Font Size
1 Samuel 21:2-4
New English Translation
1 Samuel 21:2-4
New English Translation
2 David replied to Ahimelech the priest, “The king instructed me to do something, but he said to me, ‘Don’t let anyone know the reason I am sending you or the instructions I have given you.’[a] I have told my soldiers[b] to wait at a certain place.[c] 3 Now what do you have at your disposal?[d] Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”
4 The priest replied to David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread at my disposal. Only holy bread is available, and then only if your soldiers[e] have abstained from relations with women.”[f]
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 1 Samuel 21:2 tn Heb “let not a man know anything about the matter [for] which I am sending you and [about] which I commanded you.”
- 1 Samuel 21:2 tn Heb “servants.”
- 1 Samuel 21:2 tn The Hebrew expression here refers to a particular, but unnamed, place. It occurs in the OT only here, in 2 Kgs 6:8, and in Ruth 4:1, where Boaz uses it to refer to Naomi’s unnamed kinsman-redeemer. A contracted form of the expression appears in Dan 8:13.
- 1 Samuel 21:3 tn Heb “under your hand.”
- 1 Samuel 21:4 tn Heb “servants.”
- 1 Samuel 21:4 tn Heb “have kept themselves from women” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “haven’t had sexual relations recently”; NLT “have not slept with any women recently.” sn Temporary sexual abstinence was part of the requirements of a war campaign (Deut 23:9-14), since God was pictured as coming among the camp (compare the abstinence in Exod 19:15). Besides David’s claim that it was standard practice for he and his men, it is also evident through the account of Uriah (2 Sam 11:11-12).
New English Translation (NET)
NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2017 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved.