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, ‘3No one is to 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 then, 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, “9Be assured, women have been denied to us as previously when I left and the 1011bodies of the young men were consecrated, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then will 12their bodies be consecrated today?” 6So 13the priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there except the 14bread of the Presence which was removed from its place before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place on the day it was taken away.

7Now one of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord; and his name was 15Doeg the Edomite, the 16chief of Saul’s shepherds.

8David said to Ahimelech, “Now is there no spear or sword 17on hand? For I brought neither my sword nor my weapons 18with me, because the king’s matter was urgent.” 9Then the priest said, “19The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you 20killed 21in 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 set out and fled that day from Saul, and went to 22Achish king of Gath. 11But the 23servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David, the king of the land? 24Did they not sing of this one as they danced, saying, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands’?” 12David 25took these words 26to heart and greatly feared Achish king of Gath. 13So he 27disguised his sanity while in their sight and acted insanely in their 28custody, and he scribbled on the doors of the gate, and drooled on his beard. 14Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is behaving like an insane person. Why do you bring him to me? 15Do I lack insane people, that you have brought this one to behave like an insane person in my presence? Shall this one come into my house?”