Hebrews 9:2

‘For there was a tabernacle prepared, the first, in which were the lampstand, and the table, and the showbread (literally ‘the presentation of the loaves’), which is called the Holy place.’

The ancient Tabernacle is now described and seen here as split into two smaller tabernacles, the first ‘the Holy Place’, and the second ‘the Holy of Holies’, the latter entered only from the Holy Place. In the first were the lampstand, the table, and the showbread. And this is called the Holy Place, the place set apart for God, separated to His use.

This Holy Place was the place which only the priests could enter, and they only when on holy service. Here they walked in awe and tended the golden lampstand twice daily (Exodus 25:31-40; Exodus 30:7-8). Here they replaced the showbread weekly on the Sabbath (Leviticus 24:5-8), twelve baked cakes of which, were placed in two rows on a table of acacia wood covered with gold (Exodus 25:23-30). And here they approached the altar of incense to offer incense, again twice daily (Exodus 30:7-8), and then withdrew.

That the lampstand represented the glory of God as dimly revealed to man outside the Holy of Holies, so that he might have some conception of what was within, comes out in that the two olive trees in Zechariah 4:12-14 receive their oil (their commitment to God by anointing) from the golden lampstand. Its sevenfold nature revealed the divine perfection that the light portrayed. It also represented the witness to God that Israel were intended to be, a reflection of God’s reflection, as is evidenced by the seven lampstands, representing seven churches, in Revelation 1:0. There the churches were to be ‘the light of the world’ (Matthew 5:14), separate lampstands, revealing the One sevenfold lampstand Who is the true Light of the world (John 8:12 - spoken at the feast of Tabernacles where four large lampstands were erected in the court of the women). The twelve cakes of showbread represented the constant gift to His people (the twelve tribes) of all God’s provision as the Feeder of His people, and their re-offering to Him of the bread as a symbol of, and in gratitude for, that provision. It was to be eaten by the priests in a holy place. This may well have been in Jesus’ mind when He spoke of Himself as the Bread of Life (John 6:35).