1 Samuel 22:14
Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king’s son in law, and goeth at thy bidding, and is honourable in thine house? Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king’s son in law, and goeth at thy bidding, and is honourable in thine house?
The words were Ahimelech's answer to Saul after Doeg the Edomite reported David's visit to him. Doeg had turned informer from ambition and greed and from hatred of the priest who had reproved his sins. He gave a false coloring to the visit in order to stir Saul's anger against the man of God.
At that time Saul was preparing to trap David at the cave of Adullam, and explaining David's escape as treachery within his own camp, he charged conspiracy. He offered his counselors gifts and honor to bribe them to betray David's friends. Maddened with rage by slander, a tongue set on fire of hell, he decreed death for Ahimelech's whole family.
Doeg then killed eighty-five persons wearing a linen ephod and struck Nob with the sword, including men and women, children and infants, oxen, donkeys, and sheep. The massacre shows what Saul could do under Satan's control in the perversity of a heart refusing God's guidance. When God had declared the iniquity of the Amalekites full and commanded their utter destruction, Saul had been too compassionate to execute the sentence and had spared what was devoted to destruction, yet now without any command from God he slew the priests of the Lord and ruined Nob.