Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Chapter Twenty-one. Synopsis of the Chapter
David flees to Achimelech the high priest in Nobe, and from him asks and receives the loaves of proposition and the sword of Goliath. Thence, verse 10, seeing that in Judea, as subject to Saul, he cannot lie hid, he flees to Achis king of Geth, with whom, betrayed and accused, he feigns himself a fool, and so escapes free.
1. And David came to Nobe, to Achimelech the priest; and Achimelech was astonished at the coming of David. And he said to him: Why art thou alone, and no man with thee? 2. And David said to Achimelech the priest: The king hath commanded me a business, and said: Let no man know the thing for which thou art sent by me, and what orders I have given thee; and I have appointed my servants to such and such a place. 3. Now therefore if thou hast any thing at hand, though it be but five loaves, give me, or whatsoever thou shalt find. 4. And the priest answering David, said to him: I have no common bread at hand, but only holy bread, if the young men be clean, especially from women? 5. And David answered the priest, and said to him: Truly, as to women, we have kept ourselves from yesterday and the day before, when we came out, and the vessels of the young men were holy. Now this way is defiled, but it also shall be sanctified this day in the vessels. 6. The priest therefore gave him hallowed bread. For there was no bread there, but only the loaves of proposition, which had been taken away from before the face of the Lord, that hot loaves might be set up. 7. Now there was a man there of the servants of Saul that day, shut up in the tabernacle of the Lord; and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the most mighty of the shepherds of Saul. 8. And David said to Achimelech: Hast thou not here at hand a spear or a sword? for I brought not with me my sword, nor my weapons; for the king’s business was urgent. 9. And the priest said: Behold here the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Terebinth, is wrapped up in a cloth behind the ephod; if thou wilt take that, take it. For there is no other here but that. And David said: There is none like that, give it me. 10. And David arose and fled that day from the face of Saul; and he came to Achis the king of Geth; 11. and the servants of Achis said to him, when they saw David: Is not this David the king of the land? did they not sing to him in dances, saying: Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands? 12. And David laid up these words in his heart, and was exceedingly afraid of Achis the king of Geth. 13. And he changed his countenance before them, and slipped down between their hands; and he stumbled against the doors of the gate, and his spittle ran down upon his beard. 14. And Achis said to his servants: You saw the man was mad; why have you brought him to me? 15. Have we need of madmen, that you have brought in this fellow, to play the madman in my presence? shall this man come into my house?
1. AND DAVID CAME TO NOBE, TO ACHIMELECH THE PRIEST—the high priest, or Pontiff. He was the grandson of Phinees, son of Heli the Pontiff. St. Mark, chapter 2, verse 26, says that David came to Abiathar; either because Abiathar was the son of Achimelech, son of Achias, son of Achitob, and, his father being absent or sick, performed his office; or because both names were common to son and father, as I showed in that place. David, fleeing at the beginning of Saul’s persecution, returned to him a second and third time, hoping to reconcile him to himself. But when he learned from Jonathan Saul’s implacable hatred against him, he fled and returned no more to Saul.
IN NOBE.—This city fell to the priests, as it seems, on the occasion of the tabernacle of the covenant being transferred there. For in Josue, chapter 21, “Nobe” is not reckoned among the priestly cities. After Josue, therefore, it was given to the priests when the tabernacle was brought into it. For the priests were bound to serve the tabernacle. Now there were two cities called “Nobe,” one on the border of the tribes of Juda and Benjamin on this side of the Jordan, the other beyond the Jordan in the half-tribe of Manasses, Numbers 32:42, and Judges 8:11. Many take the former “Nobe” here; but Serarius the latter, because the former was near Saul’s Gabaa, whereas David here, verse 4, says he came out from there not on the same day but from yesterday and the day before: so he understands “Nobe” beyond the Jordan, for this was farther from Gabaa, where Saul and David dwelt.
Note: the Tabernacle of the covenant containing the ark, which Moses made, was at Silo, and remained there until the ark was captured by the Philistines; sent back by them after seven months, the ark was placed in Cariathiarim; thence it was transferred to the house of Obededom; thence by David to Sion; thence by Solomon to the temple built by him. But the Mosaic tabernacle, the ark having been taken, seems to have been brought to Nobe; this having been overthrown by Saul, as we shall hear in the next chapter, it was transferred to Gabaon; thence brought by Solomon into the temple, 3 Kings 8.
Moreover the Priests and Pontiffs offered sacrifices in the place where the tabernacle was, because in it was the altar of holocausts, on which the victims were to be offered, 1 Paralipomenon 21:29; yet at times Samuel and others, for grave causes, God dispensing, sacrificed in other places, until God chose for himself a fixed place in the temple of Solomon.
You will say: David is said to have pitched a tabernacle for the ark in Sion, 2 Kings 6:17. I answer, this tabernacle was not that ancient one erected by Moses for the ark.
AND ACHIMELECH WAS ASTONISHED AT THE COMING OF DAVID,—because he saw him alone and unarmed, like a wanderer and fugitive, and did not know the cause, namely Saul’s anger.
WHY ART THOU ALONE, AND NO MAN WITH THEE?—For David had been alone with Jonathan, and, having learned from him Saul’s decree to kill him, had at once fled alone, hungry and unarmed, to Achimelech as to the Pontiff. Lyranus, Dionysius and Athanasius, in the homily On the Seed, answer otherwise: that David is said to have come alone because he did not come accompanied by the usual throng of servants and soldiers, but attended by only a few.
2. THE KING HATH COMMANDED ME A BUSINESS.—David lies dutifully to protect his life: lest, if he said he was fleeing from Saul, hostile to him, Achimelech, fearing Saul’s anger, should not dare to give him loaves; and again lest he create for Achimelech himself danger to his life with Saul. For Doeg was there, devoted to Saul, who nevertheless accused Achimelech to Saul, and so was the cause why so many priests were killed by him, as we shall hear in the next chapter.
AND I HAVE APPOINTED MY SERVANTS TO SUCH AND SUCH A PLACE.—Hence it appears that David entered alone to Achimelech with his face covered, lest he be recognised by Doeg, but that his servants, already before, when he parted from Jonathan, whether going to them himself or summoning them through Jonathan, says Abulensis, he had ordered to wait for him at the appointed place near Nobe: so that he received loaves from Achimelech and carried them to the servants and companions waiting at the appointed place: for all were suffering from two days’ journey, from want of food and hunger; wherefore all satisfied their hunger from the hallowed loaves, as Christ says, Matthew 12:3, because from elsewhere he could not, for fear of Saul, have common loaves. For necessity has no law. So St. Jerome, Hilary, St. Thomas, Maldonatus on Matthew 12, St. Ambrose and Toletus on Luke 6, Lyranus, Dionysius, Abulensis and others here. Allegorically Angelomus says: “David came alone to Achimelech; and Christ in his passion was left alone. And what David says, ‘I have appointed my servants to such and such a place,’ this signified what the Lord said, instructing his Apostles before his passion: After I shall be risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. David asked Achimelech for five loaves, but received one: because in the five books of the Mosaic law unity is retained.”
4. IF THE YOUNG MEN BE CLEAN, ESPECIALLY FROM WOMEN,—how much more in the new law does it become husbands to abstain from the use of their wives on the day when they wish to receive not the bread of proposition but the divine bread, namely the Eucharist? So the Theologians.
5. AND THE VESSELS OF THE YOUNG MEN WERE HOLY.—The “vessels,” that is, the bodies, were clean from women and undefiled. So the Apostle, 1 Thessalonians 4:4, bids each one “possess his vessel,” that is, his body, “in honour and sanctification,” that is, purity. So Abulensis. Otherwise Vatablus, who by “vessels” understands garments, as though to say: We have pure and clean garments in which to receive the holy bread of proposition.