Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”
David asks Ahimelech for five loaves of bread, or whatever food can be found. His request is plain and immediate.
It states the practical need driving the encounter.
1Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And when Ahimelech met David, he trembled and asked him, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?” 2“The king has given me a mission,” David replied. “He told me no one is to know about the mission on which I am sending you. And I have directed my young men to meet me at a certain place. 3Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.” 4“There is no common bread on hand,” the priest replied, “but there is some consecrated bread — provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.” 5David answered, “Women have indeed been kept from us, as is usual when I set out. And the bodies of the young men are holy even on common missions. How much more so today!” 6So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there but the Bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the LORD and replaced with hot bread on the day it was taken away. 7Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the LORD. And his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief shepherd for Saul.