David answered, “Women have indeed been kept from us, as is usual when I set out. And the bodies of the young men are holy even on common missions. How much more so today!”
Here, I. David, in distress, flies in the tabernacle of God, now pitched at Nob, supposed to be a city in the tribe of Benjamin. Since Shiloh was forsaken, the tabernacle was often removed, though the ark still remained at Kirjath-jearim. Hither David came in his flight from Saul's fury (Sa1 21:1), and applied to Ahimelech the priest. Samuel the prophet could not protect him, Jonathan the prince could not.
Commenting on 1 Samuel 21:1-9
And David answered the priest, and said unto him,.... In reply to the case of the young men his servants, and of himself too, who also was intended by the priest, though out of reverence to him not mentioned: of a truth women have been kept from us these three days since I came out; reckoning either from the time he fled from Saul at...
these three days--as required by law (Exo 19:15). David and his attendants seem to have been lurking in some of the adjoining caves, to elude pursuit, and to have been, consequently, reduced to great extremities of hunger. the bread is in a manner common--that is, now that it is no longer standing on the Lord's table.