1 Samuel 21:4

And the priest answered David, and said, [there is] no common bread under mine hand,.... In the tabernacle, though he might have such in his own house; which was common for any man to eat of, even

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.

Under mine hand, to wit, here in the tabernacle; though doubtless he had enough of that and of other provisions in his house; but David was in great haste, and in fear of Doeg, whom he saw and knew there, , and therefore would not stay till any thing could be fetched thence. Hallowed bread; the shew-bread, which was appropriated to the priests; of which see . At least from women; either from uncleanness by women, which might be divers ways contracted; or from conjugal converse with their wives; which though it did not defile them, yet he thought might debar them from the participation of such very sacred things; which he gathered by the analogy of that precept, . There was a double impediment to the giving of this bread to them: 1. Its sacredness in itself; which the priest implies, and David answers, , and the priest was satisfied therein by David’ s extraordinary occasions and great necessities. 2. The purity and abstinence from all women, which he supposeth should be in those that use it; concerning which he now inquires. And though he mention this only concerning David’ s young men, and out of modesty and reverence to David forbears to name him; yet he is also included in the number, as David’ s answer shows.

1 Samuel 21:4 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.Ver. 4. There is no common bread under mine hand.] He kept house at Anathoth, where doubtless he had common bread; but David’ s haste called for present supply. If the young men have kept themselves at least from women.] From companying with their wives; which, though lawful enough, yet through men’ s corruption, it sometimes is not without sin; and some legal uncleanness was contracted by it. See Leviticus 15:18 Exodus 19:15. Howbeit this was not a sufficient impediment to David and his followers in this necessity: and therefore Jerome saith that this was a ridiculous and preposterous objection.

(4) There is no common bread.—The condition of the priests in these days of Saul was evidently a pitiable one. The terrible massacre related in the next chapter seems not to have excited the wail of indignation and woe which such a wholesale murder of the priests of the living God should naturally have called out from the entire people. They were evidently held in little esteem, and their murder was regarded at the time, not as an awful act of sacrilege, but simply as an act of political vengeance—of punishment for what the king was pleased to style treason. Here the almost destitute condition of the ministers of the principal sanctuary of Israel appears from the quiet answer of the high priest to David, telling him they had positively no bread but the stale bread removed from before “the Presence” in the holy building. This “hallowed bread,” or shewbread, five loaves of which David petitioned for, consisted of twelve loaves, one for each tribe, which were placed in the Tabernacle fresh every Sabbath Day. The law of Moses was that this bread, being most holy, could only be eaten by the priests in the holy place. It is probable that this regulation had been relaxed, and that the bread was now often being carried away and eaten in the homes of the ministering priests, and on urgent occasions, perhaps, was even given to the “laity,” as in this case, the proviso only being made that the consumers of the bread should be ceremonially pure. Our Saviour, in Matthew 12:3, especially uses this example, drawn from the Tabernacle’s honoured customs, to justify a violation of the letter of the law, when its strict observance would stand in the way of the fulfilment of man’s sacred duty to his neighbour. The natural inference from this incident would be that such a violation of the Mosaic Law was not an uncommon occurrence, as Ahimelech at once gave him the hallowed bread, only making a conditional inquiry about ceremonial purity—a condition which came out so readily that we feel it had often been made before. The Talmud, however, is most anxious that this inference should not be drawn, and points out in the treatise Menachoth, “Meat-offerings” (Seder Kodashim), that this bread was not newly taken out of the sanctuary, but had been removed on some previous day, and that as, after a week’s exposure, it was stale and dry, the priests ate but little of it, and the rest was left. (See Treatise Yoma, 39.) It also points out that had such violation of the Levitical Law been common, so much importance would not have been attached to this incident.

4. common] Lit. profane or unholy, i.e. unconsecrated. Vulg. “laicos panes.”

Common - As opposed to holy. (See the marginal references, and compare the use of the word in Acts 10:14-15, Acts 10:28.) It gives an idea of the depressed and poor condition of the priesthood at

4. Common bread — Bread not consecrated; such as might lawfully be eaten by ordinary persons. Hallowed bread — That is, the showbread, which it was unlawful for any but the priests to eat. Exodus 29:32; Leviticus 24:9.