1 Samuel 21:4-6
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
4 (A)Now what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves, or whatever you can find.” 5 [a]But the priest replied to David, “I have no ordinary bread on hand, only holy bread; if the men have abstained from women, you may eat some of that.” 6 David answered the priest: “We have indeed stayed away from women. In the past whenever I went out on a campaign, all the young men were consecrated—even for an ordinary campaign. All the more so are they consecrated with their weapons today!”
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 21:5–6 According to Lv 24:5–9, the showbread consisted of twelve loaves that were replaced each sabbath. Since the old bread was to be consumed by the priests, Ahimelech questions David regarding the ritual purity of his men (see 2 Sm 11:11). David’s answer supposes the discipline of a military campaign under the conditions of “holy war” (Dt 23:10–15).
1 Samuel 21:4-6
New International Version
4 But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread(A) on hand; however, there is some consecrated(B) bread here—provided the men have kept(C) themselves from women.”
5 David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual(D) whenever[a] I set out. The men’s bodies are holy(E) even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” 6 So the priest gave him the consecrated bread,(F) 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.
Footnotes
- 1 Samuel 21:5 Or from us in the past few days since
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.