1 Then came David to Nob to Ahimelech the priest: and Ahimelech came to meet David trembling, and said to him, Why are you alone, and no man with you?
2 David said to Ahimelech the priest, The king has commanded me a business, and has said to me, Let no man know anything of the business about which I send you, and what I have commanded you: and I have appointed the young men to such and such a place.
3 Now therefore what is under your hand? give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever there is present.
4 The priest answered David, and said, There is no common bread under my hand, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.
5 David answered the priest, and said to him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days; when I came out, the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was but a common journey; how much more then today shall their vessels be holy?
6 So the priest gave him holy [bread]; for there was no bread there but the show bread, that was taken from before Yahweh, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.
7 Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before Yahweh; and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the best of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul.
8 David said to Ahimelech, Isn't there here under your hand spear or sword? for I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste.
9 The priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if you will take that, take it; for there is no other except that here. David said, There is none like that; give it me.
10 David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath.
11 The servants of Achish said to him, "Isn't this David the king of the land? Didn't they sing one to another about him in dances, saying, 'Saul has slain his thousands, David his ten thousands?'"
12 David laid up these words in his heart, and was very afraid of Achish the king of Gath.
13 He changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down on his beard.
14 Then said Achish to his servants, Look, you see the man is mad; why then have you brought him to me?
15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 1 Samuel 21
Commentary on 1 Samuel 21 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 21
David has now quite taken leave both of Saul's court and of his camp, has bidden farewell to his alter idem-his other self, the beloved Jonathan; and henceforward to the end of this book he is looked upon and treated as an outlaw and proclaimed a traitor. We still find him shifting from place to place for his own safety, and Saul pursuing him. His troubles are very particularly related in this and the following chapters, not only to be a key to the Psalms, but that he might be, as other prophets, an example to the saints in all ages, "of suffering affliction, and of patience,' and especially that he might be a type of Christ, who, being anointed to the kingdom, humbled himself, and was therefore highly exalted. But the example of the suffering Jesus was a copy without a blot, that of David was not so; witness the records of this chapter, where we find David in his flight,
Justly are troubles called temptations, for many are by them drawn into sin.
1Sa 21:1-9
Here,
Thus was David well furnished with arms and victuals; but it fell out very unhappily that there was one of Saul's servants then attending before the Lord, Doeg by name, that proved a base traitor both to David and Ahimelech. He was by birth an Edomite (v. 7), and though proselyted to the Jewish religion, to get the preferment he now had under Saul, yet he retained the ancient and hereditary enmity of Edom to Israel. He was master of the herds, which perhaps was then a place of as much honour as master of the horse is now. Some occasion or other he had at this time to wait on the priest, either to be purified from some pollution or to pay some vow; but, whatever his business was, it is said, he was detained before the Lord. He must attend and could not help it, but he was sick of the service, snuffed at it, and said, What a weariness is it! Mal. 1:13. He would rather have been any where else than before the Lord, and therefore, instead of minding the business he came about, was plotting to do David a mischief and to be revenged on Ahimelech for detaining him. God's sanctuary could never secure such wolves in sheep's clothing. See Gal. 2:4.
1Sa 21:10-15
David, though king elect, is here an exile-designed to be master of vast treasures, yet just now begging his bread-anointed to the crown, and yet here forced to flee from his country. Thus do God's providences sometimes seem to run counter to his promises, for the trial of his people's faith, and the glorifying of his name, in the accomplishment of his counsels, notwithstanding the difficulties that lay in the way. Here is,