Serving the Lord No Matter the Unknown Cost
[1] Then 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.” [5] And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” [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.
1 Samuel 21:1–9 ESV
The tale of Ahimelech and the Priests of Nob is one that doesn’t end well. All of the priests of Nob are slaughtered by one of Saul’s henchmen (he doesn’t have the guts to do it himself) for helping David at this time. They didn’t know they were sealing their fate when they helped David, they just did what the priests did, interceded, took care of people, served the Lord and His people.
In the 1350s, Franciscan and Dominican monks became fantastically wealthy. They were the only people that would enter the homes of people sick with the plague and hear their confessions and serve them communion. As a result, they were often the benefactors of many inheritances. They didn’t consider the long term consequences; they did what they were ordained and commissioned to do: serve the sick and the poor and the dying in the name of Christ.
70% of the Franciscan and Dominican friars around the time of the Black Death died of the Black Death. It was the largest death rate of any segment of the population. These men were daily giving up their lives so that the dying could hear the gospel.
Ahimelech would end up being the only survivor of the slaughter at Nob. He would go on to serve King David in the King’s quarters, and then Solomon.
The last thing he gives to David, again unknowingly and selflessly, is the sword of Goliath. The last words said before that sword was in the hands of Israel was “The battle belongs to the Lord.” and few people lived with such surrender and reliance on God than Ahimelech, Priest of Nob.