Was David alone when he asked for the holy bread?
Hard question · Prophecy and its fulfilment · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Ahimelech asks David, “Why art thou alone, and no man with thee?”; David says he has sent his young men to meet him at a certain place.
Then came David to Nob to Ahimelech the priest: and Ahimelech was afraid at the meeting of David, and said unto him, Why art thou alone, and no man with thee? And David said unto Ahimelech the priest, The king hath commanded me a business, and hath said unto me, Let no man know any thing of the business whereabout I send thee, and what I have commanded thee: and I have appointed my servants to such and such a place.
Ahimelech gives the hallowed bread on condition that “the young men have kept themselves at least from women”, and David assures him they have.
Now therefore what is under thine hand? give me five loaves of bread in mine hand, or what there is present. And the priest answered David, and said, There is no common bread under mine hand, but there is hallowed bread; if the young men have kept themselves at least from women. And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified this day in the vessel. So the priest gave him hallowed bread: for there was no bread there but the shewbread, that was taken from before the Lord, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.
Jesus says that David “and they that were with him” were hungry and ate the shewbread.
But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?
David ate the shewbread “and gave also to them which were with him”.
And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him?
Luke’s parallel: David took the shewbread and gave it to those who were with him.
And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him; How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone?
The objection
When David came to the priest at Nob, Ahimelech asked him, “Why art thou alone, and no man with thee?” (1 Samuel 21:1). Yet Jesus speaks of David “and they that were with him” eating the holy bread, and Mark and Luke say David gave some to his companions (Mark 2:26; Luke 6:4). Critics ask whether David was alone or not.
The answer
David came into Ahimelech’s presence alone, but he was not travelling alone. Asked why no one was with him, he answered that he had sent his young men on to a meeting place (1 Samuel 21:2). Ahimelech took this seriously. He agreed to give the holy bread only if “the young men have kept themselves at least from women” (21:4), and David assured him that “the vessels of the young men are holy” (21:5). The bread was for a group: David asked for five loaves (21:3).
Jesus’ words supply what 1 Samuel implies. There were men with David, waiting elsewhere, who shared the bread he brought. It also fits what follows, for soon afterwards David’s family and about four hundred men gathered to him at the cave of Adullam (22:1–2). Keil and Delitzsch thought David had left the few men with him somewhere near, so as to speak with the priest alone, and that he asked for five loaves because he had spoken of companions. John Gill read the passages the same way: David had servants, though they were not with him at that moment, and Jesus’ words show that they ate the shewbread.
Other answers Christians give
Part of David’s cover story
Some commentators think David’s talk of a secret errand for the king and of young men waiting for him was all part of his deception of Ahimelech, which later cost the priests of Nob their lives (1 Samuel 22:22). Gill too calls the royal errand a lie, but notes that the part about the young men may well have been true, and Jesus treats David’s companions as a fact.
Still open
1 Samuel does not say who David’s companions were or where they waited. Gill suggests that Jonathan sent servants after him.
From the classic commentators
and that David had some servants, though not now with him, who ate of the shewbread, appears from Matthew 12:3; whom Jonathan might send after him, to a place agreed on and appointed between them; so that this might be true.John Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on 1 Samuel 21:2 (1746–1763)
Sources
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: 1 Samuel 21 (HelloAO)
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: 1 Samuel 21 (HelloAO)