What Can We Learn From the Old Temple: Table of Shewbread

The Table of Shewbread is, as I said earlier, almost forgotten in discussions about the Temple. What is this dinner table doing in the middle of the House of the Lord? I think it is the middle-point of the whole Temple, the furthest distance we can go and still be in the telestial kingdom. The Table had twelve place settings, twelve loaves of bread, and many other utensils and items typically associated with dining. There were libations. There were also things not associated with typical meals. The Table was overlaid with pure gold, and each loaf of bread had a stone of incense next to it. This means it is connected to the Altar of Sacrifice, where food is slaughtered and cooked, and to the Altar of Incense, where prayers are offered before the Veil. It also connects the Table to the Holy of Holies; the censor was placed before the Ark until the whole room was filled with the smoke from the incense before the priest could enter on the Day of Atonement.

Light and Dark

The Table of Shewbread stands in contrast to the Menorah. From the point of view of the Holy of Holies, the Menorah is on the right, and the Table is on the left, calling to mind Adam’s choice between the Tree of Life on the one hand, and the forbidden fruit, with its necessity of eating bread by the sweat of one’s brow, along with all the vicissitudes of mortality. The light of Christ is contrasted with the darkness of worldly drudgery paired with spiritual and physical dangers.

Psalm 23 speaks of dining with one’s enemies. The theme is recapitulated elsewhere in the scriptures, and the authors must have been aware of the parallels. Imposters at the dinner table are plentiful. Twelve brothers of Joseph in Egypt, ergo twelve tribes, sat together, eating. Joseph's identity was hidden, and money and the need for food figure prominently in the surrounding narrative (Gen. 42-45). Judas (who carried the money bag, see John 13:29) was a hidden traitor at the table among the twelve disciples during the last supper. He betrayed Jesus in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. During the last supper, Jesus indicated that they did not realize His true identity either (John 14:8-9). Food and money are concurrent themes; identifying true and false messengers is an implicit theme of the Table as well.

Five of the thirteen Articles of Faith, 5-9, deal with the subject of identifying who is a true teacher from God. So many articles devoted to the same subject implies a heavier emphasis placed on this idea. I see some members of the Church today buying into energy healing and other unproven Eastern mysticism, and I secretly worry if such things are potentially destructive. If something works, demonstrably, repeatably, I have no problem with it, provided it is in harmony with gospel teachings. The gift of the Holy Ghost is given to each person who joins the Church; are we neglecting our guide in favor of a broken compass from a worldly circus-flea market or second-rate bag of tricks? It is easier to pat one's self on the back and feel competent in a false science because there are no consistent rules; everyone is an instant expert. It is flattering to take advice from crystals and false methods that to heed the directions of the Spirit. Will hanging a purple chandelier in the bathroom improve the flow of mystical energy and save your marriage? Only we affluent people can afford ask such questions, and quacks prey on us. The poor have the talisman of pocket lint to ward off imposters.

A Familiar Table Today

In the meal of the sacrament, the Lord’s supper, we covenant, or at least show our willingness, to take the name of Jesus Christ upon ourselves. We blend our identity with His for the sake of being passed over by justice. He was innocent, and we put on some of that innocence and hide from justice when we carry His name. He takes our dirty names onto Himself in the Garden, and pays the price of justice. Equilibrium is maintained, as well as love and mercy.

Another Altar, Another Sacrifice

The Table of Shewbread is an altar—it has a rectangular shape, and is referred to as an altar (see Mal. 1:7). What do we sacrifice at this altar? We give up our uncouth, rude behavior in favor of the civility characterized by table manners. Emily Post and her never ending list of protocols, formalities, niceties, etiquette, customs, mores, folkways, comes into play. All these rules help to lubricate social interaction, keeping us from being thoroughly offensive to each other. (The purpose of utensil etiquette is to keep knives and forks from looking like the weapons they really are.) Be polite; share; say please and thank you; ask to be excused when you burp; all these are necessary for getting a family together peacefully, as well as a nation. The twelve tribes are indicated by the twelve place settings at the Table of Shewbread. We must observe the rules of etiquette to clear the benchmark of entering the Terrestrial Kingdom—being “honorable men of the earth” (D&C 76:75). Helping an old lady across the street will not get us all the way to the Celestial Kingdom, but neglecting the task might get us expelled from it.

Just as the Font indicates the twelve tribes being created and scattered in all directions of the compass, so the Table, with twelve loaves of bread, indicates gathering the tribes back together again. In other words, missionary work. As mentioned before, the difficulty in missionary work is determining who are the real servants and messengers of God, and who the imposters are. The Book of Mormon is replete with literary foils contrasting the Lord's authorized servants with hucksters, sophists, atheistic rhetoricians, and other wise fools who come onto the scene and trip over their own falsehoods in public.

Feasting on the Word

I think Jesus feeding of the five thousand in John 6 might prophetically prefigure the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. The Lord takes the offering of one boy, a few loaves of bread and some fish, blesses them, and has His disciples distribute it to feed five thousand families. There are twelve baskets of bread gathered by the twelve disciples afterward. There are parallels between the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. The Lord takes Joseph’s paltry offering, which consisted of reading aloud through the Book of Mormon once so that scribes can write it down, and turns it into five thousand copies of the Book of Mormon (the quantity ordered from Grandin in its original printing). Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, and thousands of other faithful early saints came in contact with that book via missionary distribution, and it was like the sound of a dinner bell, calling Israel home from wandering in the woods. And twelve authorized apostles led the work of gathering then, and continue today. Each new member who stays faithful long enough receives a patriarchal blessing, which tells them which of the twelve tribes they descend from and belong to.

Bread and Gold

Eating unites people. Imagine a crowded room full of strangers in close proximity, each sitting at tables with nothing on them. Very uncomfortable, right? Now imagine everyone eating something. Suddenly, you don’t care how close the other people are to your table. Everyone is friends at the dinner table. We hope.

Civilization itself probably would not exist if it were not for our need for “daily bread.” Fruit requires no forethought or work; meat requires hunting and trapping; but bread, the byproduct of agriculture, requires an understanding of seasons for planting, cultivation, and harvesting. This implies record keeping. It also entails an investment now for a future payoff, i.e. delay of gratification. Civilization owes its existence, in a great measure, to bread. The Book of Mormon makes a direct correspondence between gold, silver, and bread, and we do indeed find that same connection today. We are commanded to take the earth’s resources, but not use them for extortion, but that is exactly what businesses model today—holding the necessities of life hostage, demanding an enormous ransom in exchange for food, clothing, shelter, medicine, etc. Satan comes along in this dire circumstance, and tempts us to “lie a little,” “cheat,” “steal a little,” in order to secure enough money to make ends meet. Satan told Cain how to prosper at the expense of others, and we see all levels of the principle at work in the world, from outright murder, to slavery, indentured servitude, crushing debt with tormenting compound interest, attempts to snare addict rather than create loyal customers, coercion, and on and on. We all end up working for Satan, playing his dirty game, and we may lose our souls if we are not careful. We are on probation to see what we will do with all these material things the Lord has created (Abr. 3:22). Our table is truly prepared in the presence of our enemy. Is there an alternative to Satan’s economics?

Hidden Manna

Manna was given to the twelve tribes wandering in a wicked world. Jesus indicated that those who ate manna had all died, but that if we would eat the hidden manna, His own flesh and blood, we would live forever. “Take no thought for what ye shall eat, what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed,” He admonishes (Matt. 6:31). God knows our needs, and He will provide sufficiently, if we exercise faith and make building up the kingdom of God our main objective. “Come buy milk and honey without money and without price” (2Ne. 26:25). Salvation of the soul was the real meal He offered. But such ideas offended and estranged the masses who could not see past the end of their stomachs (see John 6:66).

Strangely, fasting is equated with joy by the Lord in D&C 59. I have experienced this joy. I went to work fasting one day, and my employer had no idea I had neither eaten nor drunken a thing. We did light manual labor together. He bought lunch for me, and I told him I was not hungry. We talked while he ate, and he validated concerns I had about life and difficulties in the economy for young people getting started. I felt less worthless by the minute. At the end of the day, I was so full of joy that I did not want to break my fast, but alas, I ate the food he bought for dinner. No one knew about the fast but me and the Lord, and I carried on as though I had a full stomach at my work. It was amazing, and I have tried to secretly fast during the week in the past months and years ever since that day. Feeding the body seems to dull the mind and suppress the spirit, while fasting seems to feed the spirit and temper the body.

A True Prophet

Joseph Smith’s life was a prime example of how all these principles enumerated above can intersect in one’s life. He was laboring for scanty maintenance (bread) with his family, and trying to determine which of all the churches was correct. Just as the Table of Shewbread is up a flight of stairs from the Altar and the Font in the courtyard, so the post-enlightenment world of North America, with its religious and intellectual freedom, was a step above the king vs. slave, enforced state religion with no questions asked of the Old World. This freedom was a boon, and a burden. Yes, one could worship and think however one wanted. But that created a new problem—a whole field of false religions and bogus philosophies (some crying “‘lo here,’ others ‘lo there’”). It also put the responsibility of choosing between them squarely on the shoulders of an individual, even an uneducated teenage farmer like Joseph Smith. If an army of professors and doctors of religion were not up to the task of settling the dispute, how could he?

He asked God, and was directly assaulted by Satan in the process. Then God the Father and Christ Himself came, and settled the question of who were true and false teachers. ALL the teachers were false, and Joseph was selected to take up the mantle of a true teacher, who would also become the world’s leading expert on discerning truth from falsehood, and exposing the sources of each. He taught how to tell the difference, and made it so plain that anyone could see the truth.

Money woes followed him his whole life (Satan had to get at him somehow). But Joseph always managed to get back on his feet again, and even accomplish miraculous things, build Temples, reveal new principles, publish new scripture, and set up the quorum of the twelve, a body of certified Apostles. Even though individual men in the quorum were flawed humans, their majority consensus was guaranteed to be in harmony with the will of the Lord. I find that miraculous. And the keys they bore are still on the earth, and will be until Jesus comes again. That is also a miracle, considering how things in this world are prone to decay, shifting, sifting, destruction, and forgotten oblivion.

In the King Follet Sermon, Joseph also informed the saints toward the end of his life that we did not yet know his true identity. "You don't know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my history. I cannot tell it: I shall never undertake it. I don't blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself...When I am called by the trump of the archangel and weighed in the balance, you will all know me then."