1 Samuel 21

David comes to Nob

¹Then David got up and left, and Jonathan went back into the town.^{a 2}David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech was trembling as he came out to meet David, and he said to him, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”^{b 3}David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has given me an order. He told me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on and the orders I have given you.’ As for my young men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. ⁴Now then, what have you got here? Give me five loaves of bread, or anything that can be found.” ⁵The priest answered David, “I have no ordinary bread on hand, but there is holy bread, provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.”

⁶David answered the priest, “Truly, women have been kept from us, as always when I set out. The young men’s gear is holy even on an ordinary journey; how much more will it be holy today!”^{cd 7}So the priest gave him the holy bread, because there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence, which had been taken from before the LORD so that warm bread could be put in its place on the day it was removed.^{e 8}Now one of Saul’s officials was there that day, held back before the LORD. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s shepherds. ⁹David asked Ahimelech, “Do you not have a spear or a sword here on hand? I did not bring my sword or any of my weapons with me, because the king’s business was urgent.”

David takes Goliath’s sword and flees to Gath

¹⁰The priest said, “Here is the sword of Goliath the Philistine, the man you killed in the Valley of Elah. It lies wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. Take it if you want it; there is no other sword here but that one.” David said, “There is none like it. Give it to me.” ¹¹That same day David got up and fled from Saul, and he went to Achish king of Gath. ¹²But Achish’s officials said to him, “Is this man not David, the king of the land? Is he not the one they sang about to one another as they danced, \q ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, \q and David his tens of thousands’?” ¹³David took these words to heart and was greatly afraid of Achish king of Gath. ¹⁴So he changed his behavior in front of them and pretended to be insane while he was in their hands. He scribbled on the doors of the gate and let saliva run down his beard.^{f 15}Achish said to his officials, “Look, you can see the man is mad. Why have you brought him to me? ¹⁶Do I have so few madmen that you bring this fellow to rave in front of me? Should this man come into my house?”