But the priest answered David, "I don't have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from women." – 1 Samuel 21:4

Today's Scripture Reading (June 1, 2025): 1 Samuel 21

Eating together has always been a significant act of community. Eating with someone meant establishing a friendship and vulnerability with that person. Inviting people to the table said, I want the best for you and desire a relationship with you. Sometimes there is no better way to get to know someone than to eat with them. It remains a significant act of community in our world.

I get that, although I know I also continually violate the principle. I have numerous food allergies, which simply means that sharing a meal is an even rarer thing for me. But in the same way, my limitations make those I do share meals with even more important.

We eat as a means of community and also to maintain our strength. David and his men are hungry and need food to strengthen their bodies. David realizes that fact, but he also knows that his men need a strengthening of community. As a result, he doesn't send his men in different directions to find the food they need to sustain themselves; he sets out to obtain the food so they can eat together.

In the process, David finds himself at the Tabernacle in Nob. And he asks the priests for food, but the Grand Priest replies that he has no food available for David's men. All that is at the Tabernacle is the consecrated bread. This bread is the show bread or bread of God's Presence. Twelve loaves of this bread, one for each of the Tribes of Israel, were always kept in the Tabernacle. This bread was intended to be eaten by the priests in the presence of God or before God's face. This bread was also commanded to be fresh. As a result, it was changed out every day.

The priest suggests that David could be given the day-old bread, or bread that had been replaced by the fresh bread in the Tabernacle. The bread might have been intended for the priests. However, Ahimelek, the Grand Priest at Nob, was willing to give the older bread to David and his men as long as they were ceremoniously clean, including not having recently slept with a woman. Whether David's men eating this bread was allowable has long been debated, some believing that Ahimelek's willingness to do this was an indication of its legality, others arguing that Ahimelek was giving in to pressure from David and allowing something that was, strictly speaking, legally prohibited.

The result was that the men would eat in the presence of themselves, strengthening their community, and, at least theologically, in the presence of God. The critical question might be, did David communicate to his men that this was the Presence bread, which could only be eaten with an attitude of consecration to God and in his presence? We don't have an answer to that question.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 52