“You shall also make a table of acacia wood … And you shall overlay it with pure gold …” (Ex 25:23-24, NKJ)
The second piece of “furniture” in the Holy Place was a table with showbread. There were detailed specifications regarding the making of this smallish table (Ex 25:23-30). The Levitical priests placed twelve pieces of showbread on this table on a weekly basis along with the offers of incense (Lev 24:5-9). This bread was also called “the bread of presence” (Ex 25:30), the “bread of ordering” (1 Chron 9:32), or “holy bread” (Num 4:7; 1 Sam 21:1-6).
The table for the showbread was made from acacia – as were almost all the other wooden products in and around the tabernacle of Moses. (We know the acacia as the thorn tree in South Africa.) Why was this tree so specifically used?
In Hebrew the word for acacia is “shittim”, which has as its root meaning “scourging thorns”. Throughout Scripture thorns are a sign of the curse that came upon man and ground with the Fall: “Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” (Gen 3:18-19). Note: not only will thorns cover the land that man inhabits and, as such, make his work on earth difficult, it will also characterise the nature of who we are – barren earth covered with thorns. And Heb 6:8 states it plainly: if this earth “bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned”. Thus it is the reality of the fallen man: in this fallen state there will always be thorns in man’s tabernacle (Hos 9:6).
For this reason Christ wore a crown of thorns (John 19:5). Sela.
And God takes our fallen humanity and clothes it with pure gold. This gold, as we’ve pointed out several times, indicates Christ (Rev 3:18); but also: His purified Bride is a city of gold (Rev 21:21)! She has been built with His revelation knowledge and clothed with His glory (Is 60:1).
- Sela: Try to understand Num 33:55 and Josh 23:13 in the light of this teaching.
- Read: Ex 23; Ps 73; Rom 15.
- Memorise: Rom 15:18a
