Nov (נֹב) is the name of a priestly city in Benjamin, near Jerusalem, where the Tabernacle and the Presence of God temporarily resided after Shiloh's destruction. It is called "the city of the priests\” (1 Samuel 22:19) and plays a pivotal role in the story of David's flight from Saul.
Nob is the site of one of Scripture's most painful episodes: the massacre of 85 priests by Doeg the Edomite on Saul's orders (1 Samuel 22), because Ahimelech had given David the showbread and Goliath's sword. This event haunted David — he acknowledged later that his deception at Nob contributed to the priests' deaths.
Jesus references this episode directly in Matthew 12:3-4, defending His disciples' gleaning on the Sabbath: "Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread.\” Jesus uses the Nob incident to argue that mercy and human need take precedence over ritual law — that the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Nob thus becomes a touchstone for a theology of grace over legalism.