1 Samuel 21
21
David and the Holy Bread
1 # 21:1 Ch 21:2 in Hebrew Then David came to #ch. 22:9, 11, 19; Neh. 11:32; Isa. 10:32 Nob, to #[ch. 14:3; Mark 2:26] Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech #[ch. 16:4]came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” 2And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. 3Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is #Ex. 25:30; Lev. 24:5; Matt. 12:3, 4; Mark 2:25, 26; Luke 6:3, 4 holy bread—#Ex. 19:15if the young men have kept themselves from women.” 5And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” 6So the priest gave him #[See ver. 4 above] the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, #Lev. 24:8, 9which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
7Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was #ch. 22:9; See Ps. 52Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.
8Then David said to Ahimelech, “Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.” 9And the priest said, #ch. 17:51 “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in #ch. 17:2the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here.” And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.”
David Flees to Gath
10And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to #See Ps. 34Achish the king of Gath. 11And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? #ch. 18:7; 29:5Did they not sing to one another of him in dances,
‘Saul has struck down his thousands,
and David his ten thousands’?”
12And David #[Luke 2:19]took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard. 14Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? 15Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”
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The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
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1 Samuel 21
21
David Goes to See Ahimelech the Priest
1Then David left and Jonathan went back to the town. David went to the town named Nob#21:1 Nob A city near Ramah where many priests lived. See 1 Sam. 22:19. to see Ahimelech the priest.
Ahimelech went out to meet David. He was afraid of David and asked, “Why are you alone? Why isn’t anyone with you?”
2David answered him, “The king gave me a special order. He told me, ‘Don’t let anyone know about this mission. No one must know what I told you to do.’ I told my men where to meet me. 3Now, what food do you have with you? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever you have to eat.”
4The priest said to David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread here, but I do have some of the holy bread. Your officers can eat it if they have not had sexual relations with any women.”#21:4 Your officers … women This would make the men unclean and not able to eat any food that had been made holy by offering it to God. See Lev. 7:21; 15:1-33.
5David answered the priest, “We have not been with any women. My men keep their bodies#21:5 bodies Literally, “vessels” or “weapons.” holy every time we go out to fight, even on ordinary missions.#21:5 My men … missions See 2 Sam. 11:11 and the rules in Deut. 23:9-14. And this is especially true today.”
6There was no bread except the holy bread, so the priest gave David this bread. This was the bread that the priests put on the holy table before the Lord. Each day they took this bread away and put fresh bread in its place.
7One of Saul’s officers was there that day. He was Doeg the Edomite, the leader of Saul’s shepherds.#21:7 shepherds Or “messengers.” He had been kept there before the Lord.#21:7 kept there before the Lord This might mean that Doeg was there as part of a special promise to God or some other religious reason. Or it might mean he was being held there because of some crime, such as accidentally killing a man.
8David asked Ahimelech, “Do you have a spear or sword here? The king’s business is very important. I had to leave quickly, and I didn’t bring my sword or any other weapon.”
9The priest answered, “The only sword here is the sword of Goliath the Philistine. It is the sword you took from him when you killed him in the Valley of Elah. That sword is behind the ephod, wrapped in a cloth. You may take it if you want to.”
David said, “Goliath’s sword—there’s not another one like it. Give it to me.”
David Runs Away to the Enemy at Gath
10That day David ran away from Saul and went to King Achish of Gath. 11Achish’s officers said, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land of Israel? He is the one the Israelites sing about. They dance and sing this song about him:
“Saul has killed thousands of enemies,
but David has killed tens of thousands.”
12David paid close attention to what they said. He was afraid of King Achish of Gath, 13so he pretended to be crazy in front of Achish and his officers. While David was with them, he acted like a crazy man. He spat on the doors of the gate. He let spit fall down his beard.
14Achish said to his officers, “Look at the man! He is crazy. Why did you bring him to me? 15I have enough crazy men. I don’t need you to bring this man to my house to act crazy in front of me. Don’t let this man come into my house again.”
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