Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 24:5

"And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth parts [of an ephah] shall be in one cake." — Leviticus 24:5 (ASV)

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.