21:4 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 6 have abstained from sexual relations with women.” 7 21:5 David said to the priest, “Certainly women have been kept away from us, just as on previous occasions when I have set out. The soldiers’ 8 equipment is holy, even on an ordinary journey. How much more so will they be holy today, along with their equipment!”
21:6 So the priest gave him holy bread, for there was no bread there other than the bread of the Presence. It had been removed from before the Lord in order to replace it with hot bread on the day it had been taken away. 21:7 (One of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg the Edomite, who was in charge of Saul’s shepherds.) 21:8 David said to Ahimelech, “Is there no sword or spear here at your disposal? I don’t have my own sword or equipment in hand due to the urgency of the king’s instructions.”
21:9 The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the valley of Elah, is wrapped in a garment behind the ephod. If you wish, take it for yourself. Other than that, there’s nothing here.” David said, “There’s nothing like it! Give it to me!”
1 tn Heb “trembled to meet.”
2 tn Heb “let not a man know anything about the matter [for] which I am sending you and [about] which I commanded you.”
3 tn Heb “servants.”
4 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.
5 tn Heb “under your hand.”
6 tn Heb “servants.”
7 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.”
8 tn Heb “servants’.”