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 men's things were holy, i.e., perfectly clean, for the purpose of assuring the priest that there was not the smallest Levitical uncleanness attaching to them. The clause which follows is to be taken as conditional, and as supposing a possible case: “and if it is an unholy way.” דּרך, the way that David was going with his young men, i.e., his purpose of enterprise, by which, however, we are not to understand his request of holy bread from Ahimelech, but the performance of the king's commission of which he had spoken. כּי ואף, lit. besides (there is) also that, = moreover there is also the fact, that it becomes holy through the instrument; i.e., as O. v. Gerlach has correctly explained it, “on the supposition of the important royal mission, upon which David pretended to be sent, through me as an ambassador of the anointed of the Lord,” in which, at any rate, David's meaning really was, “the way was sanctified before God, when he, as His chosen servant, the preserver of the true kingdom of God in Israel, went to him in his extremity.” That פּלי in the sense of instrument is also applied to men, is evident from Isa 13:5 and Jer 50:25.

Verses 6-7
The priest then gave him (what was) holy, namely the shew-loaves “that were taken from before Jehovah,” i.e., from the holy table, upon which they had lain before Jehovah for seven days (vid., Lev 24:6-9). - In 1Sa 21:7 there is a parenthetical remark introduced, which was of great importance in relation to the consequences of this occurrence. There at the sanctuary there was a man of Saul's servants, נעצר, i.e., “kept back (shut off) before Jehovah:” i.e., at the sanctuary of the tabernacle, either for the sake of purification or as a proselyte, who wished to be received into the religious communion of Israel, or because of supposed leprosy, according to Lev 13:4. His name was Doeg the Edomite, הרעים אבּיר, “the strong one (i.e., the overseer) of the herdsmen of Saul.”