UST 1SA Chapter 21

◄ 1SA 21 ► ║ ═ ©

21 David fled from there and went to the city of Nob. Ahimelech, the high priest, was there with the sacred chest. Ahimelech shook with fear when he saw David coming. He asked David, “Why have you not brought any soldiers with you?” 2 David did not tell him the truth. He told Ahimelech, “I have come on a special mission from the king. I am alone because he told me that no one should find out about what he sent me to do. But I will have soldiers with me. I have told them to meet me at a specific place, but I must not say where that is. 3 Please tell me, do you have any food here that you could give me? Could you give me five loaves of bread, or whatever other food might be here?” 4 Ahimelech told David, “There is no ordinary bread here, but I have some of the sacred bread that we put on the table in the sacred tent. I will give your men that bread to eat if they have not recently become ceremonially unclean by having sexual relations with women.” 5 David replied, “As I have always done in the past when I have led my soldiers on a mission, I have not allowed them to become ceremonially unclean by having sexual relations before they left. They have remained ceremonially clean even on ordinary missions. So you can be sure that they have remained ceremonially clean for this special mission.” 6 Now the only bread that the priest had available was some bread that the priests had put on the table in Yahweh’s presence in the sacred tent. They had later removed that bread to replace it with fresh bread. So the priest gave David several loaves of it. 7 On that day a man who worked for Saul was at the sacred tent. His name was Doeg. He came from the Edomite people group. King Saul had made him the supervisor of all of his shepherds. Doeg needed to stay at the sacred tent until he had fulfilled a religious duty. He saw what Ahimelech did to help David. 8 David asked Ahimelech, “Do you have a spear or a sword here that you could give me? The king commanded me to leave right away on this mission, so I did not even have time to get any weapons.” 9 Ahimelech replied, “The only sword I have here is the sword that belonged to Goliath, the warrior champion of the Philistine people group. You killed him in the Valley of Elah. You will find that sword behind the sacred apron in the sacred tent. It has a cloth around it. If you want it, you may take it.” David replied, “There is certainly no other sword that is as good as that one! Please give it to me.” 10 So Ahimelech gave it to him, and David left that same day so that Saul would not capture him. He ran away to the Philistine city of Gath. He offered to work for Achish, the king of that city. 11 But the officers of King Achish did not approve of David’s coming. They said to King Achish, “This man David is the king of Israel! The women in Israel sing about him as they dance,

“Saul has killed thousands of enemy soldiers,

And David has killed tens of thousands of them!”

12 David was very concerned about what those officers were saying. It made him very afraid of what King Achish might do to him. 13 So whenever he was with those officers or the king, he acted differently. For as long as he was in Gath, where they could harm him, he pretended that he was insane. When he was waiting in the court outside the palace, he would scratch all over the gate that led into the palace. He also drooled so much that saliva ran down onto his beard. 14 Then King Achish said to his men, “Look at this man! He is acting crazy! You should not have brought him to me! 15 I already have enough crazy people around me! You do not need to bring me any more! I do not want this man to serve me in my palace.”

1SA C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24 C25 C26 C27 C28 C29 C30 C31