1 Samuel 21:3

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

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.

---

FOOTNOTES:

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

1 Samuel 21:3 In-Context

1 Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, "Why are you alone and no one with you?"

2 David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to me, 'Let no one know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commissioned you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.'

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

4 The priest answered David and said, "There is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is consecrated bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women."

5 David answered the priest and said to him, "Surely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then today will their vessels be holy?"

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit "is under your hand?"
• [b]. Lit "in my hand"