1 Samuel 21:4-6
Evangelical Heritage Version
4 The priest answered David, “I do not have any ordinary bread, but there is holy[a] bread—I can give it to you[b] only if your young men have kept themselves away from women.”[c]
5 David answered the priest, “Yes indeed, women have been kept away from us just as they have been on previous occasions. Whenever I go out on a mission, the bodies[d] of the young men are kept holy even if it is only an ordinary journey. How much more then shall their bodies be holy today?”
6 So the priest gave him holy bread, because there was no bread there except for the Bread of the Presence which had been removed from the presence of the Lord and replaced with hot bread.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 1 Samuel 21:4 In this context holy means ceremonially pure or set aside for a sacred purpose.
- 1 Samuel 21:4 The words I can give it to you are added to make the sentence clear in English.
- 1 Samuel 21:4 Sexual relations made a man ceremonially unclean, as did touching a woman during her period.
- 1 Samuel 21:5 Literally vessels. Some translations understand this as a reference to the men’s weapons, but it is clear from the priest’s question that he is concerned about the effect of sexual relations on the purity of their bodies.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.