²David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. ³Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”

⁴But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread^e on hand; however, there is some consecrated^f bread here—provided the men have kept^g themselves from women.”

⁵David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual^h whenever^b I set out. The men’s bodies are holyⁱ even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” ⁶So the priest gave him the consecrated bread,^j since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.

⁷Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord; he was Doeg^k the Edomite,^l Saul’s chief shepherd.

Read in Logos

Footnotes

aIn Hebrew texts 21:1–15 is numbered 21:2–16.
bOr from us in the past few days since

Cross references

c 1 Sa 22:9, 19; Ne 11:32; Isa 10:32
d 1 Sa 16:4
e Lev 24:8–9
f Mt 12:4
gSee Ex 19:15; See Lev 15:18
h Dt 23:9–11; Jos 3:5; 2 Sa 11:11
i 1 Th 4:4
jSee Ex 25:30; 1 Sa 22:10; Mt 12:3–4; Mk 2:25–28; Lk 6:1–5
k 1 Sa 22:9, 22
l 1 Sa 14:47; Ps 52 Title