1 Samuel 21:1-7

David Takes Consecrated Bread

1 Then David came to ¹Nob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech ²came 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, '³Let 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 ⁴consecrated bread; if only the young men have ⁵kept themselves from women."

5 David answered the priest and said to him, "⁶Surely * women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the ⁷vessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey; how much * more * then today will their vessels be holy?"

6 So ⁸the priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the ⁹bread of the Presence which was removed from before the LORD, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away.

7 Now one of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the LORD; and his name was ¹⁰Doeg the Edomite, the ¹¹chief of Saul's shepherds.

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1 Samuel 21:1-7 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.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 11

1. 1 Samuel 22:19; Nehemiah 11:32; Isaiah 10:32
2. 1 Samuel 16:4
3. Psalms 141:3
4. Exodus 25:30; Leviticus 24:5-9; Matthew 12:4
5. Exodus 19:15
6. Exodus 19:14, 15
7. 1 Thessalonians 4:4
8. Matthew 12:3, 4; Luke 6:3, 4
9. Leviticus 24:5-9
10. 1 Samuel 14:47; 1 Samuel 22:9; Ps 52: title
11. 1 Chronicles 27:29, 31

Footnotes 4

[a]. Lit "is under your hand?"
[b]. Lit "in my hand"
[c]. Lit "under my hand"
[d]. Lit "it" be holy "in the vessel"