The 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.”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 4. If the young men be clean, and so forth If this cleanness was required of them that were to eat that bread, which was but a figure of the bread of life which we receive in the blessed sacrament; how clean ought Christians be when they approach to our tremendous mysteries? And what reason hath the Church of God to admit none to be her ministers, to consecrate and daily receive this most pure sacrament, but such as devote themselves to a life of perpetual purity. Challoner.—Women. God required this on many occasions. Exodus 19:15. Urgent necessity determined Achimelech to grant the loaves, as our Saviour intimates, though it is probable that he first consulted the Lord. Calmet. 22:16. Calmet.—David perhaps went to Nobe on purpose to ask advice. Menochius.—We have here an example of a dispensation, and of the distinction between lay, or common, and holy bread. Worthington.