Chapter 21

David Takes Consecrated Bread

1 Then 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 with you?”

2 David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commissioned 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 commissioned you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’

3 “Now therefore, what 1do you have on hand? Give 2me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”

4 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.”

5 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?”

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

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

8 David said to Ahimelech, “Now is there not a spear or a sword 1on hand? For I brought neither my sword nor my weapons 2with me, because the king’s matter was urgent.”

9 Then the priest said, “aThe sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you 1killed 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.”

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

11 But 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 slain his thousands,

And David his ten thousands’?”

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

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

14 Then 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 in my presence? Shall this one come into my house?”