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Bible Dictionaries
Bread
Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary
or Sometimes bread is spoken of in Scripture in the common acceptation of it, as the staff of natural life, but more frequently it is used in figure, by way of allusion to the Lord Jesus and the life in him. Jesus calls himself "the living bread, and the bread of God;" to intimate, that as the natural man is sustained day by day, life kept up and preserved by receiving the common bread for the body, so the spiritual life in Jesus is wholly supported by communications from Jesus, and life in Jesus. "Whosoever eateth of him shall live for ever." (John 6:32-58)
The shew bread of the Old Testament was of Christ. It consisted of twelve loaves made without leaven, to intimate that there is nothing leavened in Christ. The shew bread was placed new upon the golden altar. Christ is our New Testament altar; and all offerings must be offered upon the golden altar of his mediatorial nature. The shew bread was placed there every Sabbath. Christ is our Sabbath, and the rest the wherewith the Lord causeth "the weary to rest, and their refreshing." (See Exodus 25:30; Isaiah 28:12; Psalms 116:7; Matthew 11:28) It may not be improper to add, that the term shew bread meant the bread of faces; and, probably, it was so called, because offered in the presence of the Lord, and placed before him on the table. The Israelites called all their loaves by the name of Huggath.
The unleavened bread of the passover, there is particular mention made of it, Exodus 12:8. And concerning leavened bread, with which the blood of the sacrifice was never to be offered, what a beautiful type was this of the untainted, pure offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all. No altar but that of earth, (because the earth is the Lord's,) was to be made for offering. If but a tool was lifted up upon the altar of earth, or stone, the whole was polluted. (Exodus 23:18; Exo 20:24-25) And is it not the same now in the believer's offerings in Jesus? When in commemoration of the Lord's supper we partake of the bread and wine, as tokens of the body and blood of Christ, would it not be a pollution to leaven this solemn service with any thing of ours? Is not Christ all and in all?
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Hawker, Robert D.D. Entry for 'Bread'. Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance and Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/pmd/b/bread.html. London. 1828.
