When Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul (1Sam 22)

So David and his family flee to Moab, and after David sees to it that his family is taken care of, he returns to the land of his tribe, Judah, now with a small army to protect him.

Saul meanwhile is very unhappy with, well, pretty much everyone and everything. The fact that David is against him, and Jonathan, his own son, is a friend of David has caused him to become paranoid. He gives a speech to his Benjamite soldiers, pointing out that surely David will not give the sort of deference to the tribe of Benjamin that he himself has. He questions their loyalty.

Doeg the Edomite (a foreigner, in case you didn't catch it) speaks up to show his own loyalty, pointing out that he saw David visit the priests in Nob. Saul sends for Ahimelech and demands to know "Why have ye conspired against me, thou and the son of Jesse...?" Ahimelech insists (honestly, by the look of things) that he had no idea David was not on a mission from Saul, but Saul refuses to believe this excuse, and tells his men to kill all of the priests. The men refuse, but Doeg apparently eagerly complies, killing not only the priests, but every person and animal in the city of Nob. The SAB notes this as violent, to which I wholeheartedly agree, and with the "Family Values" icon, the reason for which completely escapes me.

And now to Abiathar the priest. Here, as I mentioned in my previous commentary, is some confusion as to lineage. Is Abiathar the father or the son of Ahimelech. You know, one thing I tried to do was see if this complex sentence (verse 20) could be unraveled to translate differently, such as the idea that "named Abiathar" could be a reference not to the son that escaped, but that it was saying Abithar was another name for Ahitub, who seems to be clearly the father of Ahimelech (at least in this verse). It doesn't seem to be so, especially since the following verse seems to make clear that Abiathar was the escapee, the clear subject of the sentence.

Clearly there is an error somewhere, but as I said, I can't seem to let it go with that, and I've been doing some reading, trying to unravel it as much as I can. First of all, I'm fairly certain the answer is once again with the minority reading, that is, Ahimelech is the father, despite the fact that more verses name him as the son. Why do I think this? Well, firstly because those verses saying Abiathar is the father are ones that were written later, much longer after the events' actual occurrence, so that makes it seem to me that they are slightly more likely to be erroneous. Secondly, and more importantly, there are several verses such as this one that mention Ahimelech as the son of Ahitub, who is (according to 1Sam.14:3) the grandson of Eli, which seems to fit in pretty good culturally and with the timeline. On the other hand, I don't think there is an instance of a single verse that lists anyone else as being the father of Abiathar other than Ahimelech in these two chapters.

Admittedly, there is still some confusion beyond that. I tried to map out the family tree of Eli, but it gets murky after a few generations, partially due to the fact that there are multiple people with the same name (there seem to be two different priests by the name of Zadok, both of whom were contemporaries of David), and the genealogy doesn't seem to be in anywise complete. This may be the key to the answer, but I'll admit this theory, while possible, doesn't seem to be strongly supported: It may be that since Ahimelech was killed in the massacre at Nob, Abiathar may have named his next child after his dead father as a memorial. In such a case, the latter mentions of "Ahimelech the son of Abiathar" would actually be to the grandson of the Ahimelech in these two chapters. I think if this were the case, there would be some mention of the fact that this special repeat naming had taken place (after all, it seems to me it makes for an interesting story) but there is no mention of it, so it remains questionable speculation.

Whoever Abiathar is (and I'll say that despite Jesus referring to him as the high priest, I think there's still possibility that he was not high priest until after the massacre, if that sounds weird, feel free to ask in the comments), David invites him to come with him and his company, as they now share a common enemy in Saul.

In the days of Abiathar the high priest (1Sam 21)

As we move into the final part of Saul's story here in chapter 21, the part of Saul's life where he spent much of his time chasing David around, we're going to come across a handful of related problems, all of which are at least in part tied to the first verse of this chapter. I'm getting ahead of myself in including some of this before the SAB does, but it seems clear that there's something confusing about this fellow Ahimelech the priest. Some of it's easy to address, but a lot of it is going to be harder, and take some looking into.

"Then came David to Nob to Ahimelech the priest: and Ahimelech was afraid at the meeting of David, and said unto him, Why art thou alone, and no man with thee?"

One issue here is whether this was Ahimelech at all, as when Jesus recounts this story in Mark 2, he calls the priest "Abiathar". While this issue doesn't come up until the next chapter, it seems clear to me that it must be related: Abiathar was another priest, and depending on which verse you read, he was either Ahimelech's son or father. What's going on? I'm not sure.

One thing that I think can safely be said is that it's certainly not uncommon for a father and son to both serve as priests at the same time. (There is often more than one priest, but only one high priest*, which in this case was Abiathar.) That being the case, David probably came to both, but talked specifically to Ahimelech. Jesus says it was "the days of Abiathar the high priest", but doesn't say that David talked to Abiathar. But who is the father? I think that's a question that can be answered, but I'm having a hard time figuring it out. I decided not to obsess over it, since whatever the answer is, the contradiction is still there, probably representing a scribal error. I'll come up with a verdict on the matter, but I think I'll let it drop for now, since it's a tough nut to crack.

The easy issue to address is that of whether or not David was alone. Yes, the priest comments that David is alone, while Jesus says he was travelling with others. I think this is almost silly though, and once again requires only looking at immediate context. Down in verse four, shortly after David asks for bread, the priest refers to "the young men" whom he assumes will be eating the bread. David is not travelling alone, but at the moment that he comes to the priest, he doesn't bring anyone with him into the house. In the immediate context of Jesus' comments on the matter, note that Jesus says "he entered the house", not "they entered the house". So was he alone? Yes, at the moment, but not on the overall journey.

So David gets the bread, but only after he assures the priest that neither he nor any of the men with him have recently had sex. The SAB seems to be saying that this is a bit sexist, and I'm inclined to agree, but I'm not sure what the reason for the priest saying this is. This is an unusual circumstance, David taking holy bread, and I certainly don't know what rules ought to be followed. It may be that the priest made the rules up.

The remaining issues in this chapter are mostly ones I have addressed previously. The killing of Goliath was in chapter 17, and the strange chant about body counts in chapter 18. The only thing not yet addressed is the story of David pretending to be insane, which I'm not sure what there is to say about it. Absurd? Well, he's pretending to be crazy, so crazy and absurd seem to me to be things that tend to go hand-in-hand. David's intention was to protect himself and make himself seem a non-threat to the Philistines, and apparently he succeeded, so what can I say?

* I know of a single exception to this general rule; I'm sure we'll get to it when we come across the particular verse in the New Testament.