David Takes the Consecrated Bread (Matthew 12:1–8; Mark 2:23–28; Luke 6:1–5)
2 UST David{ did not tell him the truth. He} told Ahimelech,“I have come on a special mission from the king. I am alone because he told me that no one should find out about what he sent me to do. But I will have soldiers with me. I have told them to meet me at a specific place, but I must not say where that is. BSB BSB: “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.
3 UST Please tell me, do you have any food here that you could give me? Could you give me five loaves of bread, or whatever other food might be here?” BSB BSB: Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”
4 UST Ahimelech told David,“There is no ordinary bread here, but I have some of the sacred bread that we put on the table in the sacred tent. I will give your men that bread to eat if they have not recently become ceremonially unclean by having sexual relations with women.” BSB BSB: “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.”
5 UST David replied,“As I have always done in the past when I have led my soldiers on a mission, I have not allowed them to become ceremonially unclean by having sexual relations before they left. They have remained ceremonially clean even on ordinary missions. So you can be sure that they have remained ceremonially clean for this special mission.” BSB BSB: David 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!”
6 UST Now the only bread that the priest had available was some bread that the priests had put on the table in Yahweh’ s presence in the sacred tent. They had later removed that bread to replace it with fresh bread. So the priest gave David several loaves of it. BSB BSB: So 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.
7 UST On that day a man who worked for Saul was at the sacred tent. His name was Doeg. He was an Edomite. King Saul had made him the supervisor of all of his shepherds. Doeg needed to stay at the sacred tent until he had fulfilled a religious duty.{ He saw what Ahimelech did to help David.} BSB BSB: Now 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.
David Flees to Gath (Psalm 34:1–22; Psalm 56:1–13)
8 UST David asked Ahimelech,“Do you have a spear or a sword here that you could give me? The king commanded me to leave right away on this mission, so I did not even have time to get any weapons.” BSB BSB: Then 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.”
9 UST Ahimelech replied,“The only sword I have here is the sword that belonged to Goliath, that great Philistine soldier. You killed him in the Valley of Elah. You will find that sword behind the sacred apron in the sacred tent. It has a cloth around it. If you want it, you may take it.” David replied,“There is certainly no other sword that is as good as that one! Please give it to me.” BSB BSB: 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, 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.”
10 UST { So Ahimelech gave it to him, and} David left that same day so that Saul would not capture him. He ran away to the Philistine city of Gath. He offered to work for Achish, the king of that city. BSB BSB: That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath.
11 UST But the officers of King Achish{ did not approve of David’ s coming. They} said to King Achish,“This man David is the king of Israel! The women in Israel sing about him as they dance,‘Saul has killed thousands of enemy soldiers, And David has killed tens of thousands of them!’” BSB BSB: But 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’?”
12 UST David was very concerned about what those officers were saying. It made him very afraid of what King Achish might do to him. BSB BSB: Now David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath.
13 UST So whenever he was with those officers or the king, he acted differently. For as long as he was in Gath, where they could harm him, he pretended that he was insane.{ When he was waiting in the court outside the palace,} he would scratch all over the gate{ that led into the palace}. He also drooled so much that saliva ran down onto his beard. BSB BSB: So 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.
14 UST Then King Achish said to his men,“Look at this man! He is acting crazy! You should not have brought him to me! BSB BSB: Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you can see that the man is insane! Why have you brought him to me?
15 UST I already have enough crazy people around me! You do not need to bring me any more! I do not want this man to serve me in my palace.” BSB BSB: Am I in need of madmen, that you have brought this man to rave in my presence? Must this man come into my house?”
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.