David’s Example and Sabbath Regulations
Jesus threw a shield of defense over the act of his disciples by referring to the conduct of David, esteemed to be a model of Jewish piety. Once when he and his men were an hungered, he had not scrupled to break the rules, to violate the sanctity of the holy place. We may believe that it was on a Sabbath day he did so. Doubly appropriate, therefore, was the reference to it; but it was not essential to Christ's argument that the act was done upon the Sabbath day. What Christ mainly desired by his allusion to the case of David, was to establish the principle that the pressure of hunger vindicated the setting aside for the time of the strictest even of the temple regulations.— Hannah's Life of Christ, p. 200.