Commentaria in Leviticum
For the ephah was the tenth part of a cor; that is, of 30 measures. Josephus, book 3, chap. 10, calls the tenth an assaron, and says it contained 7 cotylae. Now the cotyla, says Ribera, was a measure of 9 ounces: therefore the tenth held 63 ounces, that is 5 pounds and 3 ounces; and two tenths, and the single loaves made from them, were of ten and a half pounds. But at the end of the Pentateuch I shall show that the gomor, or assaron, was a measure containing 8 pounds, or 96 ounces, of water, or wine, or Palestinian corn. For all these weigh equally, Villalpandus testifies. Moreover a vessel containing 8 pounds of Palestinian corn held only 5 pounds of the same meal with 4 ounces. For Palestinian corn is far better than ours, denser and heavier. When, therefore, some vessel of our wheat, e.g. a gomor, gives of meal (for meal by grinding becomes looser, and so lighter than the corn) a gomor and over that a third part of a gomor, as our millers, who have carefully observed it, testify; a gomor of Palestinian wheat will give a gomor and a half of meal. Wherefore since a gomor and a half of meal weighs one and a half times as much as its gomor of wheat from which it was ground, it follows that a gomor of wheat weighing 8 pounds gave a gomor and a half of meal, so that a gomor of meal weighed 5 pounds with 4 ounces: for thus a gomor and a half of meal weighed 8 pounds of its wheat from which it was ground. A gomor, therefore, or assaron, of Palestinian wheat contained 5 pounds of meal with 4 ounces; two gomors, and the bread made from them, contained 10 pounds with 8 ounces. To this add the weight of the water which is mixed with the meal to make bread; which weight is easily a fourth part of the weight of the meal: for three ounces of meal easily, on account of the water mixed in, give four ounces of bread, as our bakers testify; wherefore the 10 pounds with 8 ounces of the meal of two assarons gave, on account of the water mixed in, 13 pounds and a half of bread. Each of these loaves, therefore, was of 13 pounds and a half. Large, therefore, were these loaves, and occupied almost the whole table (the table being small): evidently, to the great God, and giver of great things, great things are to be rendered, especially by a whole tribe and people. Finally Villalpandus thinks that each of these loaves had two gomors of meal, in memory of the fact that God on the sixth day rained down two gomors of manna for it and for the following sabbath (on which rest was to be kept), Exod. 16:22. He and others add that two tenths of fine flour contained 192 pounds, and the tenth, with water added in the bread, 16 pounds. But thus these loaves would have been too large and huge; which to avoid, others, as Robert Cenalis and Alcazar, who have written exactly on the ancient measures of the Hebrews, here and elsewhere take the tenth not of the ephah but of the gomor, whose tenth part was almost 10 ounces, which two tenths would have made a loaf of about 19 ounces, that is, of one pound and seven ounces. But to this opinion it is an obstacle that Holy Scripture and Josephus assert and express that this tenth is the assaron, and that it is a tenth not of a gomor but of an ephah, Exod. 16, last verse. Add: thus these loaves would have been too small. Let it stand therefore as has been said, that these loaves were of 13 pounds and a half.
6. UPON THE MOST CLEAN TABLE,—upon the golden table.
7. THAT THE BREAD MAY BE FOR A MEMORIAL OF THE OBLATION OF THE LORD,—as if to say: That this bread may be a perpetual memorial of the perpetual oblation which the Hebrews make to the Lord by this bread; whence from the Hebrew you may render it thus: Thou shalt put frankincense upon them, and let the frankincense be to the bread for a memorial of the burning, that is, of the burnt oblation of the Lord, as if to say: Thou shalt lay frankincense on the loaves, that the frankincense may signify the bread offered to God, and that this perpetual oblation of loaves is made to the Lord; for frankincense is burnt by fire to God alone. Vatablus and Cajetan render and explain otherwise, namely that on the sabbath the frankincense takes the place of the bread as a burning, that is, is burnt to the Lord; for memorial is called in chap. 2 and elsewhere that part of the minchah which was burnt to the Lord in place of the whole minchah.
8. EVERY SABBATH THEY SHALL BE CHANGED,—lest, namely, they be too dried or corrupted, and become unfit for eating. So Abulensis.
RECEIVED OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL,—as if to say: Whose material, that is, the flour, is given by the children of Israel, but ground by the Levites.
BY AN EVERLASTING COVENANT,—because these loaves are as it were a perpetual symbol of the covenant entered into between me and the people, and continually bring its memory to mind. I said the like of the salt of the covenant, chap. 2:13.
Hence Abulensis thinks that even in the time of the schism under Jeroboam these loaves were always offered to the Lord, and that twelve in number, as prescribed ver. 6, both because many of the twelve tribes in this schism adhered to the two tribes, to God and to the temple; and because it is here said that these rites of loaves are to be kept by an everlasting covenant, that is, as long as the old law and Judaism were to last. In like manner the twelve stones remained on the rational in the time of the schism, nay after the overthrow of the ten tribes; for Josephus testifies that he saw them on the rational.
9. AND THEY SHALL BE AARON’S AND HIS SONS’, THAT THEY MAY EAT THEM IN THE HOLY PLACE,—in the court of the tabernacle. It is not likely, as the number of priests increased, that these twelve loaves were divided among absolutely all the priests: for so each of them would not have had a morsel; but since the priests were distributed into 24 classes, as is plain 1 Paralip. 24, of which each in its turn discharged its week of ministry in the tabernacle, it is likely that each class distributed the loaves of its week among themselves. So Abulensis. From this place it is gathered that only the male sons of the priests were allowed to eat these loaves; and this is what Christ says, Matt. 12:4: “Which (the loaves of proposition) it was not lawful for him to eat, but for the priests only.” This also is indicated by what follows here: “Because it is most holy of the sacrifices of the Lord,” as if to say: These loaves are eaten only by the priests and their sons, because they are held most holy, and are among the oblations of the Lord; for they are offered in the Holy Place itself, while the victims themselves are offered outside the Holy Place in the court; but things that were very holy could be eaten only by the males of the priestly stock, as is gathered from Numbers 18:10.
Note: The offering of these loaves was not a sacrifice properly so called; for no immolation was made in them. They are called sacrifice here, that is, oblation, by catachresis. Yet our Gabriel Vasquez, part 3, disput. 220, num. 28, thinks these loaves were sacrifices: because, he says, they were baked by the priests in an oven, and that in the holy place, namely in the court, as if this baking were their change and sacrifice. But this is both uncertain, as I have said, and insufficient; for in the oven the meal was changed, not the bread. Add, this baking and change took place in the oven, not on the altar; but the altar is the proper place of sacrifice: whence also a minchah, or bread baked in a pan, on a gridiron or in an oven, was not a sacrifice unless when part of it was burnt to God on the altar, as is plain Levit. 2.
10. AND BEHOLD THERE WENT OUT, etc., FELL AT WORDS,—as if to say: And behold the Egyptian began to quarrel; for so “to go out” is sometimes taken for to attack and begin. This history is inserted here because it happened about the same time at which the preceding laws were given. The cause of the quarrel is not expressed. The Jews say he quarrelled because he was drunk. But Abulensis refutes this; for the Hebrews in the desert lacked wine and strong drink, and lived on manna and water alone, and did not exceed in food and drink, but ate equally every day, namely one gomor. Others suspect that he wished to pitch his tent with the Danites, because he was of a Danite mother, though he had an Egyptian father, and that thence the quarrel arose; but these too are guessing.