Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 21:5

"And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days; when I came out, the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was but a common journey; how much more then to-day shall their vessels be holy?" — 1 Samuel 21:5 (ASV)

The vessels.—Their clothes and light, portable baggage, answering to the modern “knapsack.” The Vulgate renders the Hebrew word as “vasa.” David means to say, “Since we have just left home, you may readily suppose that no impurity has been contracted; it would be different if we were returning home from a journey, when on the way—especially in war—uncleanness might be contracted by the blood of enemies or otherwise.” —Seb. Schmid, quoted in Lange.

The Septuagint, by a very slight change in the Hebrew letters, instead of “the vessels of the young men,” renders it as “all the young men.”

And the bread is in a manner common.—The original text here is very difficult, almost utterly obscure. The English Version of this clause is simply meaningless. Of the many translations that have been suggested, two at least offer a fairly good sense:

1. “And if it is an unholy way (namely, the way David and his band were going—his purpose or enterprise), moreover, it also becomes holy through the instrument” (namely, through me, as an ambassador of the anointed of the Lord), assuming the important royal mission on which David pretended to be sent. This view is supported by Keil and O. von Gerlach.
2. Lange, however, and Thenius, maintain that the words in question must contain a remark by which the priest is to be persuaded to give the bread, and would translate it as: “Though it is an unholy (ceremonially illegal) procedure (to take the shewbread), yet it is sanctified (today) through the instrument” (David or Ahimelech). The instrument here is David, the appointed messenger of the Lord’s anointed, or, even better, Ahimelech, the sacred person of the high priest.

No doubt, the words of Leviticus 24:9, which speak of the destination of the stale shewbread, “And they (Aaron and his sons) shall eat it in the holy place,” suggested the practice of the Church of England embodied in the Rubric following the “Order of the Administration of the Holy Communion”: “And if any (of the bread and wine) remain of that which was consecrated, it shall not be carried out of the church, but the priest, and such other of the communicants as he shall then call unto him, shall immediately after the blessing reverently eat and drink the same.”

Among the legendary Jewish lore that has gathered around the history of this transaction is one strange tradition that the holy bread thus given became useless in the hands of the king’s fugitive (See Stanley, Lectures on the Jewish Church, Lecture 22, quoting from Jerome).