25:23-30 records the instructions to build the table. The table was situated in the outer room of the mishkan proper facing the menorah, 26:35. While it is not clear how the table looked, the point of the table was to display bread, 25:30. Vayikra 24:5-9 records more information concerning the bread. There were twelve loaves that were placed on the table in two rows of six. Also, each Shabbat, the loaves would be replaced and the priests would eat the old loaves.
Several reasons have been suggested for the table and the bread. Rabbenu Bachya (on 25:23) writes that they are to remind a person that his food and sustenance comes from G-d. Yet, how was this message derived if the bread was made by people? Rabbenu Bachya quotes Chazal that the bread was particularly filling, which he explains was because G-d blessed the bread.
Seforno (on 25:23) writes that the table was based on the practice of placing a table before ministers. Apparently the idea is that mishkan was to follow the plans of a royal throne, with the aron representing the throne and the table would be situated before the throne. Yet, what then was the purpose of the bread?
My guess is that table with the bread are related to the covenant between G-d and the Jewish people. What is the connection? The answer is that in the Torah we see that participants to a covenant eat after they have established a covenant. This eating occurs both when a covenant is made between man and G-d or between man and man. For example, Bereshit 26:28-30 records that Yitzhak and Avimelekh made a treaty and then they ate together. Similarly, Yaakov and Lavan made a treaty together and they also ate afterwards, Bereshit 44-54. By the covenant at Mount Sinai, 24:11 records how the leaders of the people ate. Similarly, by the covenantal ceremony on Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval, Devarim 27:7 records how the people were to eat by the ceremony. I also believe that the bringing and hence the eating of the korban pesach in the desert (Bemidbar 9:1-5) was part of the re-establishment of the covenant at Mount Sinai after the people had sinned with the golden calf. (Possibly also the eating of the korban pesach in Egypt part of the covenantal process.) Also, the eating by the messengers of G-d in Bereshit 18:8 is part of the establishment of the covenant of Bereshit 17. (Note by the covenant by Noah, Bereshit 9:8-17, and the covenant of the pieces, Bereshit 15, there is no explicit reference to eating though there laws relating to eating (by Noah) and a fire passing through animals (covenant of the pieces), because the covenants were unilateral that no requirements were placed on Noah or Avraham.)
There seems to be two possible rationales for this connection between eating and making a covenant. It could be that the eating signifies a celebration of making the covenant or as proposed by Robert Sacks, (1990, p. 376-8) eating represents unity, which signifies that a covenant is an agreement which unifies two separate parties.
In any event, once there is a relationship between eating and establishing the covenant, then the role of the bread and the table, which holds the bread, becomes clear. The bread symbolizes the existence of the covenant between the Jewish people and G-d, and it was considered as being placed before G-d, 25:30 and Vayikra 24:8. The bread had to be eaten each week since eating after the covenant signified the completion of the covenant. There were twelve loaves because this represents all of the tribes of the Jewish people who were party to the covenant. Furthermore, even the division of the loaves into two groups of six also relates to the covenant since at the covenantal ceremony on Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval the tribes were also divided into two groups of six, Devarim 27:12,13. In addition, the bread was switched on Shabbat since Shabbat is a sign of the relationship between G-d and the Jewish people, 31:13. Interestingly both by the observance of the Shabbat (Shemot 31:16) and by the placing of the bread (Vayikra 24:8), the Torah uses the term brit olam, a covenant for all time, to stress the people's obligation to uphold these laws, as the commitment to these laws symbolize the people's eternal commitment to the covenant.
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