This edition follows the Hebrew versification; the traditional number is given in brackets.
1[—]David got up and left, and Jonathan went back into the city.
David Flees to Nob
2[21:1]David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he met David, and said to him, “Why are you alone, with no one accompanying you?” 3[21:2]David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king gave me a mission and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything about the mission I am sending you on and what I have commanded you.’ I have told the young men to meet me at a certain place. 4[21:3]Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.” 5[21:4]The priest answered David, “I have no ordinary bread on hand, only consecrated bread — provided the young men have kept themselves from women.” 6[21:5]David answered the priest, “Indeed, women have been kept from us as always whenever I set out on a mission — the bodies of my men are consecrated even on an ordinary journey, how much more today, when their bodies will truly be consecrated.” 7[21:6]So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before Yahweh to be replaced with warm bread on the day it was taken away. 8[21:7]Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained there under a vow before Yahweh; his name was Doeg the Edomite, chief of Saul’s shepherds. 9[21:8]David said to Ahimelech, “Do you have a spear or a sword on hand? I did not bring my sword or my weapons with me, because the king’s business was urgent.” 10[21:9]The priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah — it is here, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want to take it, take it; there is no other sword here.” David said, “There is none like it — give it to me.”
David Feigns Madness Before Achish
11[21:10]David got up and fled that day from Saul, and went to Achish king of Gath. 12[21:11]The servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances, ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?” 13[21:12]David took these words to heart and became very afraid of Achish king of Gath. 14[21:13]So he changed his behavior in front of them and pretended to be insane, scratching marks on the doors of the gate and letting spit run down into his beard. 15[21:14]Achish said to his servants, “Look, you can see the man is raving. Why did you bring him to me? 16[21:15]Am I short of madmen, that you brought this one to rave in front of me? Should this one come into my house?”
