I Samuel 21, David and the Shewbread

David is now fleeing from Saul.

I Samuel 21: 1-5, "Please, bread"

David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he met him, and asked, "Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?"

David answered Ahimelech the priest, "The king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, `No one is to know anything about your mission and your instructions.' As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find."

But the priest answered David, "I don't have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here--provided the men have kept themselves from women."

David replied, "Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men's things are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!"

David asks the priest for bread. He claims to be on a mission from the king. The priest is frightened but responds that only the consecrated bread is available. (As we will see later, the priest has reason to be frightened.) The conversation includes a requirement that the men have abstained from sex.

This location is Nob, a small town close to Jerusalem.

I Samuel 21: 6-9, Now a sword

So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the LORD and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.

Now one of Saul's servants was there that day, detained before the LORD; he was Doeg the Edomite, Saul's head shepherd. 

David asked Ahimelech, "Don't you have a spear or a sword here? I haven't brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king's business was urgent."

The priest replied, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one." 

David said, "There is none like it; give it to me."

David also asks for a sword and is told that the sword he took from Goliath is there.  Although the sword of Goliath is big and heavy, David takes it.

We have a tangential comment that one of Saul's servants, an Edomite (not an Israelite), is also there. In classic Old Testament storytelling, the mention of Doeg foreshadows a future event.

I Samuel 21: 10-15, Refuge in Gath

That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said to him, "Isn't this David, the king of the land? Isn't he the one they sing about in their dances: "`Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands'?"

David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.

Achish said to his servants, "Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?"

David, afraid that the king of Gath might be threatened by him, pretends to be insane.  The king asks, "Do I really need another madman in my employ?"  This retreat to Gath represents a significant gamble by David but he pulls off the insanity act enough that the king of Gath is repulsed, not threatened.

Playing the part of a madman in Gath is a low point of David's career.  The act itself is humiliating and several psalms will be composed by David during this flight from Saul.

Crafty David plays the madman.  Meanwhile, the king of Israel is showing increasing signs of real insanity.

Gath was a significant city in the ancient Near East. Archaeologists in Israel are currently excavating its ruins.  An article on that excavation is here.