1 Samuel · Brenton's English Septuagint
1 Samuel 21 Brenton's English Septuagint
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
Notes on this text (2)
- Square brackets mark words Brenton supplied for English sense.
- Old Testament only (no New Testament). First printed 1844; the 1851 edition added the deuterocanonical books.
1 And David arose and departed, and Jonathan went into the city.
1 Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech came to meet David trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no man with you?”
2 And David comes to Nomba to Abimelech the priest: and Abimelech was amazed at meeting him, and said to him, Why [art] thou alone, and nobody with thee?
2 David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commanded me to do something, and has said to me, ‘Let no one know anything about the business about which I send you, and what I have commanded you. I have sent the young men to a certain place.’
3 And David said to the priest, The king gave me a command to-day, and said to me, Let no one know the matter on which I send thee, and concerning which I have charged thee: and I have charged my servants [to be] in the place that is called, The faithfulness of God, phellani maemoni.
3 Now therefore what is under your hand? Please give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever is available.”
4 And now if there are under thy hand five loaves, give into my hand what is ready.
4 The priest answered David, and said, “I have no common bread, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.”
5 And the priest answered David, and said, There are no common loaves under my hand, for I have none but holy loaves: if the young men have been kept at least from women, then they shall eat [them].
5 David answered the priest, and said to him, “Truly, women have been kept from us as usual these three days. When I came out, the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was only a common journey. How much more then today shall their vessels be holy?”
6 And David answered the priest, and said to him, Yea, we have been kept from women for three days: when I came forth for the journey all the young men were purified; but this expedition is unclean, wherefore it shall be sanctified this day because of my weapons.
6 So the priest gave him holy bread; for there was no bread there but the show bread that was taken from before Yahweh, to be replaced with hot bread in the day when it was taken away.
7 So Abimelech the priest gave him the shewbread; for there were no loaves there, but only the presence loaves which had been removed from the presence of the Lord, in order that hot bread should be set on, on the day on which he took them.
7 Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before Yahweh; and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the best of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul.
8 And there was there on that day one of Saul's servants detained before the Lord, and his name [was] Doec the Syrian, tending the mules of Saul.
8 David said to Ahimelech, “Isn’t there here under your hand spear or sword? For I haven’t brought my sword or my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.”
9 And David said to Abimelech, See if there is here under thy hand spear or sword, for I have not brought in my hand my sword or my weapons, for the word of the king was urgent.
9 The priest said, “Behold, the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah, is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you would like to take that, take it, for there is no other except that here.” David said, “There is none like that. Give it to me.”
10 And the priest said, Behold the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou smotest in the valley of Ela; and it is wrapt in a cloth: if thou wilt take it, take it for thyself, for there is no other except it here. And David said, Behold, there is none like it; give it me.
10 David arose and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath.
11 And he gave it him; and David arose, and fled in that day from the presence of Saul: and David came to Anchus king of Geth.
11 The servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David the king of the land? Didn’t they sing to one another about him in dances, saying, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?”
12 And the servants of Anchus said to him, [Is] not this David the king of the land? Did not the dancing women begin the song to him, saying, Saul has smitten his thousands, and David his ten thousands?
12 David laid up these words in his heart, and was very afraid of Achish the king of Gath.
13 And David laid up the words in his heart, and was greatly afraid of Anchus king of Geth.
13 He changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands, and scribbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down on his beard.
14 And he changed his appearance before him, and feigned himself a false character in that day; and drummed upon the doors of the city, and used extravagant gestures with his hands, and fell against the doors of the gate, and his spittle ran down upon his beard.
14 Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is insane. Why then have you brought him to me?
15 And Anchus said to his servants, Lo! ye see the man [is] mad: why have ye brought him in to me?
15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Should this fellow come into my house?”
16 [Am] I in want of madmen, that ye have brought him in to me to play the madman? he shall not come into the house.
16 Not in this translation
People & places in this chapter
From this site's family tree and Bible maps, only where those guides cite this chapter.
People
David
The shepherd who became Israel's greatest king and a man after God's own heart.
Cited in the guide: 1 Sam. 16 - 1 Kings 2; 2 Sam. 7; 1 Chron. 2:15; Matt. 1:6
Cross references (13)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 Nehemiah 11:32; Mark 2:26; Isaiah 10:32; 1 Samuel 14:3; 1 Samuel 16:4
- 2 Colossians 3:9; Galatians 2:12; 1 Samuel 22:22; 1 Samuel 19:17; 1 Kings 13:18
- 3 1 Samuel 21:4; Isaiah 3:6; Judges 9:29
- 4 Matthew 12:3–4; Exodus 19:15; Exodus 25:30; 1 Samuel 21:6; Zechariah 7:3
- 5 Leviticus 24:9; Leviticus 8:26; Acts 9:15; 2 Timothy 2:20–21; 1 Thessalonians 4:3–4
- 6 Luke 6:3–4; Leviticus 24:5–9; Matthew 12:3–4; Mark 2:25–27
- 7 1 Samuel 22:9; Psalm 52:1–9; 1 Chronicles 27:29; 2 Chronicles 26:10; Jeremiah 7:9–11
- 9 1 Samuel 17:2; 1 Samuel 31:10; 1 Samuel 17:50–54; Exodus 28:6–14
- 10 1 Samuel 27:1–2; Jeremiah 26:21; 1 Kings 19:3; Psalm 34:1–22
- 11 1 Samuel 29:5; Psalm 56:1–13; 1 Samuel 16:1; 1 Samuel 18:7–8
- 12 Luke 2:19; Psalm 56:3; Psalm 34:4; Luke 2:51; Genesis 26:7
- 13 Proverbs 29:25; Ecclesiastes 7:7; Psalm 34:1–22
- 14 Ecclesiastes 7:7
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
… His Own Body and Blood: because when He commendeth His Own Body and Blood, He commendeth His Humility, in that which is written in this history, in that seeming madness of David, which we have passed by, "And his spittle ran down over his beard." When the Apostle was read, Ye heard the same spittle, but running down over the …
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 8 (1888)
… him," then, "Allophyli in Geth." We find indeed, brethren, David himself, son of Jesse, king of Israel, to have been in a strange land among the Allophyli, when he was sought by Saul, and was in that city and with the king of that city, but that there he was detained we read not.
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 8 (1888)