1 Samuel 21:3

3 Now then, {what do you have at hand}? Give me five [loaves] of bread or {whatever is here}."

1 Samuel 21:3 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 21:3

Now therefore what is under thine hand?
&c.] Meaning, what food had he in his house?

give [me] five [loaves of] bread in mine hand;
to take with him, for him and his servants in such a place:

or what there is present;
or to be found ^F7 in the tabernacle; if not five loaves, two, or three, or four, or what food soever he had by him.

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 (aumnh) "quicquid inveneris", V. L, "inventum", Montanus; "quicquid inventum fuerit", Tigurine version.

1 Samuel 21:3 In-Context

1 Now David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came trembling to meet David, and he said to him, "Why are you alone and there are no men with you?"

2 So David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king charged me [with] a matter and said to me, 'No one must know anything about this matter [on] which I am sending you, [with] which I have charged you and the servants.'" So {I have arranged to meet with my servants at a certain place}.

3 Now then, {what do you have at hand}? Give me five [loaves] of bread or {whatever is here}."

4 The priest answered David and said, "There is no ordinary bread {here at hand}; there is only holy bread, [but] only if the young men have kept themselves from women."

5 David answered the priest and said to him, "Indeed, women [were] held back from us {as it has been when I've gone out before}. And the things of the young men are holy when it [is] an ordinary journey. {How much more} {today} will the things be holy?"

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "what [is] there under your hand"
• [b]. Literally "that which [is] found"