Chapter Twenty-One

David’s stay in the city of Nob. Flight to one of the Philistine kings, Achish.

1 Samuel 21:1. And David came to Nob to the priest Ahimelech, and Ahimelech was troubled at meeting David and said to him: Why are you alone, and no one is with you? Nob is to the northeast of Jerusalem. One may suppose that the tabernacle of the Lord was located here at the present time. “To the priest Ahimelech”: in Mark 2:26 when this event is mentioned, Abiathar is named. It is supposed that the evangelist named the son instead of the father, who, because of old age, supposedly carried out the high-priestly duties. But, bearing in mind 2 Sam 8:17 and 1 Chr 18:16, one should prefer the other supposition, that both father and son bore a double name: Ahimelech-Abiathar. “And Ahimelech was troubled”: the relations between Saul and David could not, of course, be unknown to the high priest. The arrival of the king’s son-in-law without proper retinue led the high priest to suppose that David was being persecuted and therefore was not safe for anyone who might dare hide him from the king.

1 Samuel 21:2. And David said to the priest Ahimelech: The king has entrusted a matter to me and said to me: “Let no one know what I have sent you for and what I have entrusted to you”; therefore I have left the men at a certain place; The pretext invented by David for visiting the city of Nob, as well as his invented explanation of his desire to obtain sacred loaves and the sword of Goliath (1 Sam 21:3-6), can be explained by the truly hopeless situation in which the innocently persecuted David found himself.

1 Samuel 21:3. So then, what do you have at hand, give to me, five loaves, or whatever you can find. 1 Samuel 21:4. And the priest answered David, saying: I have no ordinary bread at hand, but there is sacred bread; if only your men have abstained from women, [let them eat]. 1 Samuel 21:5. And David answered the priest and said to him: There have been no women with us yesterday, nor the day before, since I went out, and the vessels of the young men are clean, and if the way is unclean, the bread will remain clean in the vessels. 1 Samuel 21:6. And the priest gave him sacred bread; for there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by warm bread. Cf. Luke 6:1-4.

1 Samuel 21:10. And David arose and fled that same day from Saul, and came to Achish, the king of Gath. Gath is one of the chief Philistine cities to the west of Bethlehem. See note to 1 Sam 6:17.

1 Samuel 21:13. And he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their sight, and scribbled on the doors, [threw himself on his hands] and let his spittle fall down on his beard. “And he changed his behavior,” that is, “feigned himself mad,” so as not to arouse suspicion in the Philistines regarding any hidden political purposes of his coming to them.