1 Samuel 22 explained: Saul Destroys the Priests of Nob

Outcasts gather in a cave (vv. 1-2)

David hides in the cave of Adullam in the hills of Judah, and his family joins him, likely because Saul's anger now put them in danger too. About four hundred desperate people, many in debt or bitter at their lot, rally to him, and this rough crowd becomes the start of his army.

Parents sheltered in Moab (vv. 3-5)

David asks the king of Moab, Saul's enemy, to protect his aging parents, and David's great-grandmother Ruth was from Moab, which may explain the welcome. The prophet Gad then tells David to leave his fortress and return to Judah, his own tribe's land, rather than hide abroad.

Saul's paranoid speech (vv. 6-8)

Saul sits holding a spear, a common sign of royal power then, and appeals to his officials as fellow members of the tribe of Benjamin, hinting that David from Judah would reward only his own people. He accuses everyone, even his son Jonathan, of plotting against him, though the story gives no sign of any plot.

Doeg's report and Ahimelech's defense (vv. 9-16)

Doeg, a foreigner from Edom in Saul's service, reports seeing the priest Ahimelek help David at Nob in the previous chapter, where David had lied that he was on the king's business. Ahimelek honestly answers that David was the king's most trusted man and that he knew nothing of a quarrel, but Saul sentences him and his whole family to death anyway.

The massacre at Nob (vv. 17-19)

Saul's own guards refuse to kill priests of the LORD, so Doeg kills eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod, a simple garment priests wore, and then wipes out the whole town, children, infants and animals included. The text tells this flatly as a horror, and many readers note the grim irony that Saul does to his own priests what he had failed to do to Israel's enemy Amalek in chapter 15.

Abiathar escapes to David (vv. 20-23)

One son of Ahimelek, Abiathar, survives and flees to David, who admits he saw Doeg that day and is responsible for the deaths. David promises to protect him, and Abiathar becomes David's priest from then on.

Key verse: 1 Samuel 22:22

Something to think about

Saul's guards refused an order they saw as wrong, while one man carried it out. What do you think makes the difference between people who refuse and people who go along?