1 Samuel 20–22

CHAPTER 20

David and Jonathan’s Covenant

¹Then David fled from Naioth in Ramah and came and ^asaid before Jonathan, “What have I done? What is my iniquity? And what is my sin before your father, that he is seeking my life?”

²And he said to him, “Far from it, you shall not die. Behold, my father does nothing either great or small without revealing it in my ear. So why should my father hide this thing from me? It is not so!”

³Yet David ^aswore again, ¹saying, “Your father knows well that I have found favor in your sight, and he has said, ‘Do not let Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved.’ But truly ^bas Yahweh lives and as your soul lives, there is ²hardly a step between me and death.”

⁴Then Jonathan said to David, “Whatever your soul says, I will do for you.”

⁵So David said to Jonathan, “Behold, tomorrow is ^athe new moon, and I ought ^bto sit down to eat with the king. But let me go, ^cthat I may hide myself in the field until the third evening.

⁶“If your father misses me at all, then say, ‘David earnestly asked leave of me to run to ^aBethlehem his city because it is ^bthe yearly sacrifice there for the whole family.’

⁷“If he ¹says, ‘It is good,’ your servant will have peace; but if he is very angry, ^aknow that he has decided on evil.

⁸“Therefore show lovingkindness to your servant, for ^ayou have brought your servant into a covenant of Yahweh with you. But ^bif there is iniquity in me, put me to death yourself; for why then should you bring me to your father?”

⁹And Jonathan said, “Far be it from you! For if I should indeed come to know that evil has been decided by my father to come upon you, then would I not tell you about it?”

¹⁰Then David said to Jonathan, “Who will tell me ¹if your father answers you harshly?”

¹¹And Jonathan said to David, “Come, and let us go out into the field.” So both of them went out to the field.

¹²Then Jonathan said to David, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, be witness! When I have examined my father about this time tomorrow, or the third day, behold, if there is good feeling toward David, shall I not then send to you and reveal it in your ear?

¹³“If it please my father to do you harm, ^amay Yahweh do so to Jonathan and more also, if I do not reveal it in your ear and send you away, that you may go in peace. And ^bmay Yahweh be with you as He has been with my father.

¹⁴“And if I am still alive, will you not show me the lovingkindness of Yahweh, that I may not die?

¹⁵“^aYou shall not cut off your lovingkindness from my house forever, not even when Yahweh cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.”

¹⁶So Jonathan cut a covenant with the house of David, saying, “^aMay Yahweh require it at the hands of David’s enemies.”

¹⁷And Jonathan made David swear again because of his love for him, because ^ahe loved him as he loved his own soul.

¹⁸Then Jonathan said to him, “^aTomorrow is the new moon, and you will be missed because your seat will be missing.

¹⁹“When you have stayed for three days, you shall go down quickly and come to the place ¹where you hid yourself on that eventful day, and you shall remain by the stone Ezel.

²⁰“And I will shoot three arrows to the side, as though I sent them towards a target.

²¹“And behold, I will send the young man, saying, ‘Go, find the arrows.’ If I specifically say to the young man, ‘Behold, the arrows are on this side of you, get them,’ then come, for there is peace for you and ¹no harm, as Yahweh lives.

²²“But if I ¹say to the youth, ‘^aBehold, the arrows are beyond you,’ go, for Yahweh has sent you away.

²³“^aAs for the ¹agreement of which you and I have spoken, behold, ^bYahweh is between you and me forever.”

²⁴So David hid in the field; and when the new moon came, the king sat down to eat food.

²⁵And the king sat on his seat as usual, the seat by the wall; then Jonathan rose up, and Abner sat down by Saul’s side, but ^aDavid’s place was missing.

²⁶Nevertheless Saul did not speak anything that day, for he said, “It is an accident; ^ahe is not clean; surely he is not clean.”

²⁷Now it happened the next day, the second day of the new moon, that David’s place was missing; so Saul said to Jonathan his son, “Why has the son of Jesse not come to the meal, either yesterday or today?”

²⁸Jonathan then answered Saul, “^aDavid earnestly asked leave of me to go to Bethlehem,

²⁹and he said, ‘Please send me on my way, since our family has a sacrifice in the city, and my brother has commanded me to attend. So now, if I have found favor in your sight, please let me get away that I may see my brothers.’ For this reason he has not come to the king’s table.”

Saul Is Angry with Jonathan

³⁰Then Saul’s anger burned against Jonathan, and he said to him, “You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you are choosing the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?

³¹“For ¹as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established. So now, send and bring him to me, for ^ahe ²must surely die.”

³²But Jonathan answered Saul his father and said to him, “^aWhy should he be put to death? What has he done?”

³³Then ^aSaul hurled his spear at him to strike him down; ^bso Jonathan knew that his father had decided to put David to death.

³⁴Then Jonathan arose from the table in burning anger and did not eat food on the second day of the new moon, for he was grieved over David because his father had dishonored him.

³⁵Now it happened in the morning that Jonathan went out into the field for the appointment with David, and a very young man was with him.

³⁶And he said to his young man, “^aRun, find now the arrows which I am about to shoot.” As the young man was running, he shot ¹an arrow past him.

³⁷When the young man reached the place of the arrow which Jonathan had shot, Jonathan called after the lad and said, “^aIs not the arrow beyond you?”

³⁸And Jonathan called after the young man, “Hurry, be quick, do not stay!” And Jonathan’s young man gathered up the arrow and came to his master.

³⁹But the young man did not know of anything; only Jonathan and David knew about the matter.

⁴⁰Then Jonathan gave his weapons to his young man and said to him, “Go, bring them to the city.”

⁴¹When the young man was gone, David rose from the south side and fell on his ¹face to the ground and ^abowed three times. And they kissed each other and wept together, but ^bDavid wept more.

⁴²And Jonathan said to David, “^aGo in peace, inasmuch as we have sworn to each other in the name of Yahweh, saying, ‘^bYahweh will be between me and you, and between my seed and your seed forever.’” ¹Then he rose and departed, while Jonathan went into the city.

CHAPTER 21

David Takes Consecrated Bread

¹Then David came to ^aNob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech ^bcame trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one is with you?”

²And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commanded me with a matter and has said to me, ‘^aLet no one know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commanded you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’

³“So now, what ¹do you have on hand? Give five loaves of bread into my hand, or whatever can be found.”

⁴And the priest answered David and said, “There is no ordinary bread ¹on hand, but there is ^aconsecrated bread; if only the young men have ^bkept themselves from women.”

⁵And David answered the priest and said to him, “^aSurely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the ^bvessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then today will ¹their vessels be holy?”

⁶So ^athe priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the ^bbread of the Presence which was removed from before Yahweh, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away.

⁷Now one of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before Yahweh; and his name was ^aDoeg the Edomite, the ^bchief of Saul’s shepherds.

⁸And David said to Ahimelech, “Now is there not a spear or a sword ¹on hand? For I brought neither my sword nor my weapons in my hand because the king’s matter was urgent.”

⁹Then the priest said, “^aThe sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down ^bin the valley of Elah, behold, it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod; if you would take it for yourself, take it. For there is no other except it here.” And David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”

David Flees to Gath

¹⁰Then David arose and fled that day from Saul and went to ^aAchish king of Gath.

¹¹But the ^aservants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David the king of the land? ^bDid they not sing of this one as they danced, saying,

‘Saul has struck his thousands,

And David his ten thousands’?”

¹²And David ^atook these words ¹to heart and greatly feared Achish king of Gath.

¹³So he ^adisguised his sanity in their sight and acted insanely in their hands and scribbled on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down into his beard.

¹⁴Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man behaving as a madman. Why do you bring him to me?

¹⁵“Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to act the madman before me? Shall this one come into my house?”

CHAPTER 22

David at the Cave of Adullam

¹So David departed from there and ^aescaped to ^bthe cave of Adullam; and his brothers and all his father’s household heard of it and went down there to him.

²Then everyone who was in distress, and everyone who ¹was in debt, and everyone who was bitter of soul, gathered to him; and he became a commander over them. Now there were ^aabout four hundred men with him.

³And David went from there to Mizpah of Moab; and he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and my mother come and stay with you until I know what God will do for me.”

⁴Then he left them with the king of Moab; and they stayed with him all the time that David was in the fortress.

^5aAnd the prophet Gad said to David, “Do not stay in the fortress; go, and enter into the land of…