1 Samuel 21

David Takes Consecrated Bread

1Then David came to 1Nob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech 2came trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone and no one with you?” 2David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to me, ‘3Let 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.’ 3Now therefore, what 4do you have on hand? Give 5me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.” 4The priest answered David and said, “There is no ordinary bread 6on hand, but there is 7consecrated bread; if only the young men have 8kept themselves from women.” 5David answered the priest and said to him, “9Surely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the 10vessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then today will 11their vessels be holy?” 6So 12the priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the 13bread of the Presence which was removed from before the Lord, 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 the Lord; and his name was 14Doeg the Edomite, the 15chief of Saul’s shepherds.

8David said to Ahimelech, “Now is there not a spear or a sword 16on hand? For I brought neither my sword nor my weapons 17with me, because the king’s matter was urgent.” 9Then the priest said, “18The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you 19killed 20in 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.”

10Then David arose and fled that day from Saul, and went to 21Achish king of Gath. 11But the 22servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David the king of the land? 23Did they not sing of this one as they danced, saying, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands’?” 12David 24took these words 25to heart and greatly feared Achish king of Gath. 13So he 26disguised 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. 14Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man behaving as a madman. Why do you bring him to me? 15Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to act the madman in my presence? Shall this one come into my house?”