This document is about Ahimelech (son of Ahitub). For other homonyms, refer to the Ahimelech document. He was a priest during the time of King Saul, present in Nob when David, fleeing from Saul, arrived there. He cared for David, giving him the showbread consecrated to God and Goliath's sword, and for this, he was killed by Saul.
1 Samuel 21:1David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commanded me to do something, and has said to me, ‘Let no one know anything about the business about which I send you, and what I have commanded you. I have sent the young men to a certain place.’1 Samuel 21:2Now therefore what is under your hand? Please give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever is available.”1 Samuel 21:3The priest answered David, and said, “I have no common bread, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.”1 Samuel 21:4David answered the priest, and said to him, “Truly, women have been kept from us as usual these three days. When I came out, the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was only a common journey. How much more then today shall their vessels be holy?”1 Samuel 21:5So the priest gave him holy bread; for there was no bread there but the show bread that was taken from before Yahweh, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.1 Samuel 21:6Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before Yahweh; and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the best of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul.1 Samuel 21:7David said to Ahimelech, “Isn’t there here under your hand spear or sword? For I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.”1 Samuel 21:8The priest said, “Behold, the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah, is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you would like to take that, take it; for there is no other except that here.” David said, “There is none like that. Give it to me.”1 Samuel 21:9David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath.
1 Samuel 22:9He inquired of Yahweh for him, gave him food, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.”1 Samuel 22:10Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father’s house, the priests who were in Nob; and they all came to the king.1 Samuel 22:11Saul said, “Hear now, you son of Ahitub.” He answered, “Here I am, my lord.”1 Samuel 22:12Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread, and a sword, and have inquired of God for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in wait, as it is today?”1 Samuel 22:13Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, “Who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, captain of your body guard, and honored in your house?1 Samuel 22:14Have I today begun to inquire of God for him? Be it far from me! Don’t let the king impute anything to his servant, nor to all the house of my father; for your servant knows nothing of all this, less or more.”1 Samuel 22:15The king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you, and all your father’s house.”1 Samuel 22:16The king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn, and kill the priests of Yahweh; because their hand also is with David), and because they knew that he fled, and didn’t disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king wouldn’t put out their hand to fall on the priests of Yahweh.1 Samuel 22:17The king said to Doeg), “Turn and attack the priests!” Doeg the Edomite turned, and he attacked the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five people who wore a linen ephod.1 Samuel 22:18He struck Nob, the city of the priests, with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and nursing babies, and cattle and donkeys and sheep, with the edge of the sword.1 Samuel 22:19One of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped, and fled after David.1 Samuel 22:20Abiathar told David that Saul had slain Yahweh’s priests.