1 Samuel 21: 1 - 23: 6
| 1Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech came to meet David trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no man with you?” 2David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commanded me to do something, and has said to me, ‘Let no one know anything about the business about which I send you, and what I have commanded you. I have sent the young men to a certain place.’ 3Now therefore what is under your hand? Please give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever is available.” |
| 4The priest answered David, and said, “I have no common bread, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.” |
| 5David answered the priest, and said to him, “Truly, women have been kept from us as usual these three days. When I came out, the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was only a common journey. How much more then today shall their vessels be holy?” 6So the priest gave him holy bread; for there was no bread there but the show bread that was taken from before the LORD, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away. |
| 7Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the LORD; and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the best of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul. 8David said to Ahimelech, “Isn’t there here under your hand spear or sword? For I haven’t brought my sword or my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.” |
| 9The priest said, “Behold, the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah, is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you would like to take that, take it; for there is no other except that here.” |
| David said, “There is none like that. Give it to me.” |
| 10David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11The servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David the king of the land? Didn’t they sing to one another about him in dances, saying, |
| ‘Saul has slain his thousands, |
| and David his ten thousands?’” |
| 12David laid up these words in his heart, and was very afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13He changed his behaviour before them, and pretended to be insane in their hands, and scribbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down on his beard. 14Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is insane. Why then have you brought him to me? 15Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Should this fellow come into my house?” |
| 1David therefore departed from there, and escaped to Adullam’s cave. When his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. 2Everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented, gathered themselves to him; and he became captain over them. There were with him about four hundred men. 3David went from there to Mizpeh of Moab, and he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and my mother come out with you, until I know what God will do for me.” 4He brought them before the king of Moab; and they lived with him all the time that David was in the stronghold. 5The prophet Gad said to David, “Don’t stay in the stronghold. Depart, and go into the land of Judah.” |
| Then David departed, and came into the forest of Hereth. 6Saul heard that David was discovered, with the men who were with him. Now Saul was sitting in Gibeah, under the tamarisk tree in Ramah, with his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing around him. 7Saul said to his servants who stood around him, “Hear now, you Benjamites! Will the son of Jesse give everyone of you fields and vineyards? Will he make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, 8that all of you have conspired against me, and there is no one who discloses to me when my son makes a treaty with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you who is sorry for me, or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as it is today?” |
| 9Then Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, answered and said, “I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub. 10He enquired of the LORD for him, gave him food, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.” |
| 11Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father’s house, the priests who were in Nob; and they all came to the king. 12Saul said, “Hear now, you son of Ahitub.” |
| He answered, “Here I am, my lord.” |
| 13Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread, and a sword, and have enquired of God for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in wait, as it is today?” |
| 14Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, “Who amongst all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, captain of your body guard, and honoured in your house? 15Have I today begun to enquire of God for him? Be it far from me! Don’t let the king impute anything to his servant, nor to all the house of my father; for your servant knows nothing of all this, less or more.” |
| 16The king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you, and all your father’s house.” 17The king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn, and kill the priests of the LORD; because their hand also is with David, and because they knew that he fled, and didn’t disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king wouldn’t put out their hand to fall on the priests of the LORD. |
| 18The king said to Doeg, “Turn and attack the priests!” |
| Doeg the Edomite turned, and he attacked the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five people who wore a linen ephod. 19He struck Nob, the city of the priests, with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and nursing babies, and cattle and donkeys and sheep, with the edge of the sword. 20One of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped, and fled after David. 21Abiathar told David that Saul had slain the LORD’s priests. |
| 22David said to Abiathar, “I knew on that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of all the persons of your father’s house. 23Stay with me. Don’t be afraid, for he who seeks my life seeks your life. For you will be safe with me.” |
| 1David was told, “Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and are robbing the threshing floors.” |
| 2Therefore David enquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I go and strike these Philistines?” |
| The LORD said to David, “Go strike the Philistines, and save Keilah.” |
| 3David’s men said to him, “Behold, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?” |
| 4Then David enquired of the LORD yet again. The LORD answered him, and said, “Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into your hand.” |
| 5David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their livestock, and killed them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah. 6When Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, he came down with an ephod in his hand. |
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