The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
David Takes the Consecrated Bread
1 Samuel 21:1–7 — David Takes the Consecrated Bread. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
1Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And when Ahimelech met David, he trembled and asked him, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḏā·wiḏ way·yā·ḇō nō·ḇeh ’el- ’ă·ḥî·me·leḵ hak·kō·hên ’ă·ḥî·me·leḵ liq·raṯ dā·wiḏ way·ye·ḥĕ·raḏ way·yō·mer lōw mad·dū·a‘ ’at·tāh lə·ḇad·de·ḵā wə·’îš ’ên ’it·tāḵ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-came David Nob-ward, unto Ahimelech the-priest; and-trembled Ahimelech to-meet David, and-said to-him: “Why art-thou by-thyself, and-a-man none with-thee?”
Where the English smooths the original
2“The king has given me a mission,” David replied. “He told me no one is to know about the mission on which I am sending you. And I have directed my young men to meet me at a certain place.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ham·me·leḵ ṣiw·wa·nî ḏā·ḇār dā·wiḏ way·yō·mer la·’ă·ḥî·me·leḵ hak·kō·hên way·yō·mer ’ê·lay ’îš ’al- yê·ḏa‘ mə·’ū·māh ’eṯ- had·dā·ḇār ’ă·šer- ’ā·nō·ḵî šō·lê·ḥă·ḵā wa·’ă·šer ṣiw·wî·ṯi·ḵā wə·’eṯ- yō·w·ḏa‘·tî han·nə·‘ā·rîm ’el- mə·qō·wm pə·lō·nî ’al·mō·w·nî
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said David to-Ahimelech the-priest: “The-king has-charged-me a-word; and-he-said unto-me, ‘Let-no man know anything of the-matter upon-which I am-sending-thee and-which I-have-charged-thee.’ And-the-young-men I-have-appointed unto a-place such-a-one, nameless.”
Where the English smooths the original
3Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·‘at·tāh mah- yêš ta·ḥaṯ- yā·ḏə·ḵā tə·nāh ḇə·yā·ḏî ḥă·miš·šāh- le·ḥem ’ōw han·nim·ṣā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-now, what is-there under thy-hand? Five bread give into-my-hand, or the-thing-that-is-found.”
Where the English smooths the original
4“There is no common bread on hand,” the priest replied, “but there is some consecrated bread—provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ên- ḥōl le·ḥem ’el- ta·ḥaṯ yā·ḏî hak·kō·hên way·ya·‘an ’eṯ- dā·wiḏ way·yō·mer kî- ’im- yêš qō·ḏeš le·ḥem ’im- han·nə·‘ā·rîm ’aḵ niš·mə·rū mê·’iš·šāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-answered the-priest David and-said: “There-is-none, common bread, under my-hand; but-only holy bread there-is, if only the-young-men have-kept-themselves from woman.”
Where the English smooths the original
5David answered, “Women have indeed been kept from us, as is usual when I set out. And the bodies of the young men are holy even on common missions. How much more so today!”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dā·wiḏ way·ya·‘an ’eṯ- hak·kō·hên way·yō·mer lōw kî ’iš·šāh ’im- ‘ă·ṣu·rāh- lā·nū kiṯ·mō·wl šil·šōm bə·ṣê·ṯî ḵə·lê- han·nə·‘ā·rîm way·yih·yū qō·ḏeš wə·hū ḥōl de·reḵ wə·’ap̄ kî yiq·daš bak·ke·lî hay·yō·wm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-answered David the-priest and-said to-him: “Surely woman has-been-withheld from-us as-yesterday and-the-day-before when-I-came-out; and the-vessels of-the-young-men were holy — and-though it is a common way, how-much-more today shall-it-be-holy in-the-vessel.”
Where the English smooths the original
6So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there but the Bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the LORD and replaced with hot bread on the day it was taken away.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hak·kō·hên way·yit·ten- lōw qō·ḏeš kî hā·yāh lō- le·ḥem šām kî- ’im- le·ḥem hap·pā·nîm ham·mū·sā·rîm mil·lip̄·nê Yah·weh lā·śūm ḥōm le·ḥem bə·yō·wm hil·lā·qə·ḥōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-gave to-him the-priest holy; for there-was no bread there but-only the-bread of-the-Faces, the-ones-being-removed from-before YHWH, to-set hot bread in-the-day of-its-being-taken.
Where the English smooths the original
7Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the LORD. And his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief shepherd for Saul.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’îš šā·’ūl mê·‘aḇ·ḏê wə·šām ha·hū bay·yō·wm ne‘·ṣār lip̄·nê Yah·weh ū·šə·mōw dō·’êḡ hā·’ă·ḏō·mî ’ab·bîr hā·rō·‘îm ’ă·šer lə·šā·’ūl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-there a-man of-the-servants-of Saul on-that day, detained before YHWH; and-his-name Doeg the-Edomite, the-mighty-one of-the-shepherds that-belonged-to Saul.
Where the English smooths the original
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The unit opens with a verb of terror. וַיֶּחֱרַד (chârad, H2729, to shudder) governs the priest's entire motion, and both Pulpit and K&D render the clause the same way: he “went trembling to meet David.” The infinitive that follows, לִקְרַאת (H7122), is the verb of encounter, accidental or hostile, not of appointment. Ellicott reads the priest as “not unfriendly but cautious,” a man aware of the strained relations between Saul and his great servant though ignorant of the final breach; K&D supposes Ahimelech feared David had come with a royal commission that might implicate him; Cambridge simply says he “may have suspected the truth.” ⚙ Note what the Hebrew has already done before a word is spoken: the sanctuary of Israel now meets its future king with a shudder. Barnes, Cambridge and K&D agree the site of Nob cannot be identified with certainty; Pulpit observes that eighty-five ephod-wearing priests served there, and that Saul himself had restored the worship with “something of its old splendour,” which makes chapter 22 the more monstrous.
David's cover story is built from one noun, דָּבָר (dâbâr, H1697), a word or a matter, and it is used twice (indices 2 and 14). On the assessment there is no disagreement anywhere in the brief: JFB, “This was a direct falsehood, extorted through fear”; Poole and Benson, “a plain lie”; Barnes, “a fresh instance of David's unscrupulous readiness of invention”; Henry, “a gross untruth… we dare not justify it”; Cambridge, “The consequences of it were disastrous.” Ellicott, quoting Lange, makes the point that the narrator does not flinch: “The Holy Spirit is become the chronicler of men's foolish, yea, sinful actions.” Benson, Poole, JFB and Gill all connect David's later repentance to Psalm 119:29, and K&D, Gill and Cambridge all point to 1 Samuel 22:22, where David himself takes the blood of Nob on his own account. ⚙ The grammar sharpens it further. David forbids knowing with אַל־יֵדַע (yâdaʻ, H3045) and in the same breath claims to have made a rendezvous known with the causative of that same root; and he closes with פְּלֹנִי אַלְמוֹנִי, the Bible's formula for a deliberately unnamed place, found in only three verses in the entire Hebrew Bible. He is manufacturing secrecy out of the vocabulary of secrecy, in a sanctuary, in front of a man who will die for it.
Ahimelech answers with the rarest word in the unit: חֹל (ḥōl, H2455), which Cambridge glosses “Lit. profane or unholy, i.e. unconsecrated,” and which occurs in only seven verses of the Hebrew Bible. Its standing partner is קֹדֶשׁ (qōdeš, H6944). Barnes and Ellicott both read the priest's answer as evidence of a destitute priesthood: there is literally nothing in the tabernacle but the reserved loaves. What follows in v. 5 is, by common admission, unreadable. Ellicott: “The original is here very difficult, almost utterly obscure.” Cambridge: “a sentence of almost hopeless obscurity,” and offers two rival renderings. Pulpit supplies the word “bread” to make English of it. K&D reads a conditional, “if it is an unholy way, it becomes even holy through the instrument,” and identifies the instrument as David the messenger of the Lord's anointed; Ellicott records Lange's and Thenius's alternative, that the instrument is the high priest himself. ⚙ Under all the obscurity the argument's structure is plain and it is rotten at the root: David asks that the holiness of his errand cover the common bread, and the errand does not exist. The priest concedes on the ground of a fiction, and the narrator lets him. JFB, going by 1 Samuel 22:10, holds that Ahimelech consulted the oracle first and that “a dispensation to use the hallowed bread was specially granted by God Himself.” That is JFB's inference from a later verse, not a statement of this text. Then v. 6 gives the transfer in one bare noun: the priest gave him qōdeš, holiness, loaves lifted by Hofal participle הַמּוּסָרִים from before the face of YHWH while hot bread went up in their place. Gill, Poole, JFB and Cambridge all conclude from Leviticus 24:8 that the day was a Sabbath; Gill preserves the rabbinic argument over how the replacement loaves could be hot without Sabbath baking, and dismisses the appeal to a miracle as “not probable.”
The narrator breaks the scene to plant one sentence. K&D calls it “a parenthetical remark… of great importance in relation to the consequences of this occurrence.” A man of Saul's servants is נֶעְצָר (ʻâtsar, H6113) before YHWH. Nobody can say why: Barnes allows custody for a crime, Cambridge and K&D offer a vow, purification, proselyte status or suspected leprosy under Leviticus 13:4, Ellicott adds the tradition from Ephrem Syrus of an unoffered sacrifice, and Benson and Poole argue for voluntary Sabbath observance. ⚙ Two things the English cannot show. First, ʻâtsar is the root David used two verses earlier of the abstinence that made his men fit to eat holy bread; the same word for restraint sanctifies one party and stations the other. Second, לִפְנֵי יְהוָה in v. 7 is the same pânîym that made the loaves “bread of the Faces” and named their removal in v. 6: Doeg stands exactly where the bread had stood. And the narrator gives him the title אַבִּיר (H47), which Strong's glosses as mighty, spoken of God, over shepherds, רֹעִים, in a room that also contains a shepherd whom God took from the sheepfolds. Henry draws the moral without softening it: “Doeg set his foot as far within the tabernacle as David did… Only God and the event can distinguish between a David and a Doeg, when both are in the tabernacle.”
⚙ Offered to be tested, not received. This passage is usually taught as a ruling about ceremonial law, and the Gospels do use it that way. But read on its own terms, Scripture alone, it reads first as an account of a sanctuary that has nothing left. It has no ordinary bread (v. 4), it has a priest who trembles at a visitor (v. 1), it has a layman arguing holiness to a high priest out of a fabricated royal errand (vv. 2, 5), and it has, standing inside, the man who will slaughter its entire priesthood. The one thing it does still have is the bread of the Face, and that goes out the door in the hands of a liar. ⚙ My reading is that the narrator is not chiefly asking whether Ahimelech was right. He is showing that the holy thing did not stay put. The loaves were made to be removed, by a Hofal participle, week after week, and the table behind them was never bare. Israel's holiness was never a stockpile to be guarded; it was a thing given away on a schedule, and here, on the day it was taken, it passed to the hungry. That David got it with a lie is not softened by this. Henry's verdict stands: it was ill done, and it killed eighty-five priests. Both are true at once, and the text refuses to choose, which is exactly why Jesus could later take the incident up and mean something by it that the chapter itself does not say. ⚙ What I cannot do honestly is tell you what v. 5 means. Ellicott calls the Hebrew almost utterly obscure; Cambridge calls it almost hopelessly so; the Septuagint translator appears simply to have guessed. A synthesis that smooths that over would be lying about the evidence, which in a chapter about lying would be a poor way to proceed. The gap stays open.
Holiness in Israel was never a stockpile to be guarded; it was a thing removed from before the Face on a fixed day, and on this day it went to the hungry. (⚙ a line of this tool's own reading, not a verse of Scripture.)
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
David ends his fabrication with פְּלֹנִי אַלְמוֹנִי (pᵉlônîy ʼalmônîy, H6423 + H492), “such-a-one, nameless.” The Verifier finds the pair in only two other places in the Hebrew Bible, and both are as deliberate as this one. At Ruth 4:1 Boaz hails the nearer kinsman with it, and the narrator never gives that man a name, so the redeemer who declines to redeem is erased from the record. At 2 Kings 6:8 the king of Aram fixes his camp “at such and such a place,” and the prophet Elisha tells Israel exactly where it is. ⚙ The pattern the three share is concealment that fails: the unnamed kinsman loses his name, the hidden Aramean camp is disclosed, and David's undisclosed rendezvous is reported to Saul by an eyewitness (1 Samuel 22:9). Poole and Benson both read the idiom here as David signalling that the place is not to be mentioned.
Ruth 4:1 · 2 Kings 6:8
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6423 pᵉlônîy (in 3 vv) and H492 ʼalmônîy (in 3 vv), a fixed two-word idiom occurring in only three verses of the Hebrew Bible; the verbal link is certain, the thematic pattern of failed concealment is ⚙ synthesis
נֹב (Nôb, H5011) occurs in six verses in all, and four of them are in the chapters on either side of this one. 1 Samuel 22:9 puts Doeg's report on the record: he saw David come to Nob, to Ahimelech son of Ahitub. 1 Samuel 22:11 summons Ahimelech and all his father's house, the priests who were in Nob, before Saul. 1 Samuel 22:19 reports what became of them. ⚙ The lexeme itself is the thread: the narrator has used a rare place-name four times in three chapters, and each occurrence moves the same city one step closer to the sword. Ellicott, Pulpit and K&D all locate the last surviving tabernacle of the wanderings here.
1 Samuel 22:9 · 1 Samuel 22:11 · 1 Samuel 22:19
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H5011 Nôb (in 6 vv, rare) and H288 ʼĂchîymelek (in 16 vv) across 1 Sam 21:1 / 22:9 / 22:11 / 22:19; a genuine verbal chain within one narrative, not a quotation of one text by another
חֹל (ḥōl, H2455) is a rare word, seven verses in all, and it almost never appears without קֹדֶשׁ (qōdeš, H6944) beside it. Leviticus 10:10 makes the pair the definition of the Aaronic office: to distinguish between the holy and the common. Ezekiel 22:26 is the indictment that the priests “have done violence to my law and profaned my holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy and the common.” Ezekiel 44:23 restores the duty in the age to come. ⚙ Ahimelech uses both halves of that formula in v. 4, in the correct technical order, and then hands over the holy anyway; David picks up ḥōl in v. 5 and applies it to a road. Cambridge's flat gloss on v. 4, “Lit. profane or unholy, i.e. unconsecrated,” is what makes the connection visible at all. Whether this crossing of the line is the priest's failure or his mercy is exactly the question the Gospels take up.
Leviticus 10:10 · Ezekiel 22:26 · Ezekiel 44:23
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H2455 chôl (in 7 vv, rare) and H6944 qôdesh (in 382 vv) in all three refs; the rare member carries the link, and the priestly-distinction motif is attested in the shared formula itself
דֹּאֵג (Dôʼêg, H1673) occurs in five verses. Here he is a bystander detained before YHWH. At 1 Samuel 22:18 he is the one who turns and strikes the priests when Saul's own runners will not, and the same verse repeats the number of the dead alongside אֲדֹמִי (H130, in 11 vv). At 1 Samuel 22:22 David confesses that he knew, on the day Doeg was there, that Doeg would surely tell Saul, and takes the deaths of the whole house of his father upon himself. The superscription at Psalm 52:1 names both Doeg and Ahimelech together and turns the episode into a psalm about a boasting tongue. ⚙ Henry reads the ⚙-adjacent point plainly: two men are in the tabernacle on the same day and only God and the event can tell them apart.
1 Samuel 22:18 · 1 Samuel 22:22 · Psalm 52:1
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H1673 Dôʼêg (in 5 vv, rare), plus H130 ʼĔdômîy (in 11 vv) at 1 Sam 22:18 and H288 ʼĂchîymelek (in 16 vv) at Psalm 52:1; the Psalm 52 link runs through its superscription, which some hold to be editorial rather than authorial
All three Synoptics put this chapter into Jesus' mouth when his disciples are accused of plucking grain on the Sabbath: Matthew 12:3-4, Mark 2:25-26, Luke 6:3-5. Cambridge states the principle he draws from it: “where moral and ceremonial obligations come into conflict, it is the latter which must give way, because the rite is only the means and the moral duty the end.” Pulpit, Ellicott, Benson, K&D and Henry all cite the same passages, and Henry gives the formula: “mercy is to be preferred to sacrifice.” Benson, quoting Dodd, notes that the Jewish authorities themselves allowed that necessity could supersede a ritual law. ⚙ This link cannot be a verbal one in the technical sense: the Gospels are Greek and 1 Samuel is Hebrew, so no shared Strong's lexeme can be computed between them, and the Verifier returned no such basis. What is certain is that the Gospels cite this narrative explicitly, by David's name, the house of God, and the loaves of the Presence. The tier below reflects that: an explicit structural citation across Testaments, not a demonstrable verbal quotation.
Matthew 12:3-4 · Mark 2:25-26 · Luke 6:3-5
basis: Explicit NT citation of this narrative (David, the house of God, the bread of the Presence) in all three Synoptics; no shared-Strong's basis is computable Greek↔Hebrew and the Verifier returned none, so the link is tiered structural rather than verbal
Mark 2:26 places David's action “in the days of Abiathar the high priest.” 1 Samuel 21:1 names Ahimelech, and Abiathar is his son (1 Samuel 22:20). The commentators in this brief do not agree on what to do with that. K&D says flatly that “the statement rests upon an error of memory, in which Ahimelech is confounded with Abiathar.” Cambridge offers two options: “perhaps by an accidental error; perhaps because he was associated with his father as Hophni and Phinehas were with Eli.” Ellicott, Pulpit, Gill and Poole raise a parallel question about Ahimelech's own relation to Ahiah of 1 Samuel 14:3: Gill reports that some identify them, JFB and Poole call them brothers, K&D judges Ahimelech “most probably the same person as Ahiah,” and Ellicott follows Dean Payne Smith in making Ahiah a younger brother. ⚙ Every reconstruction here is a harmonisation, and none is established by either text. Flagged, and left open.
Mark 2:26 · 1 Samuel 22:20 · 1 Samuel 14:3
basis: Contested provenance: Mark names Abiathar where 1 Samuel names Ahimelech. K&D calls it an error of memory; Cambridge offers association with his father as an alternative. The related Ahimelech/Ahiah identification is likewise disputed among Ellicott, JFB, Gill, Poole and K&D. No source in the brief settles either
עָצַר (ʻâtsar, H6113, “to inclose”) appears twice in this unit and nowhere else in it. In v. 5 the Qal passive participle עֲצֻרָה says that woman has been shut off from David's men, which is precisely what qualifies them to eat holy bread under Exodus 19:15 and Leviticus 15:18, as Poole, JFB and K&D all note. In v. 7 the Nifal participle נֶעְצָר says that Doeg is shut in before YHWH, and no commentator in the brief can say why. ⚙ This is a link internal to the unit, computed from the shared Strong's number rather than from any commentator, and the reading of it as ironic is mine, not theirs: the same enclosure that makes one party fit to receive the holy thing pins the other party in place to watch them receive it, and the second enclosure is what destroys Nob.
1 Samuel 21:5 · 1 Samuel 21:7
basis: Shared Hebrew lexeme H6113 ʻâtsar within this unit (v. 5 Qal passive participle, v. 7 Nifal participle); the verbal repetition is a sourced fact from the interlinear, the ironic reading of it is ⚙ synthesis and no commentator in the brief draws it
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
When Jesus is accused of letting his disciples break the Sabbath, he does not argue from the Sabbath law. He argues from this chapter. Matthew 12:3-4 and Mark 2:25-26 set the hungry David beside the hungry disciples, and Luke 6:5 closes the case with a claim of lordship over the day. Cambridge names the principle exactly: the rite is the means, the moral duty is the end, and “the high priest was bound to preserve David's life, even at the expense of a ceremonial rule.” Henry states it as the Gospel's own formula: “The Son of David taught from it, that mercy is to be preferred to sacrifice; that ritual observances must give way to moral duties.” Pulpit, Ellicott, Benson, Poole and K&D all cite the same Gospel passages in their comments here. ⚙ The redemptive-historical weight is in the pairing of the two figures: in both cases it is the anointed king, not yet enthroned, whose followers are hungry, and in both cases the holy thing is released to them. The argument Jesus makes is not that the law was trivial but that the law's own logic, rightly followed, bends toward the man God has chosen and those who are with him.
Matthew 12:3-4 · Mark 2:25-26 · Luke 6:3-5 · Hosea 6:6
⚙ Extending beyond what the sources here say. The loaves in v. 6 are לֶחֶם הַפָּנִים, bread of the Faces, and the participle that describes them is Hofal: הַמּוּסָרִים, caused to be removed from before YHWH. Cambridge notes that they were renewed every Sabbath and that the removed loaves were to be eaten by the priests in the holy place (Leviticus 24:5-9). ⚙ My reading: this bread was designed to be taken away. Its holiness was never static; it stood before the Face for a week and was then handed down to be eaten, while fresh and hot bread went up in its place. On the day it was taken, it fed a hungry and hunted man who had no right to it. In John 6:35 and 6:51 the one who calls himself the bread of life describes himself the same way, as a thing that comes down and is given for the life of the world, and in Luke 22:19 that bread is broken and handed to twelve men on the night one of them betrays him. ⚙ I mark this novel because none of the commentators in this brief draws the line from lechem happānîm to Christ; Ellicott comes nearest only by noting that Leviticus 24:9 shaped a later Anglican rubric about consecrated bread. The typology is mine and may be pressed too far.
John 6:35 · John 6:51 · Luke 22:19 · Leviticus 24:5-9
Henry's sentence on this unit is the one that reaches furthest: “Doeg set his foot as far within the tabernacle as David did. We little know with what hearts people come to the house of God… Only God and the event can distinguish between a David and a Doeg, when both are in the tabernacle.” ⚙ The Hebrew supports him more precisely than he shows. Doeg is נֶעְצָר לִפְנֵי יְהוָה, held before the Face, standing in the very place from which the bread was lifted; the narrator gives him the epithet אַבִּיר, a word Strong's glosses as mighty, spoken of God, and calls him chief of shepherds in a room containing the shepherd God chose. ⚙ The redemptive-historical reading I offer is this: proximity to the sanctuary saves nobody. Both men receive the same day, the same priest, the same tabernacle, and what comes out of it is a psalm (Psalm 52) and a massacre (1 Samuel 22:18-19). It is a pattern the Gospels repeat with a table, a supper and twelve men, and the distinguishing was again done only by God and by the event. I mark it novel: Henry states the principle, but the reading of Doeg as a figure in a redemptive-historical pattern is mine, and it should be tested rather than received.
1 Samuel 22:18-19 · Psalm 52:1 · Matthew 26:23
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Text. Hebrew throughout, seven verses, verse numbering as BSB. Note that some editions and the Hebrew tradition number this chapter one verse behind the English, so that BSB 21:1 is MT 21:2; the commentary entries in this brief are keyed to the English numbering used here, and Poole's and JFB's chapter summaries run past this unit into 21:8-15, which is not covered by this file.
What the English decides for you. Verse 5 is the hard case and the sources say so themselves. Ellicott: “The original is here very difficult, almost utterly obscure. The English Version of the clause is simply meaningless.” Cambridge: “a sentence of almost hopeless obscurity,” followed by two incompatible renderings. Pulpit supplies the noun “bread” to make sense of the last clause and says so openly. K&D reads a conditional and identifies the “instrument” as David; Ellicott records Lange and Thenius identifying it as Ahimelech instead. The Septuagint appears to have given up on כְּלִי altogether and rendered “all the young men,” which K&D judges “without any critical value.” No reading here is secure, and this file does not pretend otherwise.
Doeg's detention (v. 7). Every explanation offered is conjecture: a vow (Benson, Poole, JFB, Cambridge), purification or suspected leprosy under Leviticus 13:4 (Cambridge, K&D, Barnes, Pulpit), proselyte status (Ellicott, K&D, Cambridge), a crime awaiting sacrifice on a tradition from Ephrem Syrus (Ellicott, Pulpit), or custody (Barnes). The text states only the fact.
Doeg's title (v. 7). The Septuagint reads “feeding the mules of Saul,” and alters 1 Samuel 22:9 to match; K&D argues at length that every other ancient version, the Vulgate included, follows the Hebrew, and that riding mules are not attested for royal households before David. Cambridge notes that the Septuagint's “Syrian” for “Edomite” is almost certainly a consonantal confusion of Aramite and Edomite. Gill preserves Abarbinel's reading of “shepherds” as rulers rather than herdsmen, and Jarchi's still further extension making Doeg head of the sanhedrin; both are late and this file does not adopt them.
Ahimelech's identity. Whether Ahimelech is the Ahiah of 1 Samuel 14:3, his brother, or his successor is disputed among Gill, JFB, Poole, Benson, Ellicott and K&D, with no agreement. Mark 2:26's “Abiathar” is flagged as a thread rather than harmonised.
What is machine work. The literal lines, divergences, notes, movements, sola reading, thread bodies and the christ section are ⚙ synthesis and fallible. The interlinear surfaces, transliterations, parses and Strong's numbers come from the Berean interlinear; the lexicon glosses are Strong's own, including the gloss of H47 ʼabbîyr as “mighty (spoken of God),” on which one of my notes leans. Thread bases are Verifier-computed shared lexemes with frequencies as given. The Doeg/Psalm 52 link runs through a psalm superscription, whose authorship is itself debated, and the two novel christ readings are marked novel because no commentator in this brief draws them.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)