Posted by: Bill Hornbeck | June 19, 2024

“I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE” – “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”

Today’s devotion comes from 1 Samuel 21:1-6.

“Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone and no one with you?”  David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to me, ‘Let no one know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commissioned you;  and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’  Now therefore, what do you have on hand?  Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”  The priest answered David and said, “There is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is consecrated bread;  if only the young men have kept themselves from women.”  David answered the priest and said to him, “Surely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey;  how much more then today will their vessels be holy?”  So the priest gave him consecrated bread;  for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence which was removed from before the LORD, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away.”  1 Samuel 21:1-6. 

————–

“At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat.  But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.”  But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions, how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone?  Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent?  But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here.  But if you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.

For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”  Matthew 12:1-8.

“And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain.  The Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”  And He *said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry;  how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?”  Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.  So the Son of Man is LORD even of the Sabbath.”  Mark 2:23-28.


Categories