PROPOSITION, Breads of the. - Twelve ritual loaves offered to God every Sabbath on a special table in the Sanctuary, where they remained for the whole week.
They are called lēhem pāniem "bread of the face" or of the presence (Ex. 25:30; I Sam. 21:7 etc.), because they were placed before God; lēhem tāmīdh "perpetual bread" (Num. 4:7); lēhem gādheh "holy bread" (I Sam. 21:5, 7); after the exile, also lēhem ham-ma'ārehheth "bread of the pile" (I Par. 9:32; 23:29; Neh. 10:33), on account of the arrangement on the table. The Greek versions have indiscriminately: ἄρτοι τοῦ προσώπου (I Sam. 21:6; Neh. 10:33; Aquila more slavishly: προσώπων), ἄρτοι ἐνώπων (Ex. 25:30), οἱ ἄρτοι οἱ προσεύμενοι (ibid. 39:18 [36]), more often ἄρτοι τῆς προσθέσεως (ibid. 40:21; I Sam. 21:6; I Par. 9:32; 23:29 etc.; cf. Mt. 12:4 etc.; panes propositionis of the Vulgate, with inversion of the terms in Hebr. 9:2).
The p. of the p. were, at least in late times, unleavened (Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Iud., III, 6, 6; Mēnāhōth, V, 1); for each one two tenths of an ephah (about seven and a half liters) of fine flour were used (Lev. 24:5; sifted eleven times, according to Mēnāhōth, VI, 7); after the exile they were made at the expense of the Temple treasury (Neh. 10:33), in a special room (Tāmīdh, III, 3; Middōth, I, 6), by specific Levites (I Par. 9:32), in the form of cakes a finger thick, with the side edges turned up. They were arranged on the table (Ex. 25:25-30) in two piles of six, raised one above the other by means of a kind of framework of golden wires. With the loaves purest incense was also offered (Lev. 24:7; Siphra', fol. 263, 1; the Septuagint adds: "salt"). The loaves of the previous week had to be consumed by the priests in the holy place. For the exception of I Sam. 21:1-6, in view of the grave necessity of David and his followers (cf. Mt. 12:4; Mt. 2:26; Lc. 6:4), Achimelech requires a minimum of legal purity. The p. of the p. are not (against Kennedy) a survival of a pre-Mosaic religion, which would have provided food for the deity. The superiority and the spiritual character of this rite results from the fact that the p. of the p. were simply presented to God and did not disappear, as in other cults, in a mysterious manner. The law made no mystery about this (Lev. 24:9). The number twelve has been connected with the months of the year or with the signs of the zodiac, rather than with the tribes of Israel.
The rite of the p. of the p. was maintained until 70 A.D. (I Mach. 4:51; II Mach. 1:8; 10:3; Hebr. 9:2).
Bibliography7 works
Teodorico da Castel San Pietro