And thou shall make the dishes thereof
On which the shewbread loaves were set. Jarchi says they were of
the form of the bread, and that there were two sorts, one of
gold, and one of iron; in the iron one the bread was baked, and
when they took it out of the oven, they put it into the golden
one until the morrow of the sabbath, when they set it in order
upon the table; and that form is called "Kaarah", which we render
a dish:
and the spoons thereof;
or rather "cups"; these, Jarchi says, were censers, in which they
put the frankincense; and there were two of them for the two
handfuls of frankincense, which they put upon the two rows of
shewbread, ( Leviticus
24:7 ) ( Numbers 7:14
) . Josephus F24 calls them vials, and says, that on
the bread were put two golden vials full of frankincense:
and the covers thereof, and the bowls thereof, to cover
withal;
the one to cover the bread, and the other to cover the
frankincense; or all the above said vessels were to cover the
table, and with them all it must be pretty well covered with
vessels. The Jews give a different account of these two last, and
of their use, which we render "covers" and "bowls": the first of
these Jarchi says were like the half of hollow reeds divided to
their length, made of gold; and three of them were laid in order
on the top of every loaf, so that one loaf rested upon these
reeds; and they separated between loaf and loaf, so that the air
could come in between them, and they did not become mouldy; the
latter, he says, were props like stakes of gold standing on the
ground, and they were higher than the table, even as high as the
rows of bread; and they were forked with live forks, one above
another, and the tops (or ends) of the reeds, which were between
each loaf, rested upon these forks, that so the weight of the
upper loaves might not be too heavy for the lower ones, and break
them. A like account of them Ben Melech gives, and observes, that
some make the first word to signify the props, and the second the
reeds; and so they are interpreted by Maimonides F25; and,
according to the Misnah F26, the props were four, and the reeds
twenty eight. According to the Septuagint version, these were
vessels used in libations, or drink offerings; and the last
clause is rendered in it, "with which thou shall pour out": wine
or oil, and so in some other versions; but it will be difficult
to find any use for such libations or drink offerings at this
table.