Was it wrong for David to eat the showbread in 1 Samuel 21:1-6?

Have ye Not Read what David Did? Matthew 12: 1-8

The reference to, "At that time," at the beginning of Matthew 12 is significant. It was a time of indifference toward the ministry of Jesus. It was a time of His rejection. In the previous chapter the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum had shown callous indifference to His wonderful works of power. Consequently Jesus pronounced the dire punishment that awaited them in the future. Disappointed but not dismayed, He referred the matter to His Father and thanked Him for the ongoing blessing to others. In chapter 10: 5-6 Jesus instructed His disciples to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but now He issues an invitation to all. The King was rejected by His subjects so He widens the sphere of invitation for all to come to Him for relief and blessing. It is in this context that Jesus challenged the Pharisees with the statement, "Have ye not read what David did when he was hungry, and they that were with him?" David, the anointed of God and the lawful king of Israel, was in rejection because of the hatred and opposition of Saul, the deposed king of Israel. David and his men went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest, and obtained from him the shewbread to satisfy their hunger. Strictly speaking they ought not to have eaten it as it was the food for the priests, but the kingdom was in disorder and the king in rejection. The disorderly circumstances warranted the irregular conduct. (1 Sam. 21: 1-6). The Lord used that incident involving David to counter the criticism of the Pharisees. They attempted to enforce their Sabbatical laws ignoring the fact that the Nation was in a state of disorder. The Romans were the masters of the country, proof of the Nation's unfaithfulness, and what was yet more solemn, the King was treated with indifference and rejection. It wasn't wrong for the disciples to satisfy their hunger. David had done that for his followers. It was a powerful rebuttal of the religionists and they had no answer to it. Little did David realise that when he asked for the shewbread for himself and his followers, the Messiah, about eleven centuries after, would commend his action and use it to justify the action of His disciples. Praise God that at the Judgment Seat of Christ every man and woman who is faithful to God shall have praise from God. They perhaps forgot what they did for God but God never forgets what is done for His interests (1 Chr. 4: 5; Heb. 6: 10).

David came down to Nob, which was a cause of alarm to Ahimelech the priest, who asks why he had no man with him. It would seem from the history here that he had no-one identified with him, yet there must have been others in the vicinity who where with him, because the Lord Jesus, in commenting on this occasion, definitely speaks of "those that were with him (David)" (Mt.12:3). As he told Ahimelech, he evidently appointed his servants to a place in the area. Still, his words were not true that the king had sent him on some secret mission. He did not want Ahimelech to know of Saul's determination to kill him, for this might make him fear to show any evident kindness to David. Ahimelech was easily deceived by his words, however, and was persuaded to give David the used bread of the sanctuary. He did want to make sure that the men were ceremonially clean, and he took David's word for this (v.45).

Strictly speaking, it was unlawful for David and his men to eat this bread, for it was the property of priests only. But there are matters that make a difference. First, the priesthood had seriously failed in Israel. Secondly, the service of the tabernacle was in the wrong place, not the place God had chosen. Thirdly, the ark was not present. And fourthly, the true king was in exile and hungry because of persecution. This last matter alone was reason for Ahimelech's giving the bread to David. The question of genuine need takes precedence over mere formal exactness.

David also makes the point that the bread was "in a manner common, and the more so, because today (new) is hallowed in the vessels" (v.5 -- J.N.D.trans.). Fresh bread had just been put in the vessels of the sanctuary to replace that had been there before, so that David was not asking for the actual showbread, but what had been removed from the table. Only the priests were lawfully entitled to this, but due to the circumstances, Ahimelech rightly gave it to David. The Lord Jesus speaks approvingly of this in Matthew 12:3-4.

With this chapter begins the record of David's wanderings as an exile. A number of Psalms were written by him during this period of the rejection of the Lord's anointed. We shall point out some of them. These Psalms are prophetic also foreshadowing the rejection and the sufferings of Christ as well as the tribulations of the pious remnant of Israel during the closing years of the age, preceding the coming and enthronement of the King of Israel, our Lord. He reached Nob after his separation from Jonathan. At Nob the tabernacle of the Lord had been established and Ahimelech (my brother is King) the son of Ahitub (22:9) and great-grandson of Eli, was now exercising the priesthood. Nob was not far from Jerusalem, north of the city (Isaiah 10:32).

He appeared before Ahimelech in a deplorable condition. It was on a Sabbath when the King's son-in-law appeared unarmed and hungry. Ahimelech became afraid and suspicious, but David invented a falsehood to allay the suspicions of the high priest. The truthfulness of the Word of God is demonstrated in this faithful report of David's failure. He was not fully trusting in his God and the result was the exercise of an endeavour to protect himself which led to the deception. How different the actions of Him who according to the flesh was the son of David! "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; who when He was reviled, reviled not again" (1 Pet. 2:22-23). Then he and his companions ate the hallowed bread. Our Lord called the attention of the Pharisees to this when they murmured because His disciples had plucked the ears of corn on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5). There are no discrepancies between the account in Samuel and the words of our Lord. Our Lord speaks of David and they that were with him, while in the record here we read that Ahimelech asked David "Why art thou alone, and no man with thee?" The young men who are mentioned later (verses 4 and 5) may have at first kept out of sight. In Mark 2:26 our Lord mentions Abiathar as high priest. This is not a discrepancy, for Abiathar was the son of Ahimelech and exercised priestly function and also was high priest (1 Sam. 30:7). The story of eating the shewbread which was not lawful for him to eat is full of interest if compared with the words of our Lord. There was an inquiry of the Lord and then Ahimelech gave him the hallowed bread. (See 22:10.) On account of the ruin in Israel everything had become common and David and his companions did not sin in eating the shewbread; the "bread of presence" as it is called. And so our Lord was rejected, as David was, and justifies the conduct of His disciples by referring the Pharisees to David's action. (For a complete exposition see the annotations on Matthew, chapter 12.) "We can see in David rejected the type of a greater, who as such has abrogated Jewish and legal ordinances in order to give to His, people the true communion with Himself of which the shewbread speaks." Thus the shewbread typifies the true bread, which we use for our sustenance, as David needed it for his physical keeping.

David is now an outcast and fugitive, and is entirely cut loose from any hope from the government in the hands of Saul. Instinctively, he flees first to the priest as the custodian of the sanctuary of the Lord. Apparently, the tabernacle, or a substitute for it, was here at Nob, under the care of Ahimelech, the priest. From him David would seek to get needed food for himself and his few followers. The priest, apparently aware of the disordered condition of things in king Saul's court, hesitates to aid David, but is reassured by the falsehood of the latter. A little later on, we see again the feebleness of David's faith, in feigning madness before Achish, king of the Philistines, who also drives him away.

There is no need to attempt to justify, and little occasion to entirely condemn, the course of one who was but a mere man, and hunted by a powerful and relentless foe. We can thank God that enshrined in his heart was the one purpose to glorify Him; and if we complain of the feebleness of his faith, which would lead him to resort to human expedients of deception, let us search and try our own hearts, and we may find far more of untruthfulness in them than in this beloved man after God's own heart.

But his visit to Nob calls for more than a passing notice. Ahimelech, at David's request, gave of the showbread to him and to his men, which by the law was assigned only to the priests. The condition of things in Israel was abnormal, for the anointed of God was persecuted. "He had need, and was an hungered, he, and they that were with him." (Mark 2:25.) His act was clearly allowable under the circumstances. It showed what was the state of matters in Israel. It showed, too, that God would not allow anything to stand in the way of the carrying out of His purposes, which at that time were inseparably bound up with the preservation of David in life. For little as it was, doubtless, then, and certainly was afterwards, understood, the providing for the wants of the Lord's anointed and his company, was a matter of no small moment to God. (Compare with this portion of the history Matt. 12:3-4; Mark 2:25-26; Luke 6:3-4.) Men could not put the Lord's anointed, and those with him, into straits for the supply of their necessities by rejecting him, and then attempt to use God's institutions to prevent those wants being met. No divine ordinance was to stand in the way of God's anointed, and those with him being cared for by God. But though David evidently acted in this abnormal way in accordance with the mind of God, his story told to Ahimelech we must not justify, nor his flight to Achish, king of Gath, with the sword of Goliath in his hand. Think of the conqueror of the giant a fugitive in Goliath's native town, and with his sword! There dissembling, for fear of the Philistines, so as to be dismissed by Achish as a madman, he leaves his territory for the cave of Adullam, not far off. He has now reached his lowest condition. A fugitive from house and home, he finds shelter in a cave for himself and his men.

But further our Lord refers to a most remarkable case in the past, a type of Himself. David, the beloved of God, when he too was cast out with his hungry followers, did once on a time partake with them of the bread set apart for the priests alone. Was this a sin? It was Saul's and the people's sin that there was no bread for David. It was their sin that the true anointed was an outcast. And the bread that was holy at a holy time was profaned in the hour of their wickedness. If it had no sanctity in the presence of a rejected David, how much less in the presence of a rejected Christ? This was the argument; for assuredly a greater than the priests and a greater than David was there. Hence a greater sin was done than in the ordinary days of Israel, or even in the special days of David. Thus the Lord retorted the conviction of sin on the heads of those that would have condemned the disciples.

The elect king is now rejected. He repairs to the priest, who gives him the hallowed bread, according to the sovereign grace of God, who rises above the ordinances that are connected with blessing, when that blessing is rejected — when He Himself is rejected in His chosen one, and in the power of His testimony. When this is the case, He sets faith above ordinances in His sovereign grace. Since God Himself and His testimony are rejected, the shewbread was considered common. God in fact was ordering all anew.

Thus, whether we look at David or consider the priest, there was no ground for boasting. Nevertheless, in these very circumstances there was that which Christ turns to everlasting profit. Very likely we might have passed by this story without edification; we might have seen in it nothing to guide our souls in a dark day. But Jesus is the light, and in His light alone can we see light; and so He for us draws out of the precious word of God this astonishing fact (for truly it is so), that the rejection of the beloved of God in the midst of God's own people profanes what was most hallowed. How could anything needed by David be viewed any longer as holy in the eyes of God where David was rejected, the anointed of Jehovah?

Therefore had priests' bread become for his wants nothing more than common bread. Did he want? From that store must he be supplied as much as from any other. Ceremonial restrictions of the law are all well enough where things go truly according to the law; but what of Him who is the central object to which all its ordinances turn, if He be cast out for God's sake, and He and His be thus in want? Would God sustain those forms against the man of his own heart? Impossible! And therefore the priest gives him the hallowed bread; for there was no bread there except the show-bread taken from before Jehovah to be the food of the priests.

However, the Lord's answer is remarkable. He refers them to David when he and his men were hungry, and were given the showbread by the high priest, though it was lawful only for priests to eat it. This was of course a ritualistic law and was in this exceptional case set aside because of human need. Of course it is evident that man cannot flagrantly set aside the moral principles of truth and righteousness in order to satisfy his temporal needs, but ritualistic laws were a different matter. In David's case, he was God's anointed king, but not being recognized by Israel, he was suffering rejection, and God cared for him. Now Christ, the Son of God had come, but was rejected as David had been, along with His disciples. Therefore even the ritualistic demands of law must give place to their needs. If so, how much more must the mere traditions of Pharisees be set aside!