1 Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And when Ahimelech met David, he trembled and asked him, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
John Chrysostom · AD 407 In similar fashion, whenever we have God on our side, even if we are utterly alone, we will live more securely than those who dwell in the cities. After all, the grace of God is the greatest security and the most impregnable fortification.
Bede · AD 735 And Achimelech was astonished, etc. The ancient chosen ones were astonished, and the modern ones are astonished too, whenever they receive the coming of the Lord's visitation with a simple mind. They are not only stunned by the majesty of His vision, but also disturbed by the rarity of those who desire to follow the grace of such great piety.
2 “The king has given me a mission,” David replied. “He told me no one is to know about the mission on which I am sending you. And I have directed my young men to meet me at a certain place.
John Cassian · AD 435 No wonder that these dispensations were uprightly made use of in the Old Testament and that holy men sometimes lied in praiseworthy or at least in pardonable fashion, since we see that far greater things were permitted them because it was a time of beginnings.
Bede · AD 735 And David said to Achimelech the priest: "The king has commanded me a certain matter," etc. The Lord said to the apostles, the heirs of the everlasting kingdom and priesthood: "The people of persecutors and unbelievers commanded me, as much as possible, not to call them to faith by teaching.
3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”
Tertullian · AD 220 When the disciples had been hungry on the sabbath and had plucked some ears [of grain] and rubbed them in their hands, they violated the holy day by so preparing their food. Yet Christ excuses them and even became their accomplice in breaking the sabbath.
Ambrose of Milan · AD 397 Even if they accuse, yet Christ excuses, and he makes the souls that he wishes, that follow him, similar to David, who ate the loaves of proposition outside of the law—for even then he foresaw in his mind the prophetic mysteries of a new grace.
4 “There is no common bread on hand,” the priest replied, “but there is some consecrated bread—provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.”
Origen of Alexandria · AD 253 By "profane" he now means not the unclean, but those who are not holy, in contradistinction to the holy loaves set out upon the table.
Bede · AD 735 And the priest answering David, said to him, etc. Because "laos" in Greek means "people," "laic breads" signify common breads, that is, those not consecrated by offering, but common and prepared for ordinary use.
5 David answered, “Women have indeed been kept from us, as is usual when I set out. And the bodies of the young men are holy even on common missions. How much more so today!”
Origen of Alexandria · AD 253 "Today it shall be sanctified because of the vessels" — he said this rather obscurely, but it means this: "My young men have been sanctified and have kept themselves from a woman both yesterday and the day before" — for this is what his saying that the young men were purified amounts to.
Bede · AD 735 And David answered the priest, and said to him: Indeed, if it concerns women, etc. He answered those sending forth the apostles to teach the nations: What God has purified, do not call common (Acts X).
6 So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there but the Bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the LORD and replaced with hot bread on the day it was taken away.
Ephrem the Syrian · AD 373 Our Lord put forward the clear example of David, who was not accused either over this, as he was over something else. It was not permissible, he said, for David to eat [the holy bread] since he was not a priest. However, he was a priest, because he was a temple of the Spirit.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 In many other testimonies of the divine Scriptures, Christ appears both as king and as priest. With good reason, therefore, he is declared to be David's son more frequently than he is said to be Abraham's son.
Bede · AD 735 The priest therefore gave him the sanctified bread. Because he heard that they were clean who were to receive it, he consented to give them the sanctified bread; which he would in no way dare to do if he had not recognized them as clean in all respects.
7 Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the LORD. And his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief shepherd for Saul.
Origen of Alexandria · AD 253 Saul bears the type of the evil spirit, when Israel, then taking rule to itself, said, "We have no king." For indeed the people of old, having despised the Lord who reigned over them, asked that Saul be given to them as ruler.
Bede · AD 735 Now there was there a man of the servants of Saul... and his name was Doeg, etc. There were among the preaching apostles false brothers, the foremost being Judas; indeed within the Church, constituted by the mystery of faith, but moved from the firmness of their stability, bloodthirsty to betray the peace of fraternity (for Doeg is called the Edomite, a bloodthirsty man), the m…
8 Then David asked Ahimelech, “Is there not a spear or sword on hand here? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s mission was urgent.”
Bede · AD 735 But David said to Ahimelech, "If you have a spear or a sword here at hand, etc." The Savior urges the apostles to train their listeners not only to learn but also to teach the word of life, by which He Himself can conquer the world, because He delayed sending preachers of the Gospel throughout the world, who would always fight for the Church against the aerial powers, instead o…
9 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, you may take it. For there is no other but this one here.” And David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”
Bede · AD 735 And the priest said: Behold the sword of Goliath the Philistine, etc. The apostles said to Christ, teachers seeking against the kingdom of the world: Behold men accustomed to battle for the devil with perverse doctrines for a long time, whom you have overcome in the humility of the cross, are entangled in the trappings of the first transgression, far removed from the garments o…
10 That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath.
Clement of Rome · AD 99 Every kind of honour and happiness was bestowed upon you, and then was fulfilled that which is written, "My beloved ate and drank, and was enlarged and became fat, and kicked." [Deuteronomy 32:15] Hence flowed emulation and envy, strife and sedition, persecution and disorder, war and captivity.
11 But the servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing about him in their dances, saying: ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?”
Bede · AD 735 Is this not David, the king of the land? etc. The scribes and Pharisees of the Jewish kingdom, serving wickedness badly, said: "See that we gain nothing; behold, the whole world has gone after him" (John XII), to whom they sang in choirs, saying: "Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
12 Now David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath.
Bede · AD 735 David, however, placed these words in his heart, etc. The Lord saw in his wisdom the unbelieving and deceitful hearts of some of the Jews; and, as the Scripture customarily speaks of God in human manner, he feared so much from the face of the people who were his brothers by human communion of fragility, but were persecutors by the impiety of their conspiracy against the Lord, t…
13 So he changed his behavior before them and feigned madness in their hands; he scratched on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down his beard.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 All these modes of expression will be thought lies, if a figurative expression or action is to be considered a lie. But, if it is not a lie when signs signifying one thing are put for another to serve the understanding of a truth, certainly that should not be judged a lie either which Jacob did or said to his father in order to be blessed, or what Joseph said in sporting with h…
Cassiodorus · AD 585 When Saul was pursuing David, David fled to king Achish, and since through the motive of jealousy he was suspected there, he carefully changed his countenance, covering his face with spittle so that he would be thought to be diabolically possessed and thus released unharmed as an object of pity.
Bede · AD 735 And he collapsed in their hands, etc. The hands of the Gethites, the works of the Jews; the doors of the gate reveal the beginnings of heavenly grace; saliva signifies infirmity; the beard signifies virtue.
14 Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you can see that the man is insane! Why have you brought him to me?
Bede · AD 735 And Achish said, "Have you seen the man who is insane," etc.? David, indeed, suspected by the Gittites due to his reputation for virtues, industriously imitated the actions of one who was mad, so that he might be thought to be possessed and, pitied by those who saw him, released unharmed.
15 Am I in need of madmen, that you have brought this man to rave in my presence? Must this man come into my house?”