1 Samuel 20–21

JONATHAN PROTECTS DAVID

20David fled from Naioth in Ramah and came to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done?^u What did I do wrong? How have I sinned against your father so that he wants to take my life?”

²Jonathan said to him, “No, you won’t die. Listen, my father doesn’t do anything, great or small, without telling me. So why would he hide this matter from me? This can’t be true.”

³But David said, “Your father certainly knows that I have found favor with you. He has said, ‘Jonathan must not know of this, or else he will be grieved.’ ” David also swore, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you yourself live, there is but a step between me and death.”^v

⁴Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you say, I will do for you.”

⁵So David told him, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon,^w and I’m supposed to sit down and eat with the king.^x Instead, let me go, and I’ll hide in the countryside for the next two nights.^{Ay 6}If your father misses me at all, say, ‘David urgently requested my permission to go quickly to his hometown, Bethlehem,^z for an annual sacrifice^aa there involving the whole clan.’ ⁷If he says, ‘Good,’ then your servant is safe, but if he becomes angry, you will know he has evil intentions. ⁸Deal kindly with^B your servant, for you have brought me into a covenant with you before the Lord.^ab If I have done anything wrong,^ac then kill me yourself; why take me to your father?”

⁹“No!” Jonathan responded. “If I ever find out my father has evil intentions against you, wouldn’t I tell you about it?”

¹⁰So David asked Jonathan, “Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?”

¹¹He answered David, “Come on, let’s go out to the countryside.” So both of them went out to the countryside. ¹²“By the Lord, the God of Israel, I will sound out my father by this time tomorrow or the next day. If I find out that he is favorable toward you, will I not send for you and tell you? ¹³If my father intends to bring evil on you, may the Lord punish Jonathan and do so severely^a if I do not tell you and send you away so you may leave safely. May the Lord be with you,^b just as he was with my father. ¹⁴If I continue to live, show me kindness from the Lord, but if I die, ¹⁵don’t ever withdraw your kindness from my household—not even when the Lord cuts off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.”^{c 16}Then Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David,^d saying, “May the Lord hold David’s enemies accountable.”^{De 17}Jonathan once again swore to David^E in his love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.^f

¹⁸Then Jonathan said to him, “Tomorrow is the New Moon;^g you’ll be missed because your seat will be empty. ¹⁹The following day hurry down and go to the place where you hid on the day this incident began and stay beside the rock Ezel. ²⁰I will shoot three arrows beside it as if I’m aiming at a target. ²¹Then I will send a servant and say, ‘Go and find the arrows!’ Now, if I expressly say to the servant, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you—get them,’ then come, because as the Lord lives, it is safe for you and there is no problem. ²²But if I say this to the youth, ‘Look, the arrows are beyond you!’^h then go, for the Lord is sending you away. ²³As for the matter you and I have spoken about,ⁱ the Lord will be a witness^A between you and me forever.”^{j 24}So David hid in the countryside.

At the New Moon, the king sat down to eat the meal. ²⁵He sat at his usual place on the seat by the wall. Jonathan sat facing him^B and Abner took his place beside Saul, but David’s place was empty.^{k 26}Saul did not say anything that day because he thought, “Something unexpected has happened; he must be ceremonially unclean—yes, that’s it, he is unclean.”^l

²⁷However, the day after the New Moon, the second day, David’s place was still empty, and Saul asked his son Jonathan, “Why didn’t Jesse’s son come to the meal either yesterday or today?”

²⁸Jonathan answered, “David asked for my permission to go to Bethlehem.^{m 29}He said, ‘Please let me go because our clan is holding a sacrifice in the town, and my brother has told me to be there. So now, if I have found favor with you, let me go so I can see my brothers.’ That’s why he didn’t come to the king’s table.”

³⁰Then Saul became angry with Jonathan and shouted, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you are siding with Jesse’s son to your own shame and to the disgrace of your mother?^{C 31}Every day Jesse’s son lives on earth you and your kingship are not secure. Now send for him and bring him to me—he must die!”ⁿ

³²Jonathan answered his father back, “Why is he to be killed? What has he done?”^o

³³Then Saul threw his spear at Jonathan to kill him,^p so he knew that his father was determined to kill David.^{q 34}He got up from the table fiercely angry and did not eat any food that second day of the New Moon, for he was grieved because of his father’s shameful behavior toward David.

³⁵In the morning Jonathan went out to the countryside for the appointed meeting with David. A young servant was with him. ³⁶He said to the servant, “Run and find the arrows I’m shooting.”^r As the servant ran, Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him. ³⁷He came to the location of the arrow that Jonathan had shot, but Jonathan called to him and said, “The arrow is beyond you, isn’t it?”^{s 38}Then Jonathan called to him, “Hurry up and don’t stop!” Jonathan’s servant picked up the arrow and returned to his master. ³⁹He did not know anything; only Jonathan and David knew the arrangement. ⁴⁰Then Jonathan gave his equipment to the servant who was with him and said, “Go, take it back to the city.”

⁴¹When the servant had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone Ezel, fell facedown to the ground, and paid homage three times.^t Then he and Jonathan kissed each other and wept with each other, though David wept more.^u

⁴²Jonathan then said to David, “Go in the assurance the two of us pledged in the name of the Lord when we said, ‘The Lord will be a witness between you and me and between my offspring and your offspring forever.’ ”^v Then David left, and Jonathan went into the city.

DAVID FLEES TO NOB

21David went to the priest Ahimelech^a at Nob.^b Ahimelech was afraid to meet David, so he said to him, “Why are you alone and no one is with you?”

²David answered the priest Ahimelech, “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. ³Now what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever can be found.”

⁴The priest told him, “There is no ordinary bread on hand. However, there is consecrated bread,^c but the young men may eat it^A only if they have kept themselves from women.”^d

⁵David answered him, “I swear that women are being kept from us, as always when I go out to battle.^e The young men’s bodies^B are consecrated^f even on an ordinary mission, so of course their bodies are consecrated today.” ⁶So the priest gave him the consecrated bread,^g for there was no bread there except the Bread of the Presence^h that had been removed from the presence of the Lord. When the bread was removed, it had been replaced with warm bread.

⁷One of Saul’s servants, detained before the Lord, was there that day. His name was Doeg the Edomite,ⁱ chief of Saul’s shepherds.

⁸David said to Ahimelech, “Do you have a spear or sword on hand? I didn’t even bring my sword or my weapons since the king’s mission was urgent.”

⁹The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine,^j whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want to take it for yourself, then take it, for there isn’t another one here.”

“There’s none like it!” David said. “Give it to me.”

DAVID FLEES TO GATH

¹⁰David fled that day from Saul’s presence and went to King Achish of Gath.^{k 11}But Achish’s servants said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Don’t they sing about him during their dances:

Saul has killed his thousands,

but David his tens of thousands?”^l

¹²David took this to heart and became very afraid of King Achish of Gath, ¹³so he pretended to be insane in their presence.^m He acted like a madman around them,^C scribbling^A on the doors of the city gate and letting saliva run down his beard.

¹⁴“Look! You can see the man is crazy,” Achish said to his servants. “Why did you bring him to me? ¹⁵Do I have such a shortage of crazy people that you brought this one to act crazy around me? Is this one going to come into my house?”ⁿ