In 1 Samuel 21, why did David and his men have to abstain from sexual relations to eat the holy bread?
Robert Sungenis answers that ritual purity was required under the Mosaic law before approaching consecrated objects, and that sexual activity, though not sinful, made a man ritually unclean for a time. He holds David's men could eat because they were ceremonially clean, and reads the law's lesson that physical purity symbolised interior holiness as foreshadowing the purity needed to receive the Eucharist.
In 1 Samuel 21, why did David and his men have to abstain from sexual relations to eat the holy bread?
Answer
Because ritual purity was required under the Mosaic law before approaching consecrated objects. Sexual activity, though not sinful, made a man ritually unclean for a time. David’s men could eat because they were ceremonially clean. The law taught that physical purity symbolized interior holiness, and this foreshadows the purity needed to receive the Eucharist.