1 Samuel 21:3

3 Now 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.

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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 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, but the young men may eat it only if they have kept themselves from women."

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