When Da'vid said farewell to Jon'a-than and went away in exile, never to return to the house of the king, he must have known that Saul had been rejected by the LORD, and that he was destined to occupy the throne of Is'ra-el. Instead of leading a revolution, however, he merely sought to protect his own life. He went away, not as a rebel, but as a loyal subject of the king whose unjust hatred and murderous envy had forced him to flee.
During the trying times which followed he may have done some things which seem far beneath the nobility of character and uprightness of conduct which had marked his career up to this time, but never was he guilty of the slightest act of treason or disloyalty to the king. Even while he was being sought by Saul under the false charge of outlawry, he led his followers in war against Is'ra-el's enemies, and on more than one occasion saved his nation from attacks by invading heathens. Twice he spared the life of Saul when the king was completely in his power.
Soon after leaving Jon'a-than, Da'vid visited a place called Nob, which was not far from Je-ru'sa-lem on the road to the north. A priest named A-him'e-lech was in charge of the place of worship in this little town, and his son A-bi'a-thar acted as an assistant. Da'vid was very hungry, but did not think it safe to ask the townspeople for food; knowing that the priest would not betray him to Saul, he asked for bread. The priest replied that the only food he had was the shewbread which was being removed from the sacred table, the time having come when it must be replaced with fresh bread. It was unlawful for anyone except the priests to eat this bread. However, A-bi'a-thar was so touched by Da'vid's urgent need that he gave him the shewbread, and the conduct of both Da'vid and the priest was approved hundreds of years later by the SAV'IOR.
Da'vid thought it best not to tell A-him'e-lech that he was fleeing from Saul because the king sought his life, but did say that he had left the king's house in such haste that he had failed to provide himself with a sword. He probably knew that the weapon which he had taken from Go-li'ath after their memorable combat had been placed in the shrine at Nob for safekeeping, and for this reason asked the priest for a sword. The priest told him that this was the only sword at hand, and gladly gave it to him.
The visit of Da'vid to Nob was followed by a sad event in which Saul was guilty of a terrible crime. An E'dom-ite named Do'eg, a chief herdsman of Saul, happened to be present when Da'vid was given the shewbread to eat. He reported the incident to Saul, and the angry king summoned A-him'e-lech and all the priests of his family to come to Gib'e-ah at once. After accusing them of befriending an enemy of the king, Saul commanded his guards to slay them, but the soldiers shrank in holy fear from laying violent hands upon the priests of GOD.
