Why was ahimelech frightened by davids coming

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Name required. Then said Achish [And Achish said] unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad; wherefore 15 then [ om. Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence?

David flees to Nob to the high-priest Ahimelech. According to 1 Samuel , 1 Samuel , 32; 2 Samuel ; Isaiah ; Nehemiah , the name of this refuge of David is Nob.

The Heb. According to 1 Samuel Nob was at this time a priestly city. Here at this time was the tabernacle, which, as we under David and Solomon find it in Gibeon, was probably carried thither in consequence of the destruction of Nob by Saul 1 Samuel The position of Nob is no longer determinable—only from Isaiah we know that it was near Jerusalem on the road northward between Anathoth Anata and Jerusalem in the tribe of Benjamin Nehemiah According to Jerome on Isa.

Whether it stood on the site of the present village El Isawieh, between Anata and Jerusalem, about two and a half miles from the latter, and as far south-east of Gibeah of Saul Tuleil el Ful , which Tobler Topog. He wished besides to provide himself with arms and food for-his continued flight. His stay there was therefore intended to be temporary, as his whole conduct shows. We may assume that he stood in intimate relations with the priests there, and especially with their head, from whom therefore he expected not only the announcement of the divine will, but also consolatory and strengthening words.

His son was the high-priest Abiathar 1 Samuel , with whom he is confounded in Mar Therefore he has recourse here again to a lie; he pretends that the king has given him a secret commission, of which no one is to know, and represents to the high-priest that he has appointed his men some place at which to meet him. Ruth Clericus remarks that he really took some faithful followers with him, at least to the Philistine border, and during his stay in Nob assigned them to some place, where he would meet them, and Keil supposes that he left his few attendants 1 Samuel [2] near by, in order to speak privately with the high-priest; but against this is the fact that in his flight, after his interview without witness with Jonathan 1 Samuel He asks for five loaves with apparent reference to his retinue, but really for his own needs, since his way would lead him into the wilderness, and he must avoid meeting men.

No common bread—but holy bread have I here , answers Ahimelech. They had just been taken away 1 Samuel [6] to be replaced by fresh ones Leviticus The legal precept was that this bread, as something most holy, could be eaten only by the priests in the holy place Leviticus See Leviticus But what would be the bearing of such a remark after David had already affirmed that, in consequence of their removal from women, no such defilement could be found in them?

Sommer, bibl. The gear or baggage of the men, as well as their persons, might be unclean. But the holy bread, which even exceptionally could be eaten only by levitically clean persons, could not be carried in vessels which were legally unclean. David therefore says that the vessels of his men were holy at starting, in order to assure Ahimelech that there was not the slightest legal objection to their taking the bread, nothing unclean either in their persons or in their baggage.

So the Vulg. Nor does the connection warrant O. So the translation of S. The instrument is here the sacred person of the priest, Ahimelech himself, as bearer of the high-priestly dignity.

So also Thenius. Mention of a servant of Saul, Doeg the Edomite, which brings the narrative into pragmatic connection with 1 Samuel sq. A man of the servants of Saul. The first place to which David fled was Nob, which, since the destruction of Shiloh, had become the city of priests About this time a few personal servants joined him, according to an arrangement he had made with them earlier.

David obtained food for himself and his men by deceiving Ahimelech the priest concerning the purpose of his journey. Unfortunately for him, and for Ahimelech and the other priests, he was seen by someone sympathetic to Saul From Nob David went to the Philistine city of Gath.

He expected that the Philistines would welcome him as a deserter from the Israelite army and so give him refuge They knew only that David had killed thousands of their own Philistine people. Thinking he may have been spying in preparation for more attacks, they decided to kill him. David acted quickly, and escaped by pretending he had gone mad ; see Psalms ; Psalms Critical commentators waste much of their energies questioning the chronological arrangement of the various episodes from the life of David that are recorded in First Samuel, overlooking the important fact that the inspired author of this Biblical document does not claim that he has set down all of these incidents in the chronological order of their occurrence.

Bennett has a word of wisdom on this subject. None of the critical scholars whose works we have studied has been able to propose any better arrangement of the text than that which has come down to us; and some of the attempted rearrangements of the various episodes are not only unconvincing, but sometimes even ridiculous.

For example, the International Critical Commentary rejects the arrangement in this chapter, affirming that, "David had ample time to furnish himself for flight, after Jonathan bade him farewell," [2] supposing that this journey of David to Nob must have happened that night when Michal let him down through the window.

Such is a worthless rearrangement. On that night with Michal, David had all night until the next morning to have prepared for such a journey; and presumably from his own home would have been able not only to carry his sword, but also any provisions he wished to take.

Those could have been let down by Michal as easily as she let down David outside the city wall. Besides that, Jonathan had specifically warned David in the preceding chapter, "Hurry! Make haste; stay not. Therefore, it is just as logical to place the journey to Nob after 1 Samuel 20 as it is to place it after 1 Samuel The two episodes recorded in this chapter are quite logically arranged exactly where they occur in our text.

When his life stood in jeopardy, David went 1 first to Samuel; 2 then to his beloved Jonathan the prince; when neither of these could provide safety for him, what could have been more logical than 3 his going to see the High Priest in the tabernacle of the Lord at Nob. That this is a true chronological arrangement is certainly as likely as anything that 19th century or 20th century critical scholars have concocted in place of it.

I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then, what have you at hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here. So the priest gave him the holy bread; for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.

Eighty-five priests lived at Nob, serving the tabernacle which had been set up there following the Philistine's destruction of Shiloh. It is also possible that the ark of the covenant had been brought to Nob from Kiriath-jearim by Saul in the early part of his reign.

Nob was but a village located a mile or two northeast of Jerusalem near Anathoth Isaiah Ahitub was a brother of Ichabod, making Ahimelech a great grandson of Eli. Matthew Henry commented on the reason why David elected to go to Nob. To whom else could he have gone, except to the Lord? Much of what David said here was an outright falsehood. The Bible records it, but we dare not justify it.

The only scrap of truth in what he said regarded the fact that he seems to have had a number of men with him; and even that is not evident from this account. Jesus Christ mentioned this event and also "the men that were with" David Matthew This is a reference to the Showbread, or the bread of the Presence as prescribed in the Mosaic Law Exodus The bread was a featured provision of the tabernacle and was replaced each week with hot bread.

It was holy from the fact of its being used in the tabernacle and only the priests were eligible to eat it. David with his men did what was unlawful in taking and eating that bread Matthew Ahimelech insisted on this regulation being observed, but ignored the one about only priests being able to eat that bread. David's reply here has an element of humor in it. He said if we may paraphrase , "Well, not exactly; the women have been kept from the young men"!

This reminds us of what happened once in a big tent revival. One of the town's leading sinners then getting somewhat advanced in years went up to be saved; and one of his neighbors said, "Jackson, you ain't quit your sins; your sins have quit you"! Mark speaks of Abiathar as the officiating priest in this episode; and two explanations are offered. This is a disputed text, but David may have meant here that, "Even if the bread were common bread, it would become consecrated by the consecrated vessel in which he proposed to carry it.

Nob was a city of the priests, the high priest resided there, and the tabernacle was pitched there 1 Samuel , 1 Samuel , 1 Samuel ; 1 Samuel It was situated on the road from the north to Jerusalem, near Anathoth, and within sight of the holy city Isaiah ; Nehemiah But the site has not been identified with certainty.

So David now fled to Nob to Ahimelech who was the priest: and Ahimelech was afraid at the meeting of David, and said to him, Why are you alone, why aren't there men with you?

So David's saying, "I'm a CIA agent, I'm on a special mission for the king, and nobody knows about this special mission. It's just a secret mission that I'm on for King Saul.

So my men are over here, and I need some bread for them. The priest said, I don't have any common bread, all I have is this bread that I baked for the shew bread for the table of the Lord; [It was that bread that had been sanctified to set out before God on the table of shew bread.

And David said, Well give it to me five loaves, and for me and my men. He said, Well are the men clean? He said, We've not been around women for at least three days since we've been on this trip. So the fellow gave them the holy bread [which was not lawful for any man to eat but the priest. Now in the New Testament Jesus makes reference to this particular incident. When the Pharisees are trying to nail Him in some of the fine, technical aspects of the law, Jesus said, "Did not David take the shew bread, which was not lawful for a man to eat?

The disciples had gone through the field on the Sabbath day and they took some wheat, corn of wheat. They called it the wheat, the tassel of wheat tares, they called it the corn actually. They took it and they were rubbing it in their hands. Now you can take the dry wheat from the stalk and you can rub it in your hands, and as you rub it in your hands it has the effect of sort of threshing it.

What you're doing is rubbing off the hard, outside hull. Then you can hold it in your hands and blow on it and you can actually blow off the hulls, then you can eat the wheat raw. It's actually very good. One of the trips over in Israel we were there in the latter part of May when the wheat fields were about ready for harvest. Up in the area near Mount Gilboa where Saul and Jonathan were ultimately killed, which is up at one end of the Valley of Megiddo.

It's about eight miles, ten miles south of the Sea of Galilee, Mount Gilboa there. There in that valley are some beautiful wheat fields. So we were there and I went out and I took some of this wheat. I rubbed it in my hands, and blew off the hulls and ate this wheat. Of course when we were kids we discovered out of the chicken feed, if we took the wheat out of the chicken feed, we were kids, it's soft enough that you can crunch it in your teeth and chew it. If you chew it long enough it turns into a gum.

We used to always chew wheat gum when we were kids. We didn't have enough money to buy regular chewing gum. So we'd pick all the wheat out of the chicken feed and then we'd chew it and after awhile it turns into gum. Then we'd have our gum with wheat. So it's very nutritional, very healthy. So the disciples were with Jesus, they were hungry; it was the Sabbath Day.

They were going through the wheat fields, and they began to pick the corn of wheat and rub it in their hands, and blow it off and began to eat it. So they said, "Oh, look at your disciples. They're doing that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day. You're not supposed to do any work. So Jesus said, "Don't you remember what David did when he was hungry, how he went in and ate the shew bread which was not lawful for a man to eat? Human hunger, these guys are hungry, forget this little work bit of rubbing the wheat in your hands, their hunger.

The hunger supercedes the fine point of the law, even as with David, the guys are hungry. Yes, it's not lawful that they should eat this shewbread. Yes, it's supposed to be only there for the priest to eat but the guys are hungry. The human hunger supercedes the fine points of the law. The point that Jesus was making, and of course using this particular instance with David as the illustration of the point, which of course everybody accepted that David had done.

In other words, there was no wrong doing here. Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, and his name was Doeg, and he was an Edomite, ["Doeg", and you could very well pronounce it "dog," because he turned out to be a real dog.

And David said to Ahimelech, Do you have here any spear or any sword? The priest said, Well, I have the sword of Goliath that you took from him when you killed him, and it's wrapped here in a cloth behind the ephod: if you will take it: there's no other but that one here.

So David said, Ah, there's no sword like that one; give it to me. So David arose, for fear of Saul, and he went to Achish the king of Gath. And David laid up these words in his heart, and he was afraid of Achish the king of Gath.

This is David they were singing about killing his thousands," and so David thought, "Uh oh, the king's gonna do me in. I don't need any mad men, that you've brought this fellow to play a madman in my presence? So he sent David away and he escaped, of course, out of the guy's hand.

Of course he wasn't afraid of some guy that was so weird. I personally like it. I think David's just, you know, he's a neat kind of a shrewd kind of a guy.

I just like him. Yet here's an interesting thing, my hero, but I sort of admire his wit and his little act here and getting out of trouble, yet there's an interesting verse of scripture that says, "The fear of man brings a snare" Proverbs Now it does definitely declare that David was afraid of Achish.

The fear of man can oftentimes cause a person to act like a fool. It brings a snare. So my brave David, he's not afraid of the giant, he's afraid of the king. So acting like a madman, he's reduced to a man with spit running down his beard and scrabbling on the doors and gates, but he did escape out of the hand of Achish.

Nob stood one and one-half miles northeast of Jerusalem and two and one-half miles southeast of Gibeah. It stood on what is now called Mt. There Ahimelech served as high priest. Priestly activity, and evidently the tabernacle, were now there cf. He wanted to get help from the Lord through them cf. Apparently Ahimelech was trembling because David was alone cf.

Had Saul sent him to harm the priests cf. David appears to have lied to Ahimelech 1 Samuel However, he may have been referring to Yahweh when he mentioned "the king" who had sent him cf. Even so he wanted Ahimelech to think that Saul had sent him.

This was deception at best and a lie at worst, rooted ultimately in selfishness and lack of faith in God. David made some mistakes in his early years as a fugitive. He handled himself better as time passed. During this time God was training him for future service. David proceeded to explain that the reason he was alone was that he had sent his soldiers elsewhere.

He intended to rendezvous with them shortly, and had come to Nob by himself to obtain provisions, protection, and prayer cf. Ahimelech gave David the showbread that the priests ate Exodus ; Leviticus This was the bread that for a week lay on the table of showbread in the tabernacle. Each Sabbath the priests replaced this bread with fresh loaves. Leviticus ; Exodus David assured him that their bodies were clean ritually 1 Samuel This made it permissible for them to eat the consecrated bread.

Ahimelech correctly gave David the provisions he needed 1 Samuel Jesus said this was proper for David to have done Matthew The reason was that human life takes precedence over ceremonial law with God. Bruce, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, p.

Nevertheless human need should always be a higher priority than the observance of a ritual used to worship God. We acknowledge the same priority today.

Suppose you pass a house that is on fire. You stop, run up to the front door, bang on the door, and ring the doorbell. You look in the window and see someone lying on the floor.

You then kick in the door and drag the unconscious person outside to safety. Perhaps Doeg was "detained before the Lord" because he had come to the tabernacle to present an offering or to conduct some other business there. Having previously requested provisions of Ahimelech 1 Samuel , David now asked for protection, namely, a sword 1 Samuel David eagerly accepted it from Ahimelech since there was no sword like it.

It is interesting that David, and later Solomon, used the same expression to describe the Lord 2 Samuel ; 1 Kings There is none like Him. Then came David to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest , The high priest, as Abarbinel rightly calls him; he was the brother of Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, who being dead he succeeded him; though some say a he was the same; see 1 Samuel ; who was now at Nob, the tabernacle being there, whither probably it was removed by Saul, and where and at Gibeon, according to the Jews b, it continued fifty seven years; as in the times of Joshua it was in Shiloh, in the tribe of Ephraim, of which tribe he was; and in the times of David it was placed in the tribe of Judah, to which he belonged; so in the times of Saul it was in Nob, a city of his tribe, twelve miles from Gibeah, according to Bunting c; for that it was in the tribe of Benjamin appears by its being mentioned along with Anathoth, Nehemiah ; and according to Jarchi and Kimchi d it was near Jerusalem, and so near that it might be seen from thence; some say they are the same e; Jerom f speaks of it as near Diospolis or Lydda.

And the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in effect common, even though it was sanctified in the vessel this day. Give me five loaves of bread : When David came to the tabernacle in Nob he was hungry and knew he needed food both now and later.

The importance and meaning of the bread is found in its name. In that culture eating together formed a bond of friendship that was permanent and sacred. The showbread was always to be fresh. Ahimelech would give David the old showbread, which had been taken from before the LORD, in order to put hot bread in its place. God wants our fellowship with Him, our time before His face, to be fresh.

If the young men have at least kept themselves from women : The showbread was not to be treated casually. In fact, it was to be eaten by the priests: And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place Leviticus So Ahimelech asked David for a basic level of ceremonial cleanness before he gave him the showbread.

Truly, women have been kept from us : David acted as if he traveled with a group. What he said was true of himself, but there were no others traveling with him. He rightly understood that human need was more important that Levitical observance.

But God never said that. And his name was Doeg, an Edomite, the chief of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul. If you will take that, take it. For there is no other except that one here. Doeg the Edomite : We meet a character we will meet again. Doeg was chief of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul , and he was not an Israelite but an Edomite. Chief of the herdsmen : The word translated chief means mighty but can also be used to mean violent or obstinate.

Doeg will show himself to be a violent and obstinate man. He was probably fulfilling some ceremonial requirement related to his employment for the king of Israel.

Is there not here on hand a spear or a sword : We can understand why David wanted a weapon and why he asked. The sword of Goliath : David was happy to have a good weapon There is none like it.

As David held this sword, he should have remembered how he came to win it. He did it with a bold trust in God, a trust that believed God and trusted Him to sort out the consequences. David can have the sword of Goliath in his arsenal, but he would be better equipped if he had the faith that killed Goliath.