1 Samuel 21:3

3 [David added,] "Now, what do you have [to eat]? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever you can find."

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 the priest Ahimelech at Nob. Ahimelech was trembling as he went to meet David. "Why are you alone?" he asked David. "Why is no one with you?"

2 "The king ordered me to do something," David answered the priest Ahimelech, "and he told me, 'No one must know anything about this mission I'm sending you on and about the orders I've given you. I've stationed my young men at a certain place.'"

3 [David added,] "Now, what do you have [to eat]? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever you can find."

4 "I don't have any ordinary bread," the chief priest answered David. "But there is holy bread for the young men if they haven't had sexual intercourse [today]."

5 David answered the priest, "Of course women have been kept away from us as usual when we go [on a mission]. The young men's bodies are kept holy even on ordinary campaigns. How much more then will their bodies be holy today?"