Who was Abiathar in the Bible?

Son of Ahimelech the high priest. He escaped from the slaughter of the priests executed by Doeg at the command of Saul, 1 Sam. 22:18, 20. He became an adherent of David, and was acknowledged as high priest; but becoming involved in Adonijah's rebellion he was deprived of the priesthood by Solomon and sent to dwell in the city of Anathoth which belonged to the sons of Aaron. 1 Kings 2:26; 1 Chr. 6:60. In 1 Kings 4:4, Abiathar is named with Zadok as priests (not the priests); though deposed, Abiathar was still a priest. There is a difficulty in 2 Sam. 8:17 and 1 Chr. 18:16 where 'Ahimelech (or Abimelech) the son of Abiathar' is named as priest with Zadok in the time of David. Some suppose that the names should be transposed, and that Abiathar is meant; but this Ahimelech may have been a son of the above-named Abiathar (it not being at all unusual to name a son after his grandfather) and for some reason he is mentioned in these passages as priest instead of his father. He may have been a more worthy man than his father, who was thrust out of the priesthood for his own sin, though it fulfilled the prophecy concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh. 1 Sam. 2:31-36; 1 Kings 2:27. Our Lord in Mark 2:26 speaks of Abiathar as high priest, in connection with David eating the showbread, doubtless because he afterwards attained to that office.

The house of Eli continued its priestly functions through the reigns of Saul and David, up to the accession of Solomon. The terrible slaughter of the Lord's priests, eighty-five in number, by Doeg the Edomite, at the command of Saul, was a part of the judgment pronounced upon Eli's family (1 Sam. 22). Only one, Abiathar, escaped and fled to David, with whom he ministered as priest during the time of his rejection. He followed him in his wanderings, and was continued in office through David's reign; but, for his part in the conspiracy of Adonijah, he was banished by Solomon to the priestly town of Anathoth, where he presumably died in disgrace. "So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the Lord; that he might fulfil the word of the Lord, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh" (1 Kings 2:27). He was the fourth high priest from Eli, and the last of the line of Ithamar to fill this office of dignity and honor. It was nearly a century after God's judgment upon the family was pronounced; but though not executed speedily, it was nevertheless accomplished as God had said.

"Them that honor Me, I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed." Here is a most weighty principle, seen in all God's governmental ways; and it was to be illustrated in a solemn way upon the house of Eli. They had daringly despised Him of whom it is written, that "He is mighty, and despiseth not any" (Job 36:5); and for their insolence flaunting itself in the face of the Almighty, they must suffer the severest punishment which the Jewish mind can conceive: "Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not be an old man in thy house; and thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation … and all the increase of thy house shall die in the flower of their age." This came to pass in the very beginning of the glorious reign of Solomon. Abiathar, the last official representative of the house of Eli, and his son Jonathan, took part with the ambitious Adonijah, in collusion with the veteran warrior Joab, in conspiracy against Solomon, for which he was deposed and disgraced (see 1 Kings 2:26-27), and from that day the priestly office returned to the house of Eleazar, in the person of. Zadok. After sharing the afflictions of David in his rejection, and bearing with him the burdens of a not untroubled reign, he slipped at the last, and lost the place of honor just as Solomon's reign was about to begin.

Seeing that the senior priest at Nob was called Ahimelech and Abiathar, a pertinent inquiry arises why the Lord refers to him as Abiathar instead of Ahimelech, the latter being the name by which he is described in the narrative relating to the showbread incident.

In connection with this inquiry, it should be remembered that Ahimelech was of the house of Eli, and that house was doomed to extermination by the judgment of God, because of the wickedness at Shiloh (1 Sam. 2:30-33; 1 Sam. 3:12-14). In accordance with this judgment, Eli's descendants were all slain at Nob, but with one exception. For God was not unmindful of the mercy of Ahimelech shown to His anointed, and He did not then make a full end of the line of Ithamar, and blot out the posterity of Eli from the earth. Abiathar was spared to be the representative of the junior house of Aaron throughout the reign of David, being subsequently deposed by Solomon in fulfilment of the word of Jehovah spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh (1 Kings 2:27). Abiathar therefore (to use the more frequent name by which he is called who was the companion of David in his exile) preserved the second name of his father Ahimelech throughout the glorious reign of David when the rest of the family were cut off.

Saul could spare the best of the cattle and sheep of Amalek, which he had been commanded to destroy, but his blind hatred would wipe out every vestige of the priestly family and possessions. One priest, Abiathar, escapes, and flees to David with the priestly robe. He finds his protection with the Lord's anointed, and, in the words of David, is identified with him in his danger and in the protection which his presence affords: "He that seeketh my life seeketh thy life; but with me thou shalt be in safeguard." Thus we have in miniature — may we say? — a travelling court: the king attended by the priest and the prophet and a little company of loyal supporters. What matters it that there is no royal palace — that the king must go from place to place a fugitive? God's presence is with him; and that presence, for faith, is infinitely greater than the most gorgeous palaces and the largest armies. A greater than David was attended by even fewer, and had not where to lay His head.

But even now, as we are afterwards told, it was not merely this: the prophet Gad is there, and again, as we know, the priest. More particularly was it marked when the hand of Saul was lifted up to destroy through an evident instrument of Satan. For the king condescended nay, was blinded by the power of Satan, to employ his herdsman Doeg, an Edomite, against the priests of Jehovah! A sad story is his declension. Hear the taunts of the king, his affected contempt for the son of Jesse. If he who had the power feared David in earlier days, his deadly persecution attested the importance attached to him now. Words of wrath and scorn do not tell out save to the intelligent how he really regarded him in his heart. Where was self-judgment for the sin which had forfeited the kingdom? Where was the sense of the honour God had put upon him, and of his own misuse of it? Only the rankling of deadly enmity burns within, which now breaks out, not against the man whom most of all he desired to destroy, but against those that had shown him kindness, priests of Jehovah though they were. But it has for its effect, that this holy point of connection and means of sustaining relationship with Jehovah is now found with David. "And one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped, and fled after David." Doeg at Saul's command had smitten Nob, the city of the priests, with the edge of the sword, men and women, children and sucklings. The man who spared the Amalekites thus mercilessly destroyed the priests of the Lord. The priest and the prophet were now with God's destined king.

The next chapter (1 Samuel 23) lets us see some fresh features of David's distressed and dangerous condition, and what and how God was acting there. "Then they told David, saying, Behold, the Philistines fight against Keilah, and they rob the threshing-floors." Surely it had been more natural that they had told king Saul. It was what one might call his business; it was due to him who was raised up and responsible to be the protector of Israel as well as their leader in the battles of Jehovah against the Philistines. But no! heart and conscience told Israel that there was no hope in the king. The outcast man he pursued was the one to whom all hearts turned and thoughts tended. It was to David, himself hunted for the very life, that they looked for whatever protection God might give them against the enemy. And another feature here remark. It is not only that God was morally preparing the people for David, but further David himself is being trained in a deepening dependence on God. "David enquired of Jehovah, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And Jehovah said to David, Go, and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah." David then clearly is not the mere favourite, as he had been the champion, of the people, but the one that God hears, answers, and uses to His own praise. Saul is ignored in what ought specially to have been his work. "And David's men said to him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah: how much more then if we come to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?" David enquires again, "And Jehovah answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand." Obediently he went, fought the Philistines, "brought away their cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter." "So," as the Spirit of God sums it up, "David saved the inhabitants of Keilah." Next we find it recorded that, when Abiathar the son of Abimelech fled to David to Keilah, he came down with (not "an," but the) ephod in his hand: on the death of his fellows he succeeded to the highest place.

34 Mark 2:26. — A difficulty is raised here from the fact that Abiathar was not the official high-priest at the time of this incident (see 1 Sam. 21:1; cf. 1 Sam. 22:11). The confusion of names already arose in the Old Testament text of both Hebrew and Greek; cf. 1 Sam. 22:20 with 2 Sam. 8:17 (1 Chron. 18:16). But "the" before "high-priest" is absent from the Greek of Mark — "Abiathar, a high-priest." Abiathar was doubtless acting for his father at the time, and he was, as Plumptre says (ad loc.) "of David's party, the chief agent in allowing him to take the shewbread." Moreover, the preposition ἐπί may here be taken as "in the presence of" (cf. Greek of 1 Tim. 6:13).

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.

Now it will be observed from the Historical Books that (1) the same person frequently possessed more than one name, and (2) that the same name frequently recurs in the pedigree of families. It is not therefore an improbable explanation that the priest who succoured David bore the joint names of Ahimelech and Abiathar, and that his son, who escaped the massacre at Nob, also bore the same double names. Indeed, the responsible priest at Nob is "called by no less than three names: Ahiah (1 Sam. 14:3, 18), Ahimelech (1 Sam. 21:1-6; 1 Sam. 22:9-23); and, as in St. Mark, Abiathar (1 Chron. 18:16; 1 Chron. 24:6, 31). The Septuagint gives also the form Abimelech. Moreover, the son of this Ahimelech or Abiathar, who was afterwards David's joint High Priest with Zadok, was himself also called by both names, viz., Abiathar (1 Sam. 22:20-23; 2 Sam. 15:24-29; 1 Kings 2:26-27), and Ahimelech (2 Sam. 8:17; 1 Chron. 24:6, 31), or Abimelech (1 Chron. 18:16). Now it has often been remarked that there occur in the Old Testament many instances of double names, as Reuel, Jethro, and Hobab; Esau and Edom; Benjamin and Benoni; Gideon and Jerubbaal; Solomon and Jedidiah; Uzziah and Azariah; Zedekiah and Matthaniah (see Patrit. de Evang. 50. 3. ; Diss. 9: c. 3); but it has scarcely been noticed that the priests especially appear to have borne double names, and that father and son were frequently called by the same names. Yet both these facts are of the utmost value for the passage before us. The following are illustrations: — As to the first: In 1 Mac. 2:1-5 is a list of five priests, sons of Mattathias, all with double names. The priestly pedigree of Josephus, from the public records, furnishes several other examples (Jos. Vit. §§ 1, 2). As to the second: It was proposed to call John the Baptist Zechariah after the name of his father; and his father was a priest (Luke 1:5, 59). In Josephus's pedigree, Matthias, one of his priestly ancestors, had a son also called Matthias; whose grandson again was likewise named Matthias, and his son also Matthias (l.c.). Also, upon the deposition of Joseph Cabi, the High Priesthood was conferred on the son of the famous High Priest Ananus, "who was himself also called Ananus (Jos. Ant. 20. 9.1). Thus, then, we not only have Old Testament evidence to the fact that the High Priest who gave David the hallowed bread bore the name of Abiathar as well as that of Ahimelech, and his son likewise; but also independent evidence that this possession of double and the same names by father and son in the families of the priests was not an unusual occurrence. With such evidence the alleged historical error of St. Mark completely vanishes.*

This explanation seems preferable to that which supposes that the phrase in Mark is elliptical and means "in the days of Abiathar who afterwards became high priest." Abiathar, it is further assumed in this hypothesis, influenced his father to befriend David, and as he alone escaped, this may have been the case.

[1] In 1 Kings 4:4, Zadok and Abiathar are referred to as priests again: ‘Zadok and Abiathar were priests’ — although not as ‘the priests’ as before (2 Sam 15:35; 19:11). There is no doubt that Solomon had removed Abiathar from office: ‘Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest to Jehovah’ (1 Ki. 2:27). It seems that, in view of Abiathar’s faithfulness in times past, Solomon did not want to deprive him of the dignity of priesthood, although he had removed him from the office of priesthood.