THE PEOPLE OF ANCIENT ISRAEL weren’t only the children of God, they were children of their time. After having been led by the so-called “judges” for many decades, possibly centuries, they wanted a king like other nations. Saul of the tribe of Benjamin was chosen, and was anointed by Samuel, the last of the judges. Saul certainly looked the part; in 1 Samuel 9:2, he’s described as “a handsome young man…taller than any of the people,” and he later proved himself to be valiant in war.

But by chapter 15, God regrets having chosen Saul because of his disobedience. Eventually, David is anointed by Samuel in his place, though Saul is at first unaware of this. Having been rejected by God, Saul slowly descends into madness even as David rises in the eyes of the people. Eventually, Saul, filled with paranoid jealousy, tries to kill David, forcing him to flee. Thus begins Saul’s murderous search for David, a manhunt that some estimate to have lasted as long as a decade.

This is the background to Jesus’ response to the Pharisees, when they questioned him about his disciples plucking and eating grain on the Sabbath. To the Pharisees, the disciples were violating God’s law, though as we’ve seen, it was really more a violation of the Pharisees’ interpretation and application of the law.

Jesus could have started a debate. He could have challenged them to show him the specific words in the Law of Moses where such behavior was forbidden, then questioned the legitimacy of how they came up with their rules regarding the Sabbath. But he didn’t. His response cut more deeply, implying that the Pharisees, for all their vaunted devotion and scholarship, had missed the point. Here’s how Jesus’ words read in Luke:

Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Luke 6:3-5, NIV)

Mark’s version is somewhat longer:

He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:25-28)

One of the first places to which David fled from Saul was Nob, a city of priests. According to the story in 1 Samuel 21, David came there alone, asking for bread. He lied to the priest, saying that he was on a royal mission and would be meeting up with his men later. The priest did not have any ordinary bread on hand, only the consecrated bread, the so-called “bread of the presence.” There were twelve loaves, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, arranged on a golden table; the loaves would be replaced every Sabbath, and last week’s loaves were given to the priests.

Some have estimated that each loaf would have weighed five pounds or more—far more than anything you’d buy in a supermarket today. The text doesn’t say how much of the bread the priests still had left, nor how many loaves David was given. Suffice it to say, however, it was more than just a snack.

Jesus asked the Pharisees, “Have you never read that story?” Of course they had, and he knew it. Rather, the question was meant to imply that they had read the story, but hadn’t understood its implications. His point was that although the law specifically said that the bread of the presence belonged only to the priests, in a time of hunger and need, the need took precedence. God cared more about the well-being and character of people than about formal obedience to rules for its own sake.

In Mark’s account, Jesus takes that implication even further, applying it to the debate he was having with the Pharisees: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Pharisees, perhaps in good conscience, had created rules intended to safeguard the sanctity of the Sabbath. Unfortunately, by their shortsighted insistence on these rules, they had turned the Sabbath into a burdensome exercise in religious observance: Don’t do this, don’t do that—and oh, that other thing? Absolutely not. That had never been God’s intention for the day of rest; it was meant to be a gift of grace.

In Matthew’s version of the story (12:1-8), Jesus goes still further. There, he says that priests must go about their work in the temple on the Sabbath, but are not for that reason guilty of violating the Sabbath. The Pharisees know this; doesn’t that tell them something? He accuses them not only of failing to understand the story of David and the consecrated bread, but failing to heed the prophets, who routinely condemned the way people followed the letter of the law in their religious observances, but lived in ways that lacked godly character and perpetrated injustice.

What all three versions of the story share in common, though, is the final declaration: Jesus, again calling himself the Son of Man, was Lord of the Sabbath. Reading that declaration narrowly, in terms of the debate, Jesus was saying that he had the authority to decide what is or isn’t to be permitted on the Sabbath. If he gives his disciples permission to pick and eat a bit of grain on the Sabbath, so be it. But given the importance of the Sabbath to Jewish identity in the Pharisees’ eyes, they would probably have heard him saying more: not only was he claiming to be Lord of the Sabbath, but Lord, period.