1 Samuel 21
David Takes the Consecrated Bread
1Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And when Ahimelech met David, he trembled and asked him, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
1And David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest, and Ahimelech was afraid when he met David, and he said to him, “Why are you alone, and no man is with you?”
2“The king has given me a mission,” David replied. “He told me no one is to know about the mission on which I am sending you. And I have directed my young men to meet me at a certain place.
2And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has ordered me on some business and said to me, ‘No man is to know anything about the business on which I send you, and about which I have commanded you.’ And I have directed the young men to such and such a place.
4“There is no common bread on hand,” the priest replied, “but there is some consecrated bread—provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.”
4And the priest answered David, and said, “There is no common bread to under my hand, but there is holy bread, if indeed the young men have kept themselves from women.”
5David answered, “Women have indeed been kept from us, as is usual when I set out. And the bodies of the young men are holy even on common missions. How much more so today!”
5And David answered the priest and said to him, “Surely if women have been kept from us as yesterday and the day before yesterday when I came out, then the vessels of the young men are holy, and it is a common way; and also surely today it was sanctified in the vessel.”
6So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there but the Bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the LORD and replaced with hot bread on the day it was taken away.
6And the priest gave to him holy bread, for there was no bread except for the Bread of the Presence, which is turned aside from the face of YHWH, to put hot bread in the day of its being taken away.
7Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the LORD. And his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief shepherd for Saul.
7And there was a man of the servants of Saul on that day detained before the face of YHWH, and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of the shepherds who belonged to Saul.
David Flees to Gath
8Then David asked Ahimelech, “Is there not a spear or sword on hand here? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s mission was urgent.”
8And David said to Ahimelech, “And is there not here under your hand a spear or a sword? For even my sword and even my weapons I have not brought with me, for the matter of the king was urgent.”
9The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want, you may take it. For there is no other but this one here.”
And David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”
9And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If that you will take to you, take it, for there is no other except it in this place.” And David said, “None is like it; give it to me.”
11But the servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing about him in their dances, saying:
‘Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands’?”
11And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did not of this one they sing in their dances, saying, ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his myriads?’”
13So he changed his behavior before them and feigned madness in their hands; he scratched on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down his beard.
13And he changed his behavior before their eyes and feigned madness in their hands; and he scratched on the doors of the gate, and he let fall down his saliva on his beard.