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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1 Samuel 21: ESV
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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 at Nob
1 # 21:1
1 Samuel 21:1–15
in English Bibles is 1 Samuel 21:2–16 in the Hebrew Bible. David went to the priest Ahimelech at Nob. Ahimelech was trembling as he went to meet David. “Why are you alone?” he asked David. “Why is no one with you?”
2“The king ordered me to do something,” David answered the priest Ahimelech, “and he told me, ‘No one must know anything about this mission I’m sending you on and about the orders I’ve given you. I’ve stationed #21:2 Dead Sea Scrolls, Greek; Masoretic Text “I’ve informed.” my young men at a certain place.’ ” 3⌞David added,⌟ “Now, what do you have ⌞to eat⌟? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever you can find.”
4“I don’t have any ordinary bread,” the chief priest answered David. “But there is holy bread for the young men if they haven’t had sexual intercourse ⌞today⌟.”
5David answered the priest, “Of course women have been kept away from us as usual when we go ⌞on a mission⌟. The young men’s bodies are kept holy even on ordinary campaigns. How much more then will their bodies be holy today?”
6So the priest gave him holy ⌞bread⌟ because he only had the bread of the presence which had been taken from the Lord’s presence and replaced with warm bread that day.
7That same day one of Saul’s servants who was obligated to stay in the Lord’s presence was there. His name was Doeg. A foreman for Saul’s shepherds, he was from Edom.
8David asked Ahimelech, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I didn’t take either my spear or any other weapon because the king’s business was urgent.”
9The chief priest answered, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Elah Valley, is here. It is wrapped in a cloth behind the priestly ephod.#21:9 Ephod is a technical term for a part of the priest’s clothes. Its exact usage and shape are unknown. If you want to take it, take it. There’s no other weapon here.”
David said, “There’s none like it. Let me have the sword.”
David at Gath
10That day David left. He was ⌞still⌟ fleeing from Saul when he came to King Achish of Gath. 11Achish’s officers asked, “Isn’t this David, the king of ⌞his⌟ country? He’s the one they used to sing about in the dances:
‘Saul has defeated thousands
but David tens of thousands.’ ”
12When David realized what they had said, he was terrified of King Achish of Gath. 13So he changed his behavior ⌞when he was⌟ in their presence and acted insane ⌞as long as he was⌟ under their authority. He scribbled on the doors of the city gate and let his spit run down his beard.
14Achish said to his officers, “Look at him! Don’t you see ⌞that he’s⌟ insane? Why bring him to me? 15Do I have such a shortage of lunatics that you bring this man so that he can show me he is insane? Does this man have to come into my house?”
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