Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 24

And the Lord spoke to Moses. —The regulations about the annual festivals and the ritual connected with them are now followed by directions with regard to the daily service and its ritual.

Command the children of Israel. —This is the only other occasion in Leviticus on which God orders Moses to “command,” instead of imparting or communicating His will. (See Leviticus 6:1 in Hebrew, and Leviticus 6:9 in English.) This command, however, occurs almost literally in Exodus 27:20-21.

Without the vail of the testimony. —That is, the second veil, which divided the holy from the most holy. (See Exodus 27:21.)

In the tabernacle of the congregation. —Better, in the tent of meeting.

A statute for ever in your generations. —Better, a statute for ever throughout your generations, as this phrase is rendered in the Authorized Version in Leviticus 23:14; Leviticus 23:31, and elsewhere. (See Leviticus 3:17.)

The lamps upon the pure candlestick. —Though it would appear from Exodus 25:31 that the candlestick was called pure because it was made entirely of pure gold, yet, according to the authorities during the second Temple, the order here is that “he shall arrange the lamps after having purified and made clean the candlestick, and removed all the cinders.”

And bake twelve cakes. —The next order is about the preparation of the shewbread and its use. It was made in the following manner. Twenty-four seahs of wheat, which were brought as a meat offering, were beaten and ground, and after passing through twelve different sieves, each finer than the one before it, twenty-four tenth-deals of the finest flour were obtained.

The dough was kneaded outside the court and, after it was put into a golden mould of a definite size and form to impart the prescribed size and shape to each cake, was then brought into the court. Here it was taken out of the first golden mould, and put into a second of the same material and form, and baked in it. As soon as it was taken out of the oven, the cake was put into a third mould of the same kind, and when it was turned out of it, the cake was ten handbreadths long, five broad, one finger thick, and square at each end.

Each cake, therefore, was made of two omers of wheat or, as it is here said, of two tenth-parts of an ephah, which is the same thing . As an omer is the quantity which, according to the Divine ordinance (Exodus 16:16–19), supplies the daily wants of a human being, each of these cakes represents the food of a man and his neighbour, while the twelve cakes corresponded to the twelve tribes of Israel. Hence the ancient Chaldee version has, after the words “twelve cakes,” “according to the twelve tribes.” The baking of these cakes took place every Friday afternoon, or Thursday if a feast which required Sabbatical rest fell on Friday. According to the testimony of those who were eyewitnesses to the baking, these cakes were unleavened.