fact that labor was strictly prohibited during the Sabbath according to the Old Testament Law (see Exodus 34:21).
Jesus responded by using His knowledge of the Scriptures to identify an error in their accusation. He did so by referencing the account of David as chronicled in the Biblical book of 1 Samuel (see 1 Samuel 21:1-6). That passage of Scripture records some of David’s activities while he was being pursued by Israel’s king Saul. During that time, David met with a priest and requested something to eat. The priest had nothing to offer David except the Showbread and subsequently gave it to him.
While this account may not seem to hold a great deal of application to our passage from Hebrews, we’ll see how Jesus made use of this incident to provide an important spiritual application next.