1 Samuel 21:1-6

David Flees to Nob

1 David went to Ahimelech the priest at Nob. Ahimelech was afraid to meet David, so he said to him, "Why are you alone and no one is with you?"

2 David answered Ahimelech the priest, "The king gave me a mission, but he told me, 'Don't let anyone know anything about the mission I'm sending you on or what I have ordered you [to do].' I have stationed [my] young men at a certain place.

3 Now what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever can be found."

4 The priest told him, "There is no ordinary bread on hand. However, there is consecrated bread,^[a] but the young men may eat it^[b] only if they have kept themselves from women."^[c]

5 David answered him, "I swear that women are being kept from us, as always when I go out [to battle].^[d] The young men's bodies^[e] are consecrated even on an ordinary mission, so of course their bodies are consecrated today."

6 So the priest gave him the consecrated [bread], for there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord. When the bread was removed, it had been replaced with warm bread.

1 Samuel 21:1-6 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 21

This chapter relates that David went to Nob, and pretending he was on secret business for the king, got shewbread, and the sword of Goliath, from Ahimelech the priest, 1Sa 21:1-9; and that passing from thence to Gath, where he was known, through fear feigned himself mad, and so escaped from thence, 1Sa 21:10-15.

Footnotes

• [a]. Ex 25:30; Lv 24:5-9; Mt 12:3-4
• [b]. DSS; MT omits may eat it
• [c]. Ex 19:15
• [d]. 2 Sm 11:11
• [e]. Lit vessels