David on the Run, but Becoming More Kingly Every Day
1Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” 2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4 And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.”
6 So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
8 Then David said to Ahimelech, “Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.” 9 And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here.” And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.”
1 Samuel 21:1–4,6,8–9 Read More
David is now on the run but he’s not a public fugitive yet. Ahimelech doesn’t know two things are going on here:
David is a fugitive and to help him out is treason against Saul
Samuel, who made Saul and then David king, prophesied that the priesthood would be taken from Eli and his descendants, and none of his descendants would live to see old age. Ahimelech is a descendant of Eli.
The cool thing is, Ahimelech didn’t do anything wrong here. He didn’t get destroyed by God for doing this, he was destroyed by men. Jesus would later talk about Ahimelech’s decision and say it was the right one while teaching the Pharisees that God desires mercy, not sacrifice.
If you’re going to point the finger at anyone for the wrong in here, you could point at the spirit of self-preservation. That spirit of self-preservation is what Eli followed that led to the downfall of his family. That spirit of self-preservation is going to bring Saul to do bad things at Nob later.
David could, of course, be living according to self-preservation, but it is on a different scale. Instead of fighting Saul face to face, he is withdrawing. He is going to spend time away from Israel to figure out what is going on with his anointing and a best-friend turned psycho king.
David, of course knows that there is food there and a sword. He’s being polite with Ahimelech instead of ordering him to feed and arm him. The sword of Goliath was the one David grabbed after hitting Goliath with a stone. He either grabbed it after the armor-bearer fled, or pulled it off of Goliath as he lay face down on the ground. It says he took it out of its sheath and struck Goliath with it. David knew that sword and how to use it. He was the only Israelite to ever handle it in war.
David, the unexpected king, is now armed like a king. Remember only the king and his son had swords, since all of the blacksmiths were killed. Just like God gave David the throne apart from his family lines and apart from his great feats, God equips David with things that David couldn’t get anywhere else but from God.
Looking at the course David is taking, this kingship is as much by grace as Isaac was a child of promise to Abraham. The results play out the same.
The child of the law, the king of the deeds, ends up empty-handed and hopeless.
The child of grace, the king that has a heart seeking after God, is established forever in relationship to God.
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