Doeg Present When David Came to Ahimelech

    For the sin of Eli with regard to his sons, God rejected his whole house from the priesthood. Providence fulfils his word. Doeg happened to be at Nob when David on his flight came to Ahimelech: he saw what David received from the priest, and gave information. With the exception of Abiathar, the whole house of Ahimelech was cut off. "Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord; and his name was Doeg, an Edomite, the chiefest of the herdsmen that belonged to Saul."—" Then answered Doeg the Edomite, (which was set over the servants of Saul,) and said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob to Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub. And he inquired of the Lord for him, and gave him victuals, and gave him the sword of Goliath the

    Philistine."—" And the king said to Doeg, Turn thee, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod. And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and sheep, with the edge of the sword."

    Abiathar, one of the sons of Ahimelech, escaped and fled to David. But he afterwards conspired with Adonijah, and was expelled from the office of the priesthood by Solomon. "And unto Abiathar the priest said the king, Get thee to Anathoth, unto thine own fields, for thou art worthy of death: but I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou barest the ark of the Lord God before David my father, and because thou hast been afflicted in all wherein my father was afflicted. So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the Lord; that he might fulfil the word of the Lord which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shilob." Thus did Providence fulfil the word of the Lord against Eli for his negligence with respect to the restraint of his sons. The wisdom of this world would see nothing here but the hand of man: the pen of inspiration refers all things to the will of God.