A Difficult Passage in Nehemiah

INTRODUCTION

I was the translator for 13 of the small books from the Hebrew bible for the Tree of Life version of the bible, which was published in 2013.  (Actually, I was assigned those books that none of the established scholars wanted.)  As a translator, I was obliged to follow a specific set of standards for style, vocabulary, and usage that had been established by the project editorial board.  Additionally, I had to deal with all of the problems that confront every translator of an ancient text:

·      Textual variants between different Masoretic manuscripts as well as those in ancient versions

·      Obscure vocabulary that is not well attested in any of the ancient sources

·      Fractured syntax that may have been the result of textual corruption

·      Obscure expressions arising from differences in the ancient culture from ours

Every translator must deal with these problems, determine his best guess as to meaning based on the sources available to him at the time, and then produce a running text that does not require a commentary to permit understanding.  If the editorial board questions his conclusions, and they often do so, he can attempt to explain his textural and other decisions to them.  At most, the only thing that ever appears in the final text is a brief footnote.

I can attest that every ancient text I have ever examined has such problems on almost every page, and I have dealt with several of those texts in previous posts.  The text of Nehemiah 4:6 (4:12 in NASB) is one of those passages that I had to confront when I was translating this book, and I have had occasion to look at it again this past week.  Since I had already worked through this text, I looked back at my translation notes from eight years ago.  At that time I made a translation choice that I could not now justify from the Hebrew text as it stands in Biblia Hebraica (BH); but uncharacteristic of me, I did not record how or why I had come to that conclusion.  As a result, I decided to take another closer look at this passage.

THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were considered a single book according to rabbinic tradition, and that is how they appear in BHS as well as many ancient versions.  The initial return of Jews from Babylon occurred in 520 BCE and was led by Zerubbabel and Yehoshua the high priest.  Ezra-Nehemiah covers the period from approximately 458 to 425 BCE.  Nehemiah had been one of the cupbearers for King Artaxerxes.  When he heard of the continuing distress of the Jews in Jerusalem, he requested permission from the king to go to Jerusalem so that he could oversee the repair of the city walls and gates.  The overall flow of the book is as follows:

Neh 1-2 Nehemiah’s return to Jerusalem and inspection of the damage to be repaired

Neh 3-6 Rebuilding the wall and gates – completed in a total of 52 days

Neh 8-13 Nehemiah’s actions as governor of that Persian province

Chapter 2 describes Nehemiah’s survey of the damaged walls and gates.

Chapter 3 describes how Nehemiah organized the simultaneous repair of the entire wall.

Chapter 4 describes the rising opposition from Sanballat and his allies and Nehemiah’s response.  Verse 4:6 (4:12) records a report from Jews living in villages near Sanballat to Nehemiah, and subsequent verses describe how Nehemiah responded to this threat.

Chapter 5 deals with Nehemiah’s response to a social issue in which wealthy individuals were taking advantage of poorer farmers by loaning money at interest and thereby taking their land.  Nehemiah becomes governor in the 20^th year of Artaxerxes.

Chapter 6 describes events up to completion of the wall and gates.

TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

We have no original text for either the Hebrew bible or the New Covenant books.  In the case of the New Covenant books, we have thousands of manuscripts and fragments, some of which date from the second century CE.  In contrast, all printed Hebrew bibles are based on three or four early Masoretic manuscripts dating from c. 1000 CE.  The entire corpus of Masoretic texts constitutes a witness to a single text type, but not the original text.  The only textual evidence for pre-Masoretic text types includes the Samaritan Pentateuch and Qumran fragments as primary sources.  Secondary sources are the early translations (LXX, targums, Peshitta, and Vulgate).  The reason that translations are designated as secondary sources is that the translator’s method may tend to obscure his source Hebrew text and no two translations can be expected to have used the same source text.

Text According to BHS

All Masoretic texts include the consonantal text, vowel points, accents, and massora parve.  These preserve the traditional text, pronunciation, and syntactical interpretation for every book in the Hebrew bible.  The massora also identifies textual errors that the Masorites knew about.  Nehemiah 4:6 as it is preserved in BH is as follows:

 µymi[;P] rc,[, Wnl; Wrm]aYOw" µl;x]a, µybiv]Yh' µydIWhY“h' WaB;Arv,a}K' yhiy“w"

.Wnyle[; WbWvT;Arv,a} t/mqoM]h'AlK;mi

On the basis of the most common syntactical and lexical uses, this text as it stands is essentially unintelligible.  BH lists two variants from a single Masoretic manuscript:

·      t/mzIoM]h'AlK; (all of the devices) for t/mqoM]h'AlK;mi

·      Wbv]j; (they thought, devised) for WbWvT;

However, because these variants occur in just one Masoretic manuscript each, they can hardly be considered as good evidence for the original source text.  The interpretive problems with this verse as it stands are as follows:

·      This text is frequently interpreted as recording the direct address from Jews who dwell near to those who are opposing the efforts of Nehemiah.  However, the text does not contain the syntactic element that usually indicates the start of the direct address, nor does it contain the syntactic element that usually indicates the start of indirect address.  This renders both the nature of the address and its starting point ambiguous.

·      The syntactic relation of µymi[;P] rc,[, is ambiguous.  If it is connected with the first two clauses, then it could either signify they came 10 times or they said 10 times.  (Some rabbinic commentaries suggest that this is an idiomatic expression for repeatedly.  In this case the net result would be ‘They came and said repeatedly…’)  If it is connected with the words of the address (direct or indirct), then its significance is connected with the syntax of that statement.

·    The syntax of the reported speech is problematic.  If the syntactic elements are interpreted according to their most common usage, then it consists of an adjectival prepositional phrase followed by a subordinate clause, so the sentence would have no independent verb.  Such a structure could be interpreted as a corrupted text.  The other possibility would be to interpret it as a verbless clause with the predicate adjective fronted for emphasis, and so the relative clause would then be the subject of the clause.  As it stands presently, such a construction would still be difficult to understand.

·      If a corrupted text arose due to an early scribal error, then one possibility that must be considered is that dittography produced the arrangement t/mqoM]h'AlK;mi µymi[;P] rc,[, from t/mqoM]h'AlK; µymi[;P]   rc,[,.  A second possible early scribal error could have produced WbWvT; instead of WbyviT;.  Both types of scribal error are common.

Secondary Sources

The only other primary sources for the Hebrew text are the Samaritan Pentateuch and Qumran fragments.  The Samaritan Pentateuch does not include the text of interest. Recently a fragment from Qumran cave 4 has been published covering Neh 2:13-16, but this also will provide no insight for the text presently under consideration.  The LXX dates from approximately the same time period as the Qumran texts, and printed copies are readily available.  The LXX text that I have consists primarily of codex B (Vaticanus) as a diplomatic text with variants listed from codex A (Alexandrinus) and codex S (Sinaiticus).  I do not have access to a targum of Nehemiah, but I do have a published (non critical) version of the Peshitta, and I have a critical copy of the Vulgate.

LXX Text

Και εγενετο ως ηλθωσαν οι ιυδαιοι οι οικουντες εχομενα αυτων και ειπωσαν ημιν αναβαινουσιν εκ παντων των τοπων εφ'ημας.

And it came about when those Jews who were dwelling near them came to us, they said (that) they are coming up against us from many places.

Note that I have interpreted the statement as indirect address.  In direct address, one would expect they are coming up against you.

This text omits anything corresponding to ten times, but it makes excellent sense in the context.  Because we have no pre-Masoretic text for this verse, it is not possible to determine if it represents a different Hebrew source text or if it is the translator’s attempt to make sense of the difficult text as it was preserved in the pre-Masoretic text type. 

Peshitta Text

The Peshitta text does not have the same chapter and verse divisions as the Hebrew text, but the corresponding passage transcribed into Hebrew characters is as follows:

wvtktml wta ˆynbz rs[ lykm ah ˆwhl ˆyrmaw ˆwhtwl ˆybtyd aydwy wtaw

.ˆwhb wwh ˆyrvd ˆylya ˆhlha atwrta ˆwhlk ˆm ˆwkm[

And it came to pass, Jews who were dwelling near them were saying to them, Behold, after 10 pledges to fight against you from all of their places, their derision is our defense with them.

My mastery of Syriac is no longer what it once was, but if my rendering is even approximately correct, the following may be noted:

·     This text is about 1/3 longer than the MT text.  Usually translations from Hebrew into Aramaic or Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic) are almost word for word. 

·    Although there are some obvious connections with the MT text, it appears to be asserting something very different. 

·      The quotation clearly is presented as direct address.

·      ˆwhl ˆyrma – saying to them; I would have expected ˆwkl ˆyrma – saying to us.

As a result, I conclude that the Syriac translation is not useful in this case.

Vulgate Text

The chapter and verse divisions in the Vulgate also do not correspond to those in the MT; however, the corresponding text is s follows:

Factum est autem venientibus Iudaeis qui habitabant iuxta eos et dicentibus nobis per decem vices ex omnibus locis quibus venerant ad nos.

And it came about then that when the Jews who dwelt near them (Sanballit and compatriots) came and told us ten times, out of all the places from which they came, ...

The first part of the Latin text corresponds closely with the MT reading; however, this text has changed the reported speech into a subordinate clause about the Jews who dwelled close to Sanballat.  As a result, the content of what they said ten times is completely omitted.  The Latin text suggests that Jerome was using a Hebrew text similar to that of the  source for the MT.  He then changed the content of the reported speech in an effort to make sense of a difficult passage.  

ANALYSIS OF THE MT TEXT

µymi[;P] rc,[, Wnl; Wrm]aYOw" µl;x]a, µybiv]Yh' µydIWhY“h' WaB;Arv,a}K' yhiy“w"

.Wnyle[; WbWvT;Arv,a} t/mqoM]h'AlK;mi

Except for the significance of µymi[;P] rc,[,, the first two clauses pose no difficulty.  If we accept the rabbinic interpretation for µymi[;P] rc,[,, then the resulting meaning is as follows:

And it came about, when the Jews living near them came, they repeatedly said to us…    

If we can assume that the text is essentially correct as it is, t/mqoM]h'AlK;mi must be the predicate of a verbless clause, and the remaining clause is the subject of that verbless clause.  The result of this produces the following translation:

(that) those whom you return to us are from every direction.

The problem with this rendering is that the subsequent context indicates that none of the workers left Jerusalem to return to their villages.  Rather, they employed part of their laborers as guards by night and by day to ensure that Sanballat and his cronies did not surprise them.

The first postulated scribal error was dittography of the mem to produce lK;mi instead of t/mqoM]h'AlK;.  This scribal error would not improve the semantics of the verbless clause and so is not helpful.

The second postulated scribal error consisted of the visual mistake of a vav for a yud.  The resulting text of the indirect quotation would then become

.Wnyle[; WbyviT;Arv,a} t/mqoM]h'AlK;mi

This change would result in the following:

(that) those whom you are bringing back against us are from all directions.

This corresponds approximately to the LXX reading, except that the verb in the relative clause is 3mp instead of 2mp, and the LXX text appears to have rendered a different verbal root.  Context would expect those coming against us, so the original text may well have had a different verb root.  At one time there had been more or less cordial relations between the returned Jews and the Samaritans.  The rejection of the Samaritan’s overture to assist in the rebuilding of the temple resulted in hostility, which was then exacerbated by the project to fortify Jerusalem.

MODERN TRANSLATIONS

The NASB renders this verse as follows:

12 When the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times, “They will come up against us from every place where you may turn,”

The NIV has the following translation:

12 Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, “Wherever you turn, they will attack us.”

The NKJV has the following:

12 So it was, when the Jews who dwelt near them came, that they told us ten times, “From whatever place you turn, they will be upon us.”

Each of these versions makes various changes to the content of the message, but they all translate it as direct address.  The content of the message was intended to be a warning for Nehemiah and his workmen.  This is made evident by Nehemiah's response in the next verse, and that is the reason why this verse is present in the text.  As translated the us can only refer to the speakers, not Nehemiah and his crew.  Consequently, for direct address the pronoun should be you, not us.  The pronoun us would be appropriate for indirect address, and that is the pronoun preserved in the Hebrew text. Consequently,  my suggested translation for this verse is as follows:

Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us repeatedly that they will come up against us from every direction.”

Corona virus -- The Day of YHWH?

INTRODUCTION

Since the 1970’s there has been a growing fervor over the expectation for the coming of messiah or the return of Yeshua, depending on one’s perspective.  Essentially all of the books and predictions during the 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s have proved to be wrong.  The excitement over these modern predictions is inappropriate on several counts.

·      Throughout the New Covenant writings two warnings predominate: 1) The Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night; 2) You do not know the day or the hour of His coming, so always be prepared.

·      At the end of the Olivet Discourse (Mat 24:1-44), Yeshua asserted that he had told his disciples all of the signs of the coming great tribulation so that when they saw those things starting to happen, his coming would occur during the life of that generation.

·      Among the many prophesies concerning the day of YHWH in the Hebrew bible, Amos stated the following: “Alas, you who are longing for the day of YHWH, for what purpose will the day of YHWH be for you?  It will be a day of darkness and not light; as when a man flees from a lion and a bear meets him, or when he goes home, leans on a wall, and a snake bites him.  Will not the day of YHWH be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness with it?”

Revelation chapter 8 sets forward a series of predictions about natural disasters that would happen before the start of the great tribulation:

·      1/3 of the earth, 1/3 of the trees, and all of the grass would be burned.

·      1/3 of the seas would become blood, 1/3 of the sea creatures would die, and 1/3 of the ships would be destroyed.

·      1/3 of the rivers and springs would become foul, and many people would die because of it.

·      The light from the sun, moon and stars would be diminished by 1/3.

Without debating whether these signs are primarily literal or symbolic, the obvious question is this: How could such things happen and almost nobody recognize the hand of God in judgment?

PANDEMIC

A pandemic is a disease that affects substantially all the population of a region or country.  As of March 22, 2020, the COVID-19 virus is present in 186 countries with 339,243 confirmed cases and 14,703 deaths.  The totals are certainly much greater today.  I have listened to and read what medical doctors, epidemiologists, and other experts had to say on this topic.  Apart from the common sense actions to avoid exposure and subsequent infection, several assertions were made:

·      There is no proven treatment for this infection and currently no vaccine.  No vaccine will be available for general distribution for at least a year and probably longer.

·      It is possible that no truly effective vaccine will ever be developed; it is possible that COVID-19 will simply disappear as did SARS or that it will become a seasonal affliction like colds or flu.

·       COVID-19 is not the first nor will it be the last wild animal virus to pass on to humans.  Such outbreaks from wild animal viruses will be our future.

The first two bullets are simply a realistic assessment of what has transpired over the past 20 or 30 years; the last bullet describes the consequences of what humans have themselves done based on the following:

·       Maybe, global warming may have made the environment more conducive to viral propagation.

·     People have increasingly destroyed natural habitats of wild animals and moved into those locations.  As a result, wild animals and people abide more closely together than had been common previously.

·       People in some urban areas are increasingly using wild rather than domesticated animals for food.  COVID-19 may have originated from a wild meat market in China.

Whether or not this virus has a greater mortality rate than other virus outbreaks, a person may be exposed and become a carrier and infectious without any symptoms for 20 days or more.  Because generalized testing for this virus is not yet possible in any country, asymptomatic carriers provide the primary mechanism for transmitting it to others.   As a result, this virus has spread to almost every country (186 out of 196 at last count) in the world in less than 3 months.  Official numbers for mortality rates versus total numbers for infection range from 1% to 3%; however, nobody know how many asymptomatic individuals are present, so the actual mortality rate is certainly lower that the apparent mortality rate.  The primary cause for the panic response observed throughout the world is not the mortality rate but the exponential rate of contagion that has overwhelmed available medical facilities with critically ill people in many locations.

CONSEQUENCES OF COVID-19

Quarantine/Lockdown.  When the infection was detected in China, the initial official reaction was to block any report on the situation.  After it was too late to prevent propagation of the virus to other regions, China first imposed quarantine and then total lockdown of the province where it originated.  It was too late – the virus had already propagated beyond that province due to tourists who had been there and then returned to their region or country of origin.  As the infection spread from one country to the next, each country first closed their borders, imposed quarantine on citizens returning from abroad, and finally varying degrees of lockdown on everyone.  Where I live, lockdown has been imposed on all but the most important businesses and services.  The expected duration of lockdown is unknown – initially several weeks but potentially many months.

Economic Impact of Lockdown.  As long as lockdown is in effect, only grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies, and medical service continue in operation.  That means manufacturing and other services mostly remain unavailable.  As a result, a substantial proportion of the populace, probably much more that 25%, are now unemployed for the duration of the emergency.  Governments have promised low interest loans for businesses and unemployment compensation for individuals who qualify.  (I do not.)  But consider, this is right at the start of spring in the northern hemisphere, right at the beginning of planting time for most crops.  I have never been a large-scale farmer, but I have grown much of my own food for nearly 30 years.  Planting the wrong variety or planting at the wrong time is an invitation for crop failure.  Additionally, a major plague of locusts is now underway across eastern Africa, the gulf states of the Arabian peninsula, and much of India.  This promises crop failure throughout those regions if the locusts cannot be destroyed.  (Note: During the flu epidemic of 1918 - 1920, the last wave of the flu occurred during late summer - fall of 1920 in the US.  Because so many people were sick most crops were never harvested, and the few crops that were harvested never were transported to market.  The result was famine just as the epidemic came to an end.)

Essentially all manufacturing has come to a halt in those areas affected by this virus, which now includes almost every country in the world.  This affects the laborers in those industries directly, but it also impacts all of their suppliers and everybody else all the way to retail outlets.  If the lockdown conditions last for several months, the worldwide economy could collapse.  Local availability of food and other essential products will last only as long as stores remain in warehouses.  Once those are gone, there will be no more without restoration of manufacturing and farming functions.  From the standpoint of food, most locations of the world can produce a harvest just once a year for most crops.  Modern food suppliers get around this limitation by a combination of storage and importing food from other regions of the world.  If the supply chains get broken, it will require time, perhaps much time, to rebuild them.

If you are an investor, you have witnessed the public response to this anticipated reality.  Vast amounts of capital have vanished overnight as the stock markets have crashed.  Those who managed to extract themselves from their stock positions either have chosen to hold cash or to pursue a “flight to safety” – government bonds, gold, silver, platinum, palladium, or some crypto currency.  All of these “safety” strategies depend on the assumption that the world order we have known will be restored at some point in the not too distant future.  This may never happen.

Financial Markets.  Governments of the world are all aware of this, and most of the developed countries are promising financial aid to now unemployed workers and now shut down businesses.  The world bank has promised availability of a huge amount of cash to permit restarting the world economies.  All of this is fiat cash – ink on paper.  The real value of this cash is no more than that of the paper with the ink on it.  In reality the monetary system throughout the world is a house of cards.  All of the largesse of the central banks comes at the cost of more national indebtedness.  Yet presently, essentially every country has a national debt that is many times its GNP, and debt service is often one of the biggest items or the biggest item in yearly national budgets.  When people lose confidence in their national currency, this house of cards will collapse.  Unfortunately, the “hard” currencies – gold, silver, etc., and even the crypto currencies – will not be any real answer.  The value for all of these “hard” currencies is determined by what someone is willing to give in exchange for it.  Under the circumstance of world-wide economic collapse, chaos will reign in most places, and perhaps every place.

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

Is this present pandemic the hand of God, or is it the result of natural conditions mostly created by us ourselves?  Consider the four predictions from Revelation chapter 8 that I started with:

·      1/3 of the earth, 1/3 of the trees, and all of the grass would be burned.  Last year vast areas of forest and grassland were burned by wildfires.  Even more were destroyed intentionally by slash-and-burn ranchers and farmers.

·      1/3 of the seas would become blood, 1/3 of the sea creatures would die, and 1/3 of the ships would be destroyed.  Large sections of the oceans have been designated as dead zones because they have become so polluted that they can no longer support any life.  The so-called red tide has been observed during summer in many parts of the world.  Commercial fishing has run several species of fish once abundant to near extinction.  After the British Petroleum well rig in the Gulf of Mexico blew out, the massive oil slick looked like clotted blood floating on the water.

·      1/3 of the rivers and springs would become foul, and many people would die because of it.  Both human sewage and industrial waste have so polluted the vast majority of rivers, lakes, and streams so they can no longer safely be used for drinking water.  Industrialized countries do purify their drinking water, but animals and people in poor countries are out of luck.  (Note: Revelation also predicts famine.  If farmers of the northern hemisphere are unable to plant their crops in the next few months, famine will result.  If most of the farmers in the southern hemisphere cannot harvest their crops during this same time, there will be no backup reserve.)

·      The light from the sun, moon and stars would be diminished by 1/3.  This literally is happening in places where the smog is so thick that the sunlight remains dim at mid day.  When I was still traveling for work, I can remember that each time the plane lifted off, I could see a brown stain above every major city.  Additionally, the eruption of a single super volcano could impact the atmosphere world wide, and this affect could last for years.

Except for volcanism, we humans have done all this to ourselves.  We are only experiencing the consequences of our own combined greed and selfishness.  God promised that he would visit the iniquity of the fathers on the sons up to the third and fourth generation.  This is literally happening today.

Are we seeing the hand of God?  In antiquity right up to around 200 years ago, every natural disaster and every epidemic outbreak was attributed to divine judgment for some misdeed.  They knew nothing about plate tectonics or microbes and viruses.  They did not connect cholera with the polluted water they were drinking or the black death with rat and fleas.  Today we connect everything with natural causes (or conspiracies).  Thus, the corona virus presumably came from a wild animal, and it infected one or more people at a live animal meat market.  It spread due to the shortsightedness of first the Chinese government and then that of the WHO (World Health Organization) as well as that of every government of the countries now affected.  But these are not causes, just the instrumental means by which the disease arose and was propagated.  The wild animal, whichever one it was, did not create the virus.  The ineffective actions of the governments allowed but did not cause the spread of the infection.  So what was the effective cause?

Anyone familiar with the content of the book of Revelation knows that it predicts the rise of a worldwide government headed by a brutal dictator.  The chaos that would result from a global economic collapse and famine is a scenario that would foster the rise of such a government.  If this is not the end of global human society as we have known it, then it is a wakeup call from the hand of God.  The scope of natural destruction caused by us has not yet reached that predicted by Revelation chapter 8, but it could in short order.  Thus, maybe we have some time left.  Do you think we humans will learn our lesson?   The book of Revelation indicates repeatedly that the mass of humanity does not, and I think that this will be the most probable scenario.

SHEWBREAD

INTRODUCTION

The table of shewbread (also translated show bread or bread of the Presence) are mentioned only 10 times in the Hebrew bible and at least once in the New Covenant writings.  This piece of furniture with all its furnishings was located on the north side of the holy place of the tabernacle, Solomon’s temple, and the second temple.  Bare outlines of the ritual associated with this table and the associated bread are fund in the bible, and later Jewish writings provide little additional detail.  The only thing that remains clear to a person examining the temple ritual today is that each aspect of ritual and most aspects of the tabernacle/temple had a symbolic or metaphysical significance.  Some but not all of these are explicitly explained within the text of scripture.  For those aspects of ritual or physical components that have no detailed explanation, we can use the analogy of scripture to posit an interpretation, but such explanations can only be tentative.

DESCRIPTION

A general description for the table of “show bread” is provided in Exodus 25:23-30 and then repeated in Exodus 35:13, and this table may have lasted at least until the arc of the covenant (1 Sam 4:18) was captured by the Philistines, and it may have lasted until the time of Solomon.  At any rate, 1 Kings 7:48 indicated that Solomon had new furniture made as part of the first temple construction.  Presumably, all of the temple fittings and treasure still present in the temple except the arc of the covenant were taken to Babylon in 586 BCE. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah do record the number and type of temple vessels returned to Jerusalem from Babylon, but there is no indication that the holy place furniture was included.  The second temple also included the menorah, altar of incense, and table of “show bread;” and these items were carted off to Rome after the fall of Jerusalem.  However, there is no written record of their construction.

TABLE DESCRIPTION

This table was to be 2 cubits by 1 cubit by 1.5 cubits high and built of acacia wood. (A cubit was approximately 24 in or 67 cm.)  It was to be overlaid with pure gold, and the top was to have a decorative rim.  One ring was to be attached to each leg near the rim to receive poles for carrying the table.  The poles themselves were to be made from acacia wood and overlaid with gold.  Additionally, a set of dishes, pans, jars, and bowls were to be constructed from gold to support the ritual activity associated with the “show bread.”

“SHOW BREAD”

The term translated show bread is µynIP; µj2l2.  Because the term µynIP; is always used in the plural form, it literally means either face or faces; however, this term is also used for presence, surface, person, and various other meanings in particular constructions and contexts.  Here the expression is a construct chain usually now translated bread of presence.  This is probably the most ambiguous way in which a construct chain can be translated.  Standard reference books on classical Hebrew syntax list up to 18 different meanings for the construct relation.  In this case, let me suggest that bread is symbolic, and it represents an individual or a group of individuals.  (Note: The translation a of b for a construct chain is technically correct, but it conveys essentially no information about the intended meaning in the original context.  A translator or beginning student of classical Hebrew will resort to such a rendering when he/she has no real idea what the expression is intended to communicate.)

THE RITUAL

The most detailed description of the ritual is found in Leviticus 24:5-9.  The priests were to bake 12 loaves or cakes from 1/5 of an ephah (about 4.9 pounds each) every week, and each Shabbat the old bread would be removed and replaced with the new.  The bread was to be placed on the table in two rows, and frankincense was to be placed on each row of bread.  The text further states that this whole arrangement was to be an offering by fire to YHWH.

The text does not state whether the loaves were to be leavened or not, nor does it provide any detail as to how the frankincense was to be placed on the two rows of bread.  A loaf made from 4.9 pounds of flower would be fairly large, so they would either have been unleavened cakes or flat bread. Because the old bread was to be eaten by the priests during the following week, the frankincense clearly was not placed directly on the bread but on one or more fire pans next to or on top of each row.  Additionally, the frankincense would have to be replenished, probably the first thing each morning as a minimum.  This whole series of activities constituted one of the rituals conducted by the priests every week.

POSSIBLE SIGNIFICANCE

Neither the Hebrew bible nor the Talmud provides any explanation for the significance of the ritual activity associated with these loaves of bread.  Several ancient sources do provide additional detail on how the ritual was conducted during the second temple period but no real interpretation.  Modern English translations typically render µynIP;h' µj2l2 as bread of the Presence, implying that the cakes or loaves represented the presence of YHWH.  Since the bread taken from the table each Shabbat was to be eaten by the priests rather than burned, modern biblical scholars view this as a mystical meal shared between the priests and YHWH.  Let me suggest a slightly different interpretation for the symbolic significance of the ritual.

·      µynIP;h' µj2l2 – each loaf or cake does represent an individual or group of individuals but not YHWH.  Since 12 identical loaves were required, each one represented one of the tribes of Israel without distinction from one to the other.

·      According to Josephus, the loaves were unleavened cakes that were piled in two stacks of six and placed before YHWH for a week before being replaced with fresh bread.  Since leaven often is used as a symbol for sin, the unleavened cakes would indicate that the 12 tribes abode before YHWH, who viewed them as without sin.

·      Pans of frankincense were placed either on top of or beside the two stacks of bread.  The resulting smoke has two significances.  First, it provides a visible representation of human worship rising up to the presence of YHWH.  Second, the smoke of fragrant incense is interpreted as the prayers of the people (Ps 141:2) coming up before God..

·      The priests were charged to consume the old bread after it had been in the presence of YHWH for seven days.  If we accept the idea that the loaves represented the 12 tribes, then this act is analogous to the name of the tribes being inscribed on the shoulder pieces and breastplate of the high priest’s vestments.  The high priest was charged to bear the people on his shoulders and to have them on his heart continually.  With the consumption of this bread, the priests symbolically take the people of Israel into themselves, making them representatives of corporate Israel before YHWH.