Read 1 Samuel 21
The Bread for Life
3 Now then, what do
you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4 And the
priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy
bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.”
DAVID is fleeing Saul’s desire to kill him. He goes to Nob,
the village of priests. In Nob is the Tabernacle of God built in Israel’s
exodus journey (Exodus 25-26). In the
Tabernacle God instructs, (Exodus 25:23) “You shall make a table of acacia wood. Two
cubits shall be its length, a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its
height.” And on then God says, (Exodus 25:30) “And you shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me
regularly.”
The bread is “the
bread of the Presence” because was 12 loaves representing the 12 Tribes of
Israel in the presence of God. Every Sabbath the priests would bring new bread,
and they could eat the old.
When David needed food
the priest offers this bread to him. Was it wrong for the priest to do this?
When the Pharisees
criticized Jesus for his disciples plucking heads of grain (as the Law allowed)
on the Sabbath, here’s Jesus comment on easing hunger: (Matthew 12:3-8) He said to them, “Have you not read what
David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the
house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him
to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the
Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the
temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means,
(Hosea 6:6) 'I desire
mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For
the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
In essence Jesus
pointed out that David’s eating and his disciples’ eating was a concession the
Law permitted because life is more holy than bread.
A Moment’s Thought: God’s love is life.
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