Mark 2:25 Commentary and Bible Study

The reply of Christ, went much further than simply pointing out that the Pharisees had misread the Old Testament. ’He said unto them, Have ye never read what David did?’ These are very weighty words. ‘Have ye never read?’ They were scornful in their criticism of the disciples, and he really accuses them of ignorance. The Lord says, Are you ignorant of your Scriptures and what David did, the psalmist and prophet, David, when he had need? David was anointed to be king, but before that, when he was on the fleeing from Saul, there was the recorded incident of how he with his small militia needed food, and he went into the house of God as it existed in those days, and he was given by the acting priest, Ahimelech (under Abiathar); five loaves, from the showbread. The showbread consisted of twelve ;loaves that were displayed on the sabbath day, fresh every sabbath day, which symbolised God's provision for his people. Twelve loaves, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel, symbolised his providential care of those twelve tribes. Only the priests were supposed to eat the spent loaves when they were replaced, but they were given to David and his men and that was perfectly legal and proper, because Christ uses this example from the Old Testament to show that the sabbath always did accommodate need, and compassion, works of compassion. That is why it was right for the Lord to heal on the sabbath. The sabbath always yielded to necessity and its rules would always give way to need, particularly to works of compassion. The Scripture records this incident and makes no criticism of David for feeding himself and his men; it does this precisely to show that the statutes of the ceremonial law were never intended to be an end in themselves; they were not to be set above the value of life or enforced at the expense of dire human need. They were to teach vital lessons about redemption, but the Pharisees had turned them into a score card recording their comparative righteousness. They considered it as a personal slight that anyone should relieve themselves from keeping their stringent rules.