Difference between revisions of "Ahimelech"

<p> <span> Ahim'elech. </span> <span> (brother of the king). </span> </p> <p> 1. [[Son]] of Ahitub, <span> 1 [[Samuel]] 22:11-12 </span> , and high priest of Nob, in the days of Saul. [[He]] gave [[David]] the shew bread to eat, and the sword of Goliath; and for so doing was put to death, with his whole house, by Saul's order. [[Abiathar]] alone escaped. <span> [[See]] </span> <a> Abiathar </a> <span> . </span> (B.C. 1085-1060). </p> <p> 2. A Hittite. <span> 1 Samuel 26:6 </span> . </p>

<p> <translit> a </translit> - <translit> him´e </translit> - <translit> lek </translit> ( <span> אחימלך </span> , <i> <translit> 'ăḥı̄melekh </translit> </i> , "brother of a king," or, "my brother is king," or, "king is brother"): </p> <p> (1) The father of David's high priest Abiathar: son of Ahitub, the son of Phinehas, the son of [[Eli]] ( <span> 1 [[Samuel]] 21:1 </span> , <span> 1 Samuel 21:2 </span> , <span> 1 Samuel 21:8 </span> ; <span> 1 Samuel 22:9-20 </span> ; <span> 1 Samuel 23:6 </span> ; <span> 1 Samuel 30:7 </span> ). [[Ahijah]] the son of [[Ahitub]] ( <span> 1 Samuel 14:3 </span> , <span> 1 Samuel 14:18 </span> ) was either the same person under another name, or was Ahimelech's father or brother. [[See]] <a> AHIJAH </a> , 3. [[Ahimelech]] is an interesting person, especially because he stands for whatever information we have concerning the priestly office in [[Israel]] during the period between Eli and David. [[Whether]] the Deuteronomic law for a central sanctuary originated with [[Moses]] or not, its provisions were very imperfectly carried out during the times of the Judges. This was particularly the case after the capture of the ark by the Philistines, and the deaths of Eli and his sons. From that time to the middle of the reign of [[David]] the ark was in the custody of the men of Kiriath-jearim "in the hill," or "in Gibeah" ( <span> 1 Samuel 7:1 </span> ; <span> 2 Samuel 6:2 </span> , <span> 2 Samuel 6:3 </span> ). [[As]] a general proposition Israel "sought not unto it" ( <span> 1 [[Chronicles]] 13:3 </span> ), though there is nothing to forbid the idea that it may, on occasion, have been brought out from its seclusion ( <span> 1 Samuel 14:18 </span> ). [[Before]] and after the accession of [[Saul]] some of the functions of the national sanctuary were transacted, of course very incompletely, at [[Gilgal]] ( <span> 1 Samuel 10:8 </span> ; <span> 1 Samuel 11:14 </span> , <span> 1 Samuel 11:15 </span> ; <span> 1 Samuel 13:7 </span> ; <span> 1 Samuel 15:12 </span> , <span> 1 Samuel 15:21 </span> , <span> 1 Samuel 15:33 </span> ). Whether there was a priesthood, with Ahitub the grandson of Eli as high priest, is a matter on which we have no information; but we may remind ourselves that the common assumption that such men as Samuel and Saul performed priestly offices is nothing but an assumption. </p> <p> After Saul has been king for a good many years we find Ahijah in his retinue, acting as priest and wearing priestly vestments. A few years later Ahimelech is at the head of the very considerable priestly establishment at Nob. The scale on which it existed is indicated by the fact that 85 robed priests perished in the massacre ( <span> 1 Samuel 22:18 </span> ). They had families residing at [[Nob]] ( <span> 1 Samuel 22:19 </span> ). They were thought of as priests of Yahweh, and were held in reverence ( <span> 1 Samuel 22:17 </span> ). It was a hereditary priesthood ( <span> 1 Samuel 22:11 </span> , <span> 1 Samuel 22:15 </span> ). Men deposited votive offerings there, the sword of Goliath, for example ( <span> 1 Samuel 21:9 </span> ). There seems to have been some kind of police authority, whereby a person might be "detained" ( <span> 1 Samuel 21:7 </span> ). It was customary to inquire of [[Yahweh]] there ( <span> 1 Samuel 22:10 </span> , <span> 1 Samuel 22:15 </span> ). A distraction was made between the common and the holy ( <span> 1 Samuel 21:4-6 </span> ). The custom of the shewbread was maintained ( <span> 1 Samuel 21:6 </span> ). [[In]] fine, [[Jesus]] is critically correct in calling the place "the house of God" ( <span> [[Mark]] 2:26 </span> ). The account does not say that the ark was there, or that the burnt-offering of the morning and evening was offered, or that the great festivals were held. The priestly head of the establishment at Nob is represented to have been the man who had the right to the office through his descent from Aaron. It is gratuitous to assume that there were other similar sanctuaries in Israel, though the proposition that there were none might be, like other negative propositions, hard to establish by positive proof. </p> <p> (2) A son of [[Abiathar]] ( <span> 2 Samuel 8:17 </span> ; <span> 1 Chronicles 18:16 </span> ; <span> 1 Chronicles 24:6 </span> ), and grandson of the above. In a list of the heads of departments under David, a list belonging later than the middle of David's 40 years, and in which David's sons appear, this Ahimelech, the son of David's friend, is mentioned as sharing with [[Zadok]] a high position in the priesthood. In this capacity, later, he shared with David and Zadok in the apportionment of the priests into 24 ancestral classes, 16 of the house of Eleazar, and 8 of the house of [[Ithamar]] (1 Ch 24). In this account Ahimelech is mentioned three times, and with some detail. It is alleged as a difficulty that Abiathar was then living, and was high priest along with Zadok ( <span> 1 Chronicles 15:11 </span> ; <span> 2 Samuel 15:29 </span> ; <span> 2 Samuel 19:11 </span> ; <span> 2 Samuel 20:25 </span> ; <span> 1 Kings 2:27 </span> , <span> 1 Kings 2:35 </span> ; <span> 1 Kings 4:4 </span> , etc.). But surely there is no improbability in the affirmation that Abiathar had a son named Ahimelech, or that this son performed prominent priestly functions in his father's lifetime. </p> <p> [[Many]] regard "Ahimelech the son of Abiathar" (Mt gives Ahimelech) as an inadvertent transposition for "Abiathar the son of Ahimelech." This is rather plausible in the passage in 2 [[Sam]] 8 and the duplicate of it in <span> 1 Chronicles 18:16 </span> , but it has no application in the detailed account in 1 Ch 24. [[One]] must accept Ahimelech the son of Abiathar as historical unless, indeed, one regards the testimony of Ch to a fact as evidence in disproof of that fact. See <a> ABIATHAR </a> . </p> <p> (3) <links> A H </links> ittite, a companion and friend of David, when he was hiding from Saul in the wilderness ( <span> 1 Samuel 26:6 </span> ). </p>

<p> (Hebrew Achime'lek, <span> אֲחַימֶלֶךְ </span> , <span> brother </span> [i.e. <span> friend </span> ] <span> of </span> the <span> king; </span> Sept. <span> Ἀχιμέλεχ </span> , but <span> Ἀβιμέλεχ </span> in Psalms 52, title; [[Josephus]] <span> Ἀχιμέλεχος </span> ), the name of two men. </p> <p> <span> 1. </span> The twelfth high-priest of the Jews, B.C. cir. 1085-1060, son of AHITUB (See <a> AHITUB </a> ) (q.v.), and father of ABIATHAR (See <a> ABIATHAR </a> ) (q.v.); apparently called also AHIAH (See <a> AHIAH </a> ) (q.v.). (See <a> HIGH-PRIEST </a> ). (On the difficulties involved in these names see Kuinol, <span> Comment. ad Marc. </span> 2, 26; Korb, in the <span> Krit. Journ. d. Theol. </span> 4, 295 sq.; Fritzsche, <span> Comment. in Marc. </span> p. 72 sq.; Hitzig, <span> Begriff' d. Krit. </span> p. 146; Ewald, <span> Tsr. Gesch. </span> 2, 596; Engstrom, <span> [[De]] Ahimeleche et Ahjathare, </span> Lund. 1741; Wolf, [[Car.]] 1, 439 sq.) [[He]] was a descendant of the line of [[Ithamar]] through [[Eli]] ( <span> 1 [[Chronicles]] 24:26 </span> ; comp. Josephus, <span> Ant. </span> 5, 11, 5; 8:1, 3). When [[David]] fled from [[Saul]] (B.C. 1062), he went to Nob, a city of the priests in Benjamin, where the tabernacle then was, and, by representing himself as on pressing business from the king, he obtained from Ahimelech, who had no other, some of the sacred bread which had been removed from the presence-table (see Osiander, <span> De Davide panes propositionis accipiente, </span> Tub. 1751). He was also furnished with the sword which he had himself taken from Goliath, and which had been laid up as a trophy in the tabernacle ( <span> 1 [[Samuel]] 21:1-9 </span> ). </p> <p> These circumstances were witnessed by Doeg, an [[Edomite]] in the service of Saul, and were so reported by him to the jealous king as to appear acts of connivance at, and support to, David's imagined disloyal designs. Saul immediately sent for [[Ahimelech]] and the other priests then at Nob, and laid this treasonable offense to their charge; but they declared their ignorance of any hostile designs on the part of David toward Saul or his kingdom. This, however, availed them not, for the king commanded his guard to slay them. Their refusal to fall upon persons invested with so sacred a character might have brought even Saul to reason; but he repeated the order to [[Doeg]] himself, and was too readily obeyed by that malignant person, who, with the men under his orders, not only slew the priests then present, eighty-six in number, but marched to Nob, and put to the sword every living creature it contained (1 Samuel 22; Psalms 52, title). The only priest that escaped was Abiathar. Ahimelech's son, who fled to David, and afterward became high-priest ( <span> 1 Samuel 23:6 </span> ; <span> 1 Samuel 30:7 </span> ). (See <a> ABIATHAR </a> ). </p> <p> Some have supposed from <span> [[Mark]] 2:26 </span> , that there was another Ahimelech, a son of Abiathar, and grandson of the preceding, and that he officiated as one of the two high-priests in the time of David ( <span> 2 Samuel 8:17 </span> ; <span> 1 Chronicles 24:3 </span> ; <span> 1 Chronicles 24:6 </span> ; <span> 1 Chronicles 24:31 </span> ); but the two may be identified by reading in these passages, "Abiathar the son of Ahimelech," instead of the reverse. [[In]] <span> 1 Chronicles 18:16 </span> , he is called ABIMELECH (See <a> ABIMELECH </a> ) (q.v.). He is probably the same as the [[Ahiah]] who officiated for Saul ( <span> 1 Samuel 14:3 </span> ; <span> 1 Samuel 14:18 </span> ). (See <a> AHIJAH </a> ). </p> <p> <span> 2. </span> A Hittite, one of David's followers whom he invited to accompany him at night into the camp of Saul in the wilderness of Ziph, but [[Abishai]] alone appears to have had sufficient courage for the enterprise ( <span> 1 Samuel 26:6 </span> ), B.C. 1055. </p>