1 Samuel 21
21
David Flees from Saul
1 #
Matt 12.3,4; Mark 2.25,26; Luke 6.3. Then came David to Nob to Ahim´elech the priest: and Ahim´elech was afraid at the meeting of David, and said unto him, Why art thou alone, and no man with thee? 2And David said unto Ahim´elech the priest, The king hath commanded me a business, and hath said unto me, Let no man know any thing of the business whereabout I send thee, and what I have commanded thee: and I have appointed my servants to such and such a place. 3Now therefore what is under thine hand? give me five loaves of bread in mine hand, or what there is present. 4And the priest answered David, and said, There is no common bread under mine hand, but there is hallowed bread; if the young men have kept themselves at least from women. 5And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified this day in the vessel. 6#Lev 24.5-9. So the priest gave him hallowed bread: for there was no bread there but the showbread, that was taken from before the Lord, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.
7Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord; and his name was Do´eg, an Edomite, the chiefest of the herdmen that belonged to Saul.
8And David said unto Ahim´elech, And is there not here under thine hand spear or sword? for I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste. 9#1 Sam 17.51. And the priest said, The sword of Goli´ath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if thou wilt take that, take it: for there is no other save that here. And David said, There is none like that; give it me.
10And David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11#1 Sam 18.7; 29.5. And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying,
Saul hath slain his thousands,
and David his ten thousands?
12 #
Ps 56 Title. And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13#Ps 34 Title. And he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard. 14Then said Achish unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad: wherefore then have ye brought him to me? 15Have I need of madmen, that ye have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house?
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1 Samuel 21: KJVAAE
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King James Version 1611, spelling, punctuation and text formatting modernized by ABS in 1962; typesetting © 2010 American Bible Society.
1 Samuel 21
21
1David went to the town of Nob to see Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech was trembling in fear when he met him, and he asked, “Why are you here alone? Why isn't there anybody with you?”
2“The king has given me an assignment,” David replied. “He told me ‘Nobody must know anything about the assignment I have sent you to do.’ As for my men, I've told them where to meet me. 3So what do you have on hand to eat? Let me have five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”
4“There's no ordinary bread,” the priest told David, “but there's some holy bread, as long as your men have not slept with any women lately.”
5“We have not slept with any women,” David answered. “In fact that's the rule when I lead the troops on mission. They keep themselves pure even during ordinary missions, and all the more so right now.”
6So the priest gave him the holy bread as they didn't have any other bread there except this “Bread of the Presence,” which had been removed from the presence of the Lord#21:6. In other words removed from the Tent of Meeting. that day and replaced with fresh bread.
7One of Saul's servants happened to be there that day, trying to make himself right#21:7. “Make himself right”: literally “detained.” It appears Doeg was offering a sacrifice for some sin he had committed and that the priest Ahimelech was aware of. This seems to be one reason Doeg informed on David (22:9) and executed Saul's command to kill Ahimelech and the other priests. with the Lord. He was Doeg the Edomite, Saul's chief shepherd.
8“Have you got a spear or sword here?” David asked Ahimelech. “I didn't bring my sword or any of my weapons with me, because what the king needed me to do was urgent.”
9The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine is here—the one you killed in the Valley of Elah. It's wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. You can take it if you want. It's the only one here.”
“It's better than any other sword! Please give it to me,” David replied.
10David ran away from Saul that day and went to Achish, king of Gath.#21:10. Gath was a Philistine town.
11But Achish's officials asked the king, “Isn't this David, the king of that country? Didn't they sing about him in their dances, ‘Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?”
12David listened carefully to what they said and this made him very afraid of Achish, the king of Gath. 13So he changed the way he acted toward them and pretended to be crazy. He scratched marks on the town gates and let his spit run down his beard. 14Achish told his officials, “Look, you can see the man is completely mad! Why did you bring him to me? 15Is it because I need more mad people that you've brought this man to go crazy right in front of me? Do you think I'm going to let him come into my house?”
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Dr. Jonathan Gallagher. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Version 4.3. For corrections send email to jonathangallagherfbv@gmail.com