1 Samuel 20-22
The Voice
20 David ran for his life. He left Naioth in Ramah and found Jonathan.
David: What have I done? Of what am I guilty? What crime have I committed against your father to make him want to kill me?
Jonathan: 2 Impossible! Don’t worry about it. You’re not going to die. My father doesn’t make any decision, large or small, without telling me. And why would my father hide this from me? It is not so.
David: 3 But your father knows we are friends, and he has said, “Don’t tell Jonathan about this; he will be upset.” I swear to you, as the Eternal lives—and as you live—I am on the verge of being killed.
Jonathan: 4 Whatever you ask, I will do for you.
David: 5 Look. Tomorrow is the new moon, and I should be sitting with the king at his table. But let me go and hide myself in the field until three days have passed. 6 If your father asks about me, tell him that I asked to return to my hometown, Bethlehem, for an annual family sacrifice. 7 If he says, “Fine,” then all will be well with your servant. But if he is angry, you will know that he intends to harm me. 8 So deal kindly with your servant, for you have made a sacred covenant with me, your servant. But if I am guilty, then kill me yourself. Why should you have to bring me in front of your father?
Jonathan: 9 That will never happen. If I knew my father planned to hurt you, wouldn’t I tell you?
David: 10 So who will tell me if your father gives you a good or bad answer?
Jonathan: 11 Let’s go out to the field.
They went out to the field so that David could find a place to lie low.
Jonathan (to David): 12 Let the Eternal God of Israel be my witness; this is my vow. When I have talked to my father, about this time tomorrow or no later than the third day, if he acts friendly about you, won’t I send an answer to you? 13 But if my father plans to harm you, then may the Eternal do to me what he plans for you—and more—if I don’t let you know and send you away to safety.
May the Eternal One be with you, as He has been with my father. 14 If I live, then show to me the faithful love of the Eternal that I may not die. 15 Do not ever take your faithful love away from my descendants, not even if the Eternal were to remove all the enemies of the house of David from the face of the earth.
16 With these words, Jonathan made a covenant with David and his descendants.
Jonathan: May the Eternal One guarantee this promise by the hands of David’s enemies.
17 And Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for Jonathan loved him more than life itself.
Jonathan: 18 Tomorrow is the festival of the new moon. People will notice you are gone because your place will be empty. 19 On the day after tomorrow, you will be greatly missed. On that day, quickly go down to that place where you hid yourself the first time and wait by the stone Ezel. 20 I will shoot three arrows to the side of the stone, as if I’m shooting at a target. 21 Then I will send a boy after them, saying, “Go find the arrows.” If I tell him, “Look, the arrows are on this side of you,” then come back, for as the Eternal One lives, you are not in any danger. 22 But if I tell the boy, “No, the arrows are beyond you,” then flee, because the Eternal has shown you that you must leave. 23 But as for the agreement that we have spoken together, the Eternal One is witness to it forever.
24 So David hid himself in the field.
When the new moon festival began and the king sat down to eat, 25 he took his usual seat in a place of safety with his back to the wall. Abner, his general, sat at the king’s side; Jonathan stood, but David’s seat was empty. 26 That first night, Saul said nothing. He thought that perhaps David had somehow become ritually unclean, and he could not attend a sacred feast. 27 But on the next day, the second day of the feast of the new moon, when David’s seat remained empty, Saul spoke to Jonathan.
Saul: Why hasn’t the son of Jesse joined us at the feast these past two days?
Jonathan: 28 David asked me if he could go to Bethlehem. 29 “Please allow me to go,” he said. “Our family is sacrificing in the city, and my brother has insisted that I come. So if you think highly of me, I ask that you let me go there and see my brothers.” That is why he is not at the king’s table.
30 Saul, not fooled for a moment, became very angry with Jonathan.
Saul: You son of a degenerate and rebellious woman! Do you think I don’t know that you have befriended the son of Jesse? This is just as shameful for you as your mother’s nakedness was. 31 As long as David walks the earth, you will never rule this kingdom. Now send for him. Bring him here to me, because he will most certainly die.
Jonathan: 32 Why should David be put to death? What offense has he committed?
33 At that, Saul threw his spear at him, fully intending to hit him, so Jonathan knew that it was truly his father’s intention to have David killed. 34 Jonathan left the table in a rage, without eating a bite on the second day of the festival. He was grieved because of David and because his father had disgraced him.
35 In the morning, Jonathan took his bow and went out into the field, as he had arranged with David, and he brought a small boy with him.
Jonathan (to the boy): 36 Run and find the arrows that I shoot.
The boy ran, and Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him. 37 When the boy reached the place where the arrow had fallen, Jonathan called out.
Jonathan: Isn’t the arrow beyond you? 38 Hurry! Be quick about it. Don’t hang around out there!
So Jonathan’s young servant gathered the arrows and returned to his master. 39 He knew nothing, of course; only Jonathan and David knew what had just transpired. 40 Then Jonathan gave his weapons to the boy and told him to take them back to the city.
41 As soon as the boy left, David rose from his hiding place south of the stone and prostrated himself before Jonathan. He bowed to Jonathan three times, and then David and Jonathan kissed each other. Both of them wept, but David wept more.
Jonathan (to David): 42 Go in peace and safety, since we have both sworn in the name of the Eternal One, “He will mediate between me and you, and between our descendants, forever.”
David got up from the ground and left, and Jonathan returned to the city.
In the law of Moses, people are commanded to love their neighbors as themselves; and Jonathan does just that, loving David as he does himself. David’s love for Jonathan is also clear. When they are parted here, David is filled with sadness. Although both of them weep, David weeps more; and when Saul and Jonathan are later killed in battle, David celebrates and remembers their friendship in one of the most beautiful songs in the Bible. These two demonstrate exactly what it means to follow the command of the law and love unselfishly.
21 David went to a place called Nob, where he visited the priest Ahimelech, who came forward fearfully to meet him.
Ahimelech: Why are you here alone, without anyone else?
David: 2 The king has given me a mission that is not to be revealed to anyone else, and my servants are waiting for me at a place where I have sent them. 3 Now what do you have here to eat? Let me have five loaves of bread or whatever you have.
Ahimelech: 4 I have no ordinary bread—only the holy bread. You may take it, if your men have not recently had sexual intercourse.
David: 5 Of course. They have stayed away from women since we have been on the road, three days now. If their bodies must be kept pure even when we go on a typical journey, how much more must they be kept pure when we are on a mission like this one?
6 The priest gave him consecrated bread since the bread of the Presence was replaced when other fresh, hot bread was brought before the Eternal One and no other bread was available.
7 Now one of Saul’s servants, Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s shepherds, was waiting before the Eternal that day.
David (to Ahimelech): 8 Isn’t there a sword or spear here? I left so swiftly on my errand for the king that I did not bring my sword or weapons with me.
Ahimelech: 9 We have no weapons here except the sword of Goliath, the Philistine you killed in the valley of Elah. Look, you’ll find it wrapped in a cloth behind the sacred vest. You may take that, if you like, for that is the only weapon here.
David: It is one of a kind. Let me take it.
10 So David left and fled that same day from Saul and went to Saul’s enemy, King Achish of Gath. 11 The king’s servants reminded the king,
Servants: Isn’t this David who some claim to be the very ruler of the land? Didn’t they sing about him while they celebrated and danced?
Saul has slain his thousands
and David, his tens of thousands.
12 When David heard that these were the kinds of things people were saying about him, he was afraid of what Achish, the king of Gath, might do, 13 so he acted differently when they were around and even pretended to be insane. He scarred the doors at the city’s gates with his fingernails and drooled into his beard.
Achish (to his servants): 14 Look at him. Can’t you see this man is crazy? Why have you brought him to me here in my house? 15 Don’t I have enough crazy people around here already, or did you think I might need yet another?
22 That is how David escaped, and from there, he went to the cave of Adullam to hide. When his brothers and the rest of his family heard he was there, they went down to be with him. 2 A group gathered around him, composed of those who were in debt or who were not content with Saul or who were in trouble. Soon David was captain of about 400 such men.
3 David traveled then to Mizpah in Moab, the homeland of his great-grandmother, Ruth, to address the king of Moab.
David: Please allow my mother and father to remain here until I can see what it is that the True God has in store for me.
4 So David left his parents there, and they remained with the king of Moab as long as David remained in the stronghold.
5 David was visited later by Gad the prophet.
Gad (to David): Do not stay here in the stronghold. Leave here, and go to the land of the tribe of Judah.
So David left that place and went into the forest of Hereth.
6 Meanwhile Saul was sitting, spear in hand, under a gnarled and bushy tamarisk tree on the crest of a high hill in Gibeah. His servants were standing around him when he heard the news that David and his followers had been located.
Saul (to his servants): 7 Listen up, all you men of Benjamin. Will Jesse’s son, David, do for you what I have? Will he give each of you fields and vineyards? Will he make each of you commander over thousands or over hundreds? 8 Is that why all of you have betrayed me? None of you told me that my own son had made a covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you are sorry for me or let me know that my son had stirred up my servant to challenge me, to lie in ambush, just as he is doing at this moment.
9 Doeg the Edomite stood among Saul’s servants.
Doeg: I saw the son of Jesse when he came to Nob to speak with the priest, Ahimelech son of Ahitub. 10 Ahimelech asked the Eternal One questions on David’s behalf, gave him provisions, and even gave him the legendary sword of Goliath the Philistine.
11 So the king sent for the priest Ahimelech, son of Ahitub, and for all his family who were the priests at Nob, and they came before Saul.
Saul: 12 Pay attention, son of Ahitub.
Ahimelech: I am listening, my lord.
Saul: 13 Why have you plotted against me with the son of Jesse, giving him bread and a sword and speaking to the True God on his behalf, so that he should rise up to fight against me? At this moment he must be lying in ambush.
Ahimelech: 14 Which of your servants, good king, is so faithful as David? Isn’t he the king’s son-in-law, the captain of your guard? Hasn’t he always been quick to do the king’s bidding and honored in the king’s household? 15 Is this the first time I have inquired of God for David? Of course not! Do not, O king, imagine that I, your servant, or anyone in my family has intended wrong against the king, for we know next to nothing about your affairs.
Saul (to Ahimelech): 16 You will surely die, Ahimelech, you and all of your family.
Saul may be truly at his worst. He fails to have reverence for God’s priests and orders them to be killed for harboring David. Not even Saul’s servants can support this horrid behavior, and they refuse to come under God’s curse by striking down His priests.
The king turned to his guards.
Saul: 17 Kill them, kill all of these priests of the Eternal because they have given their support to David. They knew he was running away, and they did not tell me.
But the servants of the king refused to attack the priests of the Eternal. Saul was furious, so he turned to one he could trust.
Saul (to Doeg): 18 Carry out my orders. Turn around, and kill these priests.
So Doeg the Edomite attacked them. That day he turned and killed 85 men who wore the priestly linen garment. 19 Then he went after Nob, the city of the priests, with his sword and utterly destroyed everything he found there—all the men, women, children, and infants. Doeg even turned his blade against the oxen, donkeys, and sheep. 20 Only Abiathar, son of Ahimelech, son of Ahitub, escaped, and he fled to David for protection. 21 He informed David that Saul had massacred the priests of the Eternal.
David (to Abiathar): 22 I knew, when I saw Doeg the Edomite that day, that he would certainly tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of every person in your family. 23 Stay here with me, and don’t be afraid. The one who seeks my life also seeks yours; you will certainly be safe with me.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
