1 Samuel
21
- David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest.
Ahimelech trembled when he met him, and asked, "Why are you alone? Why
is no one with you ?"
- David answered Ahimelech the priest, "The
king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, 'No one is to know anything
about your mission and your instructions.' As for my men, I have told them
to meet me at a certain place.
- Now then, what do you have on hand? Give
me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find."
- But the priest answered David, "I don't
have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread
here -- provided the men have kept themselves from women."
- David replied, "Indeed women have been
kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men's things are holy even
on missions that are not holy. How much more so today !"
- So the priest gave him the consecrated bread,
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.
- Now one of Saul's servants was there that
day, detained before the LORD; he was Doeg the Edomite, Saul's head shepherd.
- David asked Ahimelech, "Don't you have
a spear or a sword here? I haven't brought my sword or any other weapon, because
the king's business was urgent."
- The 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 it, take it; there is no sword here
but that one." David said, "There is none like it; give it to me."
- That day David fled from Saul and went to
Achish king of Gath.
- But the servants of Achish said to him,
"Isn't this David, the king of the land? Isn't he the one they sing about
in their dances: "'Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of
thousands' ?"
- David took these words to heart and was
very much afraid of Achish king of Gath.
- So he pretended to be insane in their presence;
and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the
doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.
- Achish said to his servants, "Look
at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me ?
- Am I so short of madmen that you have to
bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man
come into my house ?"
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