21 Now David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech was afraid when he met David, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one is with you?”

² So David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has ordered me on some business, and said to me, ‘Do not let anyone know anything about the business on which I send you, or what I have commanded you.’ And I have directed my young men to such and such a place. ³ Now therefore, what have you on hand? Give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever can be found.”

⁴ And the priest answered David and said, “There is no common bread on hand; but there is holy bread, if the young men have at least kept themselves from women.”

⁵ Then David answered the priest, and said to him, “Truly, women have been kept from us about three days since I came out. And the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in effect common, even though it was consecrated in the vessel this day.”

⁶ So the priest gave him holy bread; for there was no bread there but the showbread which had been taken from before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place on the day when it was taken away.

⁷ Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. And his name was Doeg, an Edomite, the chief of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul.

⁸ And David said to Ahimelech, “Is there not here on hand a spear or a sword? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.”

⁹ So the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, there it is, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it. For there is no other except that one here.”

And David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”

¹⁰ Then David arose and fled that day from before Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. ¹¹ And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying:

‘Saul has slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands’?”

¹² Now David took these words to heart, and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. ¹³ So he changed his behavior before them, pretended madness in their hands, scratched on the doors of the gate, and let his saliva fall down on his beard. ¹⁴ Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is insane. Why have you brought him to me? ¹⁵ Have I need of madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”

1 Samuel 21

Dear God, did David say anything this this story that was true? He just lied and deceived all over the place. How did you feel about that? Is the blood of Ahimelech as told in the next chapter on his head? I mean, obviously, Saul committed the sin and I’ll talk about that tomorrow, but it starts with this deception by David. Ahimelech sounds like a good man. My heart hurts to know that he got caught as part of the collateral damage of this thing between Saul and David.

At this point, I’ll be frank, it seems like David will use anyone he can to protect himself, and he will lie to them and deceive them to get what he wants out of them. He lies to Ahimelech. He’s even lying about the men accompanying him. Just about nothing David says is true.

I also want to point out that Goliath’s sword comes up here. Just four chapters ago, David was taking Goliath’s armor and weapons and putting them in his tent. I wonder how the sword ended up here at the temple. I guess it was as a reminder of what you did for the Israelites that day against an seemingly insurmountable foe.

Father, I’m not sure what to do with these lies and deceptions from David. I wonder what my biblical commentary has to say on it. Let me check…I just read it and got a couple of details, but what occurred to me that wasn’t said was that this was one of the first times that David was really pressed. When he faced individual foes like the lion, bear, and Goliath, he was good with his faith. When he faced battles after that, he had armies with him. But this was him running for his life with a lot of people. This was him escaping out the window of his home and his wife lying for him and to save herself. This was him lying to Ahimelech. Oh, speaking of Ahimelech, one of the things the commentary mentioned is that he was Eli’s grandson. I have a feeling your curse on Eli and his descendants from back in 1 Samuel 2:30-34. So there’s a lot going on here, and I think maybe the takeaway for me is to ask myself if I’m willing to be better than David here. His deception really bothers me, but am I any better? Am I willing to do the right thing no matter what it costs me, or will I do the wrong thing for the right reason? I guess I have this day and the coming days to live out the answer to that question. I pray you find me worthy.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen