1 Samuel 25:1b-44--David and Abigail

1 Samuel 25:1b-44
English Standard Version

David and Abigail
Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. 2 And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite. 4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5 So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. 6 And thus you shall greet him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. 7 I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’”

9 When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited. 10 And Nabal answered David's servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. 11 Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” 12 So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. 13 And David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.

14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. 15 Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. 16 They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.”

18 Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. 19 And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20 And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. 21 Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good. 22 God do so to the enemies of David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.”

23 When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. 24 She fell at his feet and said, “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. 25 Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him. But I your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. 26 Now then, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as your soul lives, because the LORD has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal. 27 And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28 Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. 29 If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the LORD your God. And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. 30 And when the LORD has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince over Israel, 31 my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.”

32 And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! 33 Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand! 34 For as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.” 35 Then David received from her hand what she had brought him. And he said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice, and I have granted your petition.”

36 And Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until the morning light. 37 In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 38 And about ten days later the LORD struck Nabal, and he died.

39 When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the LORD who has avenged the insult I received at the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. The LORD has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head.” Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife. 40 When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.” 41 And she rose and bowed with her face to the ground and said, “Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” 42 And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife.

​43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives. 44 Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim.

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We only looked at the first part of verse 1 last time which talked about the death of Samuel.  The rest of verse 1 tells us that after the death of Samuel, David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran (if that sounds familiar to you, that's the area where Esau settled as well as one of the portions of the wilderness that the Israelites sojourned through in the book of Numbers.  This was close to the area of Carmel where the the man named Nabal had his business, though the man himself was from the area of Moan, where David had previously been hiding.  Nabal's wealth can be seen by the size of his flocks since he had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats, and it was time to sheer all of them (quite a task for sure).  The text tells us that this man is a descendant of Caleb (so he is also of the tribe of Judah) and describes him as harsh and badly behaved, though he has a wife named Abigail who is both beautiful and wise/discerning (think of the Proverbs 31 woman).

David seemed to know of Nabal and sent ten of his men up to Mount Carmel to greet Nabal in David's name saying, "Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. 7 I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David."  In other words, David and his men have done work to take care of Nabal's sheep and are asking for payment in the form of being invited to the feast that would be thrown when they sheared the sheep.

Nabal will give a harsh answer and pretended to not know David or his men and pretended to not have enough bread and meat to spare for David and his men.  He also insinuated that he was not sure if David was loyal to him when it was David who was the king and it was Nabal that should have been swearing loyalty to David.  All of Judah should know by now who David the son of Jesse is, ans that he has been anointed as king by Samuel, so there is no way that Nabal's words are spoken out of true ignorance--he is just being rude and pretending to not know who David is because he doesn't want to show him any respect or hospitality.  David knows that Nabal knows exactly who he is, because David and his men have helped to care for Nabal's flocks for some time now.  David was not going to let this kind of answer stand without a fight for if he would not be respected among his own tribe, how would he expect to be respected among the other tribes.  So, David along with 2/3 of his fighting men (400 of them strapped on their swords to fight while 200 stayed behind to watch the baggage) marched out to confront Nabal.

One of Nabal's shepherds then told Abigail about the messengers that David had sent as well as how Nabal had answered them and also that David and his men had protected all of Nabal's shepherds and sheep so that no harm came to them the whole time that David was hiding in the wilderness.  The servant told Abagail that she needed to quickly think of what she would do because it was certain that Nabal's answer was going to bring trouble on him and all his house--even Nabal's servant calls him a worthless man and Nabal's wife doesn't seem to argue his case (she seems to agree with that judgment).

So Abigail quickly gathers two hundred loaves of bread and one hundred wineskins of wine, as well as five sheep that had already been prepared (probably roasted) and five seahs of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs.  She put all these gifts on donkeys and quickly rode out to meet David and his men, sending servants ahead of her to tell David that she was on her way, but she did not tell her husband about what she was doing.  She met up with David and he was so angry that he was ready to kill every male in Nabal's household so that he would have no heirs and this would be the end of his family and another would be given his family's inheritance from the LORD.  However, Abigail arrives just in time.

When Abigail sees David, she gets off the donkey and bows to the ground, and she tries to ask for David to let her take the wrath that her husband deserves.  She intercedes for him saying that he is exactly as his name says--a fool (for that is what his name means).  She asks that David's wrath instead be turned against his enemies (like the Philistines) and that this gift that she is bringing make atonement for Nabal's sin against David and his men, and she asks for David and his men to forgive Nabal, even though he himself is not the one apologizing for his actions (and she never said he regretted what he said or that he had repented....just that she was sorry that she wasn't there to stop him from speaking so foolishly when David's servants went and spoke to him).

Abigail then speaks a blessing over David saying that she is sure that the LORD will make David's house secure and great because he is fighting the LORD's battles.  The LORD is sure to fight for him, and the LORD is sure to protect him since the LORD has great plans for him.  Yet, she knows that David will regret shedding Nabal's blood if he and his men go out and seek their own vengeance, so Abigail encourages David to let the LORD fight for him (we'll see that's exactly what will happen her soon as the LORD will kill Nabal for how he spoke to and treated David and his men).

David then thanks Abagail for coming out to meet him and stopping him from seeking his own vengeance and "salvation" when he should be trusting in the LORD for both of these.  David tells her that if she had not come out to meet him, he would have marched up to Nabal's house and killed all the males and she had saved not only her husband but all the males of Nabal's household that day.

Abigail returned to Nabal as he was feasting like a king and he was so drunk with wine that she decided not to talk to him until the next morning when he was sober.  Once she told him all these things--that David was ready to kill him and all his men and that David had stopped because she had met him and pleaded for Nabal and offered gifts, something happened to Nabal that the text describes as his heart dying within him (maybe he had a heart attack?).  The text then describes it as his heart as stone and that ten days later the LORD struck Nabal and he died.

David then praised the LORD for avenging David and his men, and for sending Abigail to keep David's hand from wrongdoing.  David then sent for Abigail and took her as his own wife, and she accepted but only to say that she would make herself as the lowest of slaves in the household of David so that she would wash the feet of the other servants (it was the lowest of servants that was responsible for washing the feet of the important people and no one washed the feet of the servants, but she desired to be servant to the servants).

If you're wondering why David would marry another when Saul had already given him his daughter to marry, it is because Saul had only done that to try to get at David and Saul has already taken David's wife Michal and given her to another man named Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim.  David marries other women to (this is descriptive and not prescriptive as we see God's plan is for one man and one woman to be in covenant marriage until death.  Multiple marriages never go well, and this is one of the first indications to us that David has some issues when it comes to marriage and sex that we'll ultimately see play out in his sin with Bathsheba.  If David knew that he was married to one woman and that he could have no other women as his wife, then he would not have succumbed to the temptation when he saw Bathsheba (who he never should have seen if he was at war with his men like he should have been in that situation, but that is for when we get to that chapter).  David will take additional wives and concubines after this and give a poor example to his children (especially Solomon).