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.
David's moral victory over Saul and over his own natural instincts has been most admirable. However, in this chapter we see him showing just the opposite attitude. It seems hardly possible that this can be the same man. We are told first of Samuel's death, which involves a significant change in Israel. David no longer had the steadying influence of this man of God over him. All Israel mourned his death, for they no longer enjoyed his godly influence. But changes are inevitable, each succeeding set of circumstances testing us in a differing way. The many changes of David's life illustrates this strikingly for our learning.
In verse 2 we are introduced to Nabal, a man of great wealth, His name was not exactly complimentary, for it means "fool." One wonders what kind of parents would give him such a name. Having three thousand sheep as well as one thousand goats, the time had come for his shearing the sheep. This would be a great project with great monetary returns.
The contrast between Nabal and his wife is told us in verse 3. Her name Abigail means "father of joy," and her beautiful face also reflected a beautiful character. Nabal, however, was a harsh man whose actions were evil, a self-centered hedonist, in spite of the fact that he had descended from Caleb, a man of unusual godliness and devotion.
When David heard of Nabal's sheep shearing project, he felt it opportune to send ten young men to him to request some provisions of food (v.5). Of course Nabal was not under any legal obligation to David, though there was no doubt he ought to have felt himself under moral obligation. The young men were instructed to show fullest respect to Nabal, greeting him with peace toward himself, his house and all that he had. Nabal is to be reminded that while David and his men were in the same area as Nabal's shepherds, they had been a protection for them rather than stealing from them, as many armies would do. None were hurt, nor were any sheep missing. They suggest that Nabal ask his shepherds about this, to confirm it. In view of this they ask that Nabal should give them whatever provisions he may have readily available (v.8). The message was simple and respectful, and any right-minded man would have been considerate of them.
However, Nabal is only aroused with anger against them (v.10). He answers in the most insulting way, "Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse?" Then he speaks of him as a servant who has broken away from his master. This was not true, of course, but he was not interested in enquiring as to the truth.
Though Nabal asked who David was, he was not concerned to find out, for he was intensely self-centered. "Shall I then take MY bread and MY water and MY meat that I have slaughtered for MY shearers, and give to men whose origin I do not know?"
The young men return to David to report the way in which Nabal responded to their request (v.12). David without thinking of consulting the Lord, immediately decides to retaliate against the insulting treatment of Nabal, taking with him four hundred armed men. Nabal had not, like Saul, determined to kill David, yet David is ready to kill Nabal, though he would not kill Saul when he had opportunity. When people treat us in a haughty, contemptuous way, we far too easily give way to our own feelings of outrage, and are ready to take revenge. Yet when we take these matters into our own hands we are practically always exposed to the unrighteous reaction of doing WORSE to the offender than he did to us.
But the hand of God intervened in grace. He influenced one of Nabal's young servants to tell Abigail how Nabal had treated David's servants, not only refraining from oppressing them or taking from them, but acting as a wall of defense for them by night and day (v.16). He knew it would be expected that David would do something to avenge Nabal's insulting words, and discerned that both Nabal and all his household were in imminent danger. Evidently some of the servants had tried to reason with Nabal, but found that he was such a son of Belial (worthlessness) they could not speak to him.
Abigail was a woman of action. She had large provisions made up, of bread, wine, ready dressed sheep, corn, raisins and figs (v.18). She did not tell Nabal anything about it, but took enough servants to care for the donkeys that carried the food. She did not have to go far to meet David, who with his men was on the way to attack Nabal (v.20). He had given himself no time to calm down before acting. We are told in verse 21 that he had said that it was useless for him to have shown kindness to Nabal's men and possessions in the wilderness, for Nabal had only returned him evil for good. He was forgetting that he himself had returned good for evil to Saul. And now he had another opportunity to do the same to Nabal. Then he used God's name in invoking vengeance against the enemies of David, declaring that he would not leave one male alive of all the household of Nabal. We should think that at least he would make only Nabal suffer for his insulting words; but his temper was not allowing him to be discriminative.
How beautifully Abigail stands in contrast to both Nabal and to David on this occasion! She fell on her face before David, bowing to the ground (v.23); but the humility of her words goes further than that of her lowly attitude (v.24). For she tells David that she will take the blame for Nabal's evil, and she humbly asks David to hear what she has to say. Though Nabal was her husband, she would not conceal the truth as to his harsh character: she plainly admits him to be a man of Belial (worthlessness), telling David that his name, Nabal, meaning "fool" was descriptive of his character. she had not seen the men David sent, so did not know till afterward what had taken place.
In verse 26 she pleads with David on the basis that the Lord lives and that David's soul lives. Was it not evident that it was the Lord who had sent her in order to withhold David from killing to avenge himself with his own hand? She does not excuse Nabal, but expresses the desire that David's enemies and all that seek his harm should be as Nabal. What did she mean? Certainly not that they should prosper materially as Nabal had done, but rather that they should be left to God to deal with in His own way. David had left Saul in God's hand: now Nabal would be left there too. In fact, God dealt with him more quickly than David would have imagined. In this regard David's other enemies would be as Nabal. It seems this wise woman was speaking prophetically.
She entreats David to receive the supplies she has brought for the benefit of the young men who followed him (v.17), and asks that he would forgive HER trespass, for she was persuaded that the Lord would make David a sure house.
Abigail, in verse 28, shows the manifest faith that recognized David as the king of God's choice even while he was in exile. She knew that David was concerned about fighting the battles of the Lord, which was a contrast to Saul who thought only of fighting against his own enemies -- real or imagined (1 Samuel 24:14).
She refers to Saul only as "a man" who had risen up against David to pursue him and to seek his life (v.29), but she expresses the unshaken confidence that David's life would be bound up in the bundle of the living with the Lord God. God would be his preserve and also his avenger, for He would sling out the life of David's enemies as from the hollow of a sling. Her prophetic insight was likely the result of her knowing something of God's having had David anointed by Samuel, for in verse 30 she refers to the fact that the Lord had spoken of good concerning David and speaks of it as to be positively fulfilled. Her unquestioning faith in the living God is refreshing to observe. She believed that David would in due time be installed by God as ruler of Israel.
With wise foresight she tells him that when he ascends the throne, he would be most thankful if he had no record of having shed blood without cause or of having taken the law into his own hands to avenge himself (v.31). If such a blot was on his past record, it would remain a great grief to his own heart. She concludes by asking him to remember her at the time the Lord would deal well with him. This reminds us of the words of the thief on the cross, "Lord remember me when You come in Your kingdom." (Luke 23:42 -- NKJV)
David had no alternative but to recognize that it was the Lord who had sent Abigail. He blessed God first for His great grace in this matter. Then he blesses Abigail's wise advice, and then Abigail herself, who had prevented David from carrying out his purpose of shedding blood and avenging himself with his own hand. For he tells her the terrible truth, that if she had not hurried to meet him, he and his men would have killed all the males of the household of Nabal He again emphasizes the fact that it was the Lord God of Israel who had kept him back from hurting Abigail by his purposed destruction of her household. Otherwise he would not have controlled his own temper until it was too late. David accepted from her the large gift of provisions she had brought with the assurance that he had accepted her person (v.35), that is, in her taking the responsibility for Nabal's insult, so that Nabal and his house were spared.
Returning to her home, Abigail found Nabal holding a feast, having become drunk (v.36). This is the way of the world. When an awful judgment was just about to fall on him suddenly, he was utterly insensible to his danger. So with no conscience about the past and no fear of the future, men immerse themselves in the self-indulgence while on the very verge of the devastating judgment of God! therefore said nothing to him that night, but waited until the morning.
Then she told him the full truth of what had taken place, her having taken large provisions to go to meet David, finding him on his way to Nabal's home with the full intention of killing all the males of his household. The foolish man had no anticipation of this, and when he heard it his heart died with him and he became as a stone (v.37). Evidently he was so terrified that he became as one paralyzed. But fear of judgment does not save a man's soul, nor does it soften his heart to respond to God: his heart became as hard as a stone. We are told concerning God in Romans 9:18: "whom He will be hardeneth." This is the result of one hardening his own heart. Whom does God will harden? Those who will not repent.
Only ten days later God took away Nabal's life (v.38). What control then did he have over all those things he had called his own (v.11)? We are certainly reminded here of God's words, "Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19).
When David hears the news (v.39) he is afresh reminded of the great mercy of the Lord that had kept him back from the evil of avenging himself. He blessed God for taking this matter into His own capable hand. God rewarded the evil-doer himself and did not punish the men of his household, as David was ready to do.
From all of this experience with Nabal David also receives another wife. He sends messengers to Abigail, the widow of Nabal to ask that she be willing to marry him (v.40). There was no hesitation on Abigail's part. She was willing to leave her former wealth and identify herself with David in exile and danger. We know the reason for this: she had already expressed her unquestioning faith in God's promise to David that he would reign over Israel (vs.29-30). In view of this she feels herself worthy only of the most lowly service in David's household, "a maid to wash the feet of my lord's servants" (v.41). True faith and humility always go together. Bringing with her five maidens who attended her, she rides on a donkey to go to David (v.42), and became his wife.
We are not told what became of the property and possessions that had been her husband's. To her these were of no importance compared to her union with David, and David was not covetous of this great wealth.
Verse 43 tells us that David took another wife also, Ahinoam of Jezreel. This was not forbidden in the Old Testament, though it was never God's intention (which was that a man should cleave to his WIFE, not his wives -- Genesis 2:24). As to Michal, Saul had unrighteously taken her from David and had given her to another man. Later David demanded of Ishbosheth that should be returned to him (2 Samuel 3:14), which she was. But this was a mistake on David's part: why should he add her to those he had already? It is not surprising that he did not find her any more devoted afterward than she had been before (2 Samuel 6:20).