Komentaryo sa Exodo 25:29: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi, Chizkuni & Ramban

“Make its bowls” [25:29]. You shall make bowls. This was an iron form into which the bread was placed into the oven. When the bread was taken out of the form, it was placed into a golden form and placed on the Table until the Sabbath morning.²⁹Rashi, Exodus, 25:29.

ועשית קערתיו וכפתיו AND THOU SHALT MAKE THE DISHES THEREOF AND THE SPOONS THEREOF — קערתיו are the forms (moulds) that were made to fit the shape of the bread (Menachot 97a). The bread was shaped like a case broken open as regards two of its sides (two opposite sides of which have been removed; these are what we would call the front and the back). It had a bottom underneath, but no top, and this bottom was turned up on both ends to form, as it were, walls. On this account it was called לחם הפנים, “bread with faces” — because it had faces (surfaces) looking in both directions towards the sides of the House (the Sanctuary). The bread was placed lengthwise across the breadth of the table with its sides standing up exactly in a line with the edge of the table. There were made for it a golden mould and an iron mould: in the iron one it was baked, and when it was taken out from the oven it was put on the golden one until the next day, the Sabbath, when it was arranged on the table (the mould then being removed). This golden mould is here called קערה (Menachot 94a; cf. also Berliner’s Rashi 2nd ed. p. 426).

ועשית קערותיו, “you are to make its bowls, etc.;” in which to knead the dough for the showbreads which would be displayed on it (the table).