1 Samuel 25:1-44
1 And Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
2 And there was a man in Maon, whose possessionsa were in Carmel; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
3 Now the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail: and she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance: but the man was churlish and evil in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb.
4 And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep.
5 And David sent out ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greetb him in my name:
6 And thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast.
7 And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurtc them not, neither was there ought missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel.
8 Ask thy young men, and they will shew thee. Wherefore let the young men find favour in thine eyes: for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David.
9 And when David's young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all those words in the name of David, and ceased.d
10 And Nabal answered David's servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master.
11 Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my fleshe that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?
12 So David's young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings.
13 And David said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword: and there went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the stuff.
14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he railedf on them.
15 But the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt,g neither missed we any thing, as long as we were conversant with them, when we were in the fields:
16 They were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.
17 Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household: for he is such a son of Belial, that a man cannot speak to him.
18 Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses.
19 And she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But she told not her husband Nabal.
20 And it was so, as she rode on the ass, that she came down by the covert of the hill, and, behold, David and his men came down against her; and she met them.
21 Now David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him: and he hath requited me evil for good.
22 So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.
23 And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground,
24 And fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience,h and hear the words of thine handmaid.
25 Let not my lord, I pray thee, regardi this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send.
26 Now therefore, my lord, as the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the LORD hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood, and from avengingj thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal.
27 And now this blessingk which thine handmaid hath brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young men that follow my lord.
28 I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid: for the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fighteth the battles of the LORD, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days.
29 Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the LORD thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling.
30 And it shall come to pass, when the LORD shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel;
31 That this shall be no griefl unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself: but when the LORD shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid.
32 And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me:
33 And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.
34 For in very deed, as the LORD God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.
35 So David received of her hand that which she had brought him, and said unto her, Go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person.
36 And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.
37 But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.
38 And it came to pass about ten days after, that the LORD smote Nabal, that he died.
39 And when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be the LORD, that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil: for the LORD hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife.
40 And when the servants of David were come to Abigail to Carmel, they spake unto her, saying, David sent us unto thee, to take thee to him to wife.
41 And she arose, and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.
42 And Abigail hasted, and arose, and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that went after her; and she wentm after the messengers of David, and became his wife.
43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they were also both of them his wives.
44 But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Phaltin the son of Laish, which was of Gallim.
1 Samuel 25:1. Samuel died, four months, say the rabbins, before the death of Saul. The elders of the nation from all the tribes attended, to behold the glory of a setting sun, which left its lustre bright on high. His bones, says Jerome, were long after removed to Constantinople, over which Justin the emperor raised a monument.
1 Samuel 25:3. The name of the man was Nabal, a stubborn foolish man. His estates lay in Carmel, where his thousand goats could leap on the rocks, and his sheep feed on the hills. These flocks David had protected, and had fair claims of hospitality. David had retired into those borders of Tyre to avoid collision with the court of Saul.
1 Samuel 25:8. We come in a good day. The christian can say the same of sacraments and of divine ordinances.
1 Samuel 25:18. Two bottles of wine. Bruce calls these gerbashes, strong hides sewed close, and thrown over the back of a beast.
1 Samuel 25:29. The bundle of life; a Hebraism for the immortality of the soul, and the happiness of separate spirits under the throne of glory. So rabbi Solomon Ben Gabirol, a Hebrew poet, uses the phrase, “Thou hast prepared under the throne of thy glory an abode for the souls of thy saints: there the souls of the sanctified dwell, who are bound up in the bundle of life. There the weary find repose; there they renew their strength, after the toils and fatigues of the present world. There they enjoy consolation, and unlimited pleasures and delight.”
REFLECTIONS.
How glorious, spotless, and wise was the life of Samuel! His early piety was followed by correspondent virtues to old age. He found his country in the lowest state of oppression, and religion almost extinguished; he succeeded in reforming the morals and raising the hopes of Israel to a glory which, very soon after his death, eclipsed the glory of all the east. When the people became impatient for a king, he resigned his authority as judge; he so displaced his sons that we hear no more of them, and he anointed two kings to the prejudice of his own family. How disinterested as a servant; how pure as a prophet. Well might Israel mourn, for in losing him every family had lost its friend, and all the land had lost a father. Well might David hasten farther south to the wilderness of Paran, for now Saul had lost the only man who awed his abuse of power. This great prophet was assuredly adorned with every virtue that can dignify human nature. His sun went down at the age of about ninety, but left an immortal lustre on the bench, and on the sanctuary.
From the good Samuel we next turn our views to the churlish and wicked Nabal. This man inherited all the temporal blessings of his ancestor Caleb, but he was a stranger to all his virtues. He was a fool, a drunkard, void of gratitude; and prosperity in the hands of a fool cannot be of long duration. Being of the same tribe with David he was acquainted with his anointing, with Saul's covenant, and with David's public and private claims for defending his country; yet this man on receiving the most respectful embassy, reproaches David as a fugitive and a traitor. And if Shimei forfeited his life by cursing David, where is the prince so circumstanced, who would have spared the life of Nabal.
Notorious wickedness is most provoking to brave and virtuous minds. David went to an excess in this way: he swore by an oath of the Lord to cut off Nabal and all the males of his house before the morning light. But in the 58th Psalm, said to be written on this occasion, he acknowledges God's peculiar right to punish sins of this nature, as the issue proved.
Nabal's wickedness was fully acknowledged by the young man who ran to acquaint Abigail. He confesses that David was a wall to them; that he had kept both sheep and shepherds, against the depredations of the Arabians; and he apprized his mistress of his fears from some expressions which the embassy had dropped.
Abigail's prudence and virtues seem to have acquired a higher lustre from the vices of her husband. Behold, this woman rises at midnight for the salvation of her house. See her liberal presents, and quickness of dispatch. All her house promptly obey, for prudence is obeyed with pleasure. She leaves her house in the night for David's camp: but how is she surprised to meet the prince and his army at the foot of her own hill! Another hour of delay, and all had perished. Blessed woman: thy name deserves to be enrolled in the annals of immortality. Well hast thou saved one husband awhile from death, and gained another worth a thousand Nabals. Her speech was not less admirable than her present. She prostrated, confessed the fault, and acknowledged the errors of her husband, but in language which associated her innocence in his guilt. She does more: she predicts David's deliverance from Saul, and his accession to the throne; for on great occasions, God gives virtuous souls a greatness of language. There is no estimating the obligation which some bad men are under to a virtuous wife.
Mark the difference between virtue and vice in the crisis of danger. Abigail's soul awoke to eloquence, gratitude, and devotion; but when Nabal was apprized that he had been brought by his wickedness to the gates of death, and the verge of hell, he became as a stone: his gloomy soul died within him. Oh what risks the wicked run. How often has that drunkard been within a step of hell by a premature death; and yet he stupidly proceeds in the same awful route. Well: let him be assured that God in a little while will inflict upon him the long-suspended blow.
Abigail by this embassy, though the thought had not entered her mind, did more than save her house. The noble soul of David knew best how to appreciate her noble deed. Her beauty indeed was enough to attract, but that was obscured in the lustre of her eloquence and virtues. The grandeur of her soul was developed in the crisis of danger. No sooner therefore did he hear of Nabal's death, than he sent to secure this faithful guardian, this wise companion and virtuous friend, for the partner of all his toil. So Abigail rose to the throne by her virtues, while vice hurled Nabal into the shades of oblivion.