Meditate

25. David, Nabal and Abigail

Death of Samuel

25

Now Samuel died; and all Israel assembled and mourned for him. They buried him at his home in Ramah.

Then David got up and went down to the wilderness of Paran.

David and the Wife of Nabal

² There was a man in Maon, whose property was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel.³Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was clever and beautiful, but the man was surly and mean; he was a Calebite.⁴David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.⁵So 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.⁶Thus you shall salute him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.⁷I 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.⁸Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your sight; for we have 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.¹⁰But Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are breaking away from their masters.¹¹Shall I take my bread and my water and the meat that I have butchered for my shearers, and give it to men who come from I do not know where?”¹²So David’s young men turned away, and came back and told him all this.¹³David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every one 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, “David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he shouted insults at them.¹⁵Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we never missed anything when we were in the fields, as long as we were with them;¹⁶they were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.¹⁷Now therefore know this and consider what you should do; for evil has been decided against our master and against all his house; he is so ill-natured that no one can speak to him.”

¹⁸ Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, five sheep ready dressed, five measures of parched grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys¹⁹and said to her young men, “Go on ahead of me; I am coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.²⁰As she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, David and his men came down toward her; and she met them.²¹Now David had said, “Surely it was in vain that I protected all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; but he has returned me evil for good.²²God do so to 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 alighted from the donkey, and fell before David on her face, bowing to the ground.²⁴She fell at his feet and said, “Upon me alone, my lord, be the guilt; please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant.²⁵My lord, do not take seriously this ill-natured 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 you yourself live, since the Lord has restrained you from bloodguilt and from taking vengeance with your own hand, now let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be like Nabal.²⁷And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord.²⁸Please 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.²⁹If anyone should rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living under the care of the Lord your God; but the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling.³⁰When 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,³¹my lord shall have no cause of grief, or pangs of conscience, for having shed blood without cause or for having saved himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.”

³² David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me today!³³Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, who have kept me today from bloodguilt and from avenging myself by my own hand!³⁴For 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 would not have been left to Nabal so much as one male.”³⁵Then David received from her hand what she had brought him; he said to her, “Go up to your house in peace; see, I have heeded your voice, and I have granted your petition.”

³⁶ Abigail came to Nabal; he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk; so she told him nothing at all until the morning light.³⁷In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him; he became like a stone.³⁸About 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 judged the case of Nabal’s insult to me, and has kept back his servant from evil; the Lord has returned the evildoing of Nabal upon his own head.” Then David sent and wooed Abigail, to make her his wife.⁴⁰When David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.”⁴¹She rose and bowed down, with her face to the ground, and said, “Your servant is a slave to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.”⁴²Abigail got up hurriedly and rode away on a donkey; her five maids attended her. She went after the messengers of David and became his wife.

⁴³ David also married Ahinoam of Jezreel; both of them became his wives.⁴⁴Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish, who was from Gallim.

1. Thanksgiving and Prayer

Paul’s Present Circumstances

¹² I want you to know, beloved, that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel,¹³so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ;¹⁴and most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.

85. Psalm 85

Psalm 85

Prayer for the Restoration of God’s Favor

To the leader. Of the Korahites. A Psalm.

1

Lord, you were favorable to your land;

you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

2

You forgave the iniquity of your people;

you pardoned all their sin.Selah

3

You withdrew all your wrath;

you turned from your hot anger.

4

Restore us again, O God of our salvation,

and put away your indignation toward us.

5

Will you be angry with us forever?

Will you prolong your anger to all generations?

6

Will you not revive us again,

so that your people may rejoice in you?

7

Show us your steadfast love, O Lord,

and grant us your salvation.

8

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,

for he will speak peace to his people,

to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.

9

Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,

that his glory may dwell in our land.

10

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;

righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

11

Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,

and righteousness will look down from the sky.

12

The Lord will give what is good,

and our land will yield its increase.

13

Righteousness will go before him,

and will make a path for his steps.