1 Samuel 21:1-5

21:1 (21:2) David went to Ahimelech the priest in Nob. Ahimelech was shaking with fear when he met ¹  David, and said to him, “Why are you by yourself with no one accompanying you?” 21:2 David replied to Ahimelech the priest, “The king instructed me to do something, but he said to me, ‘Don’t let anyone know the reason I am sending you or the instructions I have given you.’ ²  I have told my soldiers ³  to wait at a certain place. ⁴  21:3 Now what do you have at your disposal? ⁵  Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”

21:4 The priest replied to David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread at my disposal. Only holy bread is available, and then only if your soldiers ⁶  have abstained from sexual relations with women.” ⁷  21:5 David said to the priest, “Certainly women have been kept away from us, just as on previous occasions when I have set out. The soldiers’ ⁸  equipment is holy, even on an ordinary journey. How much more so will they be holy today, along with their equipment!”

¹ tn Heb “trembled to meet.”

² tn Heb “let not a man know anything about the matter [for] which I am sending you and [about] which I commanded you.”

³ tn Heb “servants.”

⁴ tn The Hebrew expression here refers to a particular, but unnamed, place. It occurs in the OT only here, in 2 Kgs 6:8, and in Ruth 4:1, where Boaz uses it to refer to Naomi’s unnamed kinsman-redeemer. A contracted form of the expression appears in Dan 8:13.

³ tn Heb “under your hand.”

⁴ tn Heb “servants.”

⁵ tn Heb “have kept themselves from women” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “haven’t had sexual relations recently”; NLT “have not slept with any women recently.”

⁵ tn Heb “servants’.”