Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Samuel 25:1
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.
Ch. 1Sa 25:1. Samuel’s death and burial
1. all the Israelites, &c.] A public mourning was held as after the death of Moses (Deu 34:8), and the whole nation met to do honour to him, who for well nigh eighty years had gone in and out amongst them as Prophet, Judge, and Counsellor of the King.
in his house ] Not actually in the house, which would have been inconsistent with the laws of ceremonial purity (Num 19:16), but in some court or garden attached to the house. Compare 2Ch 33:20 with 2Ki 21:18. The Mussulman tradition places the prophet’s tomb on the hill known as Neby Samwil, five miles N.W. of Jerusalem, but see note on 1Sa 1:1.
the wilderness of Paran ] A general name for the great tract of desert south of Palestine, between the wilderness of Shur on the west, Edom on the east, and the wilderness of Sinai on the south. It was the abode of Ishmael (Gen 21:21); the scene of the wanderings of the Israelites; and the place from which the spies were sent (Num 10:12; Num 13:3). The Sept. reads Maon, but the change is unnecessary, if we suppose the term Paran to be used with some latitude.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
In his house at Ramah – Probably in the court or garden attached to his dwelling-house. (Compare 2Ch 33:20; 2Ki 21:18; Joh 19:41.)
The wilderness of Paran – The Septuagint has the far more probable reading Maon. The wilderness of Paran lay far off to the south, on the borders of the wilderness of Sinai Num 10:12; 1Ki 11:18, whereas the following verse 1Sa 25:2 shows that the scene is laid in the immediate neighborhood of Maon. If, however, Paran be the true reading, we must suppose that in a wide sense the wilderness of Paran extended all the way to the wilderness of Beersheba, and eastward to the mountains of Judah (marginal references).
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Sa 25:1
And Samuel died, and all the Israelites were gathered together and lamented him.
When I die, will I be missed?
And Samuel died; and all Israel lamented him. What an epitaph! What a character to have deserved such an epitaph! The humblest mortal can so live as to leave a gap when he goes–a fact we realise with difficulty, for we say, Oh! the great ones are missed, but I am poor and humble; my attainments are so insignificant. No life need be insignificant. And Samuel died; and all Israel lamented for him. Some poor housewife in far Beersheba, who had never been five miles from home, when the word comes that Samuel is dead, she goes to the corner, lifts her apron to her eyes and weeps. Such is the result of a good life. We do not know how far its influence may travel. Are we not all of us largely influenced by men and women whose faces we have never seen, whose voices we have never heard? Do they not lead us, cheer us, inspire us on our way?
1. The self-forgetting life. We want to learn to do good quietly, unostentatiously.
2. Joy in daily tasks.
3. Disinterested virtue. To live a good life in order to be missed, and nothing more, is one thing. But to live it without any such intention is another. Our virtue must be disinterested.
4. The life of service. So we speak of the useful life as the true one. The ideal life is that of consecrated service. Is there anyone living in loneliness who will say: When I had not a friend in the world, when I came up from come country place and went into a certain church, that man befriended me?
5. Active religion. And Samuel died, and all Israel wept for him. We, too, must die. Will men weep for us? Will the world be sorry or will he clap his hands? (Ebenezer Rees.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XXV
The death of Samuel, 1.
The history of Nabal, and his churlishness towards David and
his men, 2-12.
David, determining to punish him, is appeased by Abigail,
Nabal’s wife, 13-35.
Abigail returns, and tells Nabal of the danger that he has
escaped: who on hearing it is thunderstruck, and dies in ten
days, 36-38
David, hearing of this, sends and takes Abigail to wife, 39-42.
He marries also Ahinoam of Jezreel, Saul having given Michal,
David’s wife, to Phalti, the son of Laish, 43, 44.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXV
Verse 1. And Samuel died] Samuel lived, as is supposed, about ninety-eight years; was in the government of Israel before Saul from sixteen to twenty years; and ceased to live, according to the Jews, about four months before the death of Saul; but according to Calmet and others, two years. But all this is very uncertain; how long he died before Saul, cannot be ascertained. For some account of his character, see the end of the chapter. Sa 25:44.
Buried him in his house] Probably this means, not his dwelling-house, but the house or tomb he had made for his sepulture; and thus the Syriac and Arabic seem to have understood it.
David – went down to the wilderness of Paran.] This was either on the confines of Judea, or in Arabia Petraea, between the mountains of Judah and Mount Sinai; it is evident from the history that it was not far from Carmel, on the south confines of Judah.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Buried him in his house, according to the manner of those times. See Gen 23:9; 50:5; Mat 27:60. The wilderness of Paran, in the southern borders of the land of Judah, that so when occasion served, he might retire out of Sauls dominions.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. Samuel diedAfter a longlife of piety and public usefulness, he left behind him a reputationwhich ranks him among the greatest of Scripture worthies.
buried him in his house atRamahthat is, his own mausoleum. The Hebrews took as greatcare to provide sepulchers anciently as people do in the East still,where every respectable family has its own house of the dead. Oftenthis is in a little detached garden, containing a small stonebuilding (where there is no rock), resembling a house, which iscalled the sepulcher of the familyit has neither door nor window.
David arose, and went down tothe wilderness of ParanThis removal had probably no connectionwith the prophet’s death; but was probably occasioned by thenecessity of seeking provision for his numerous followers.
the wilderness ofParanstretching from Sinai to the borders of Palestine in thesouthern territories of Judea. Like other wildernesses, it presentedlarge tracts of natural pasture, to which the people sent theircattle at the grazing season, but where they were liable to constantand heavy depredations by prowling Arabs. David and his men earnedtheir subsistence by making reprisals on the cattle of thesefreebooting Ishmaelites; and, frequently for their useful services,they obtained voluntary tokens of acknowledgment from the peacefulinhabitants.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And Samuel died,…. In the interval, when Saul and David were parted, and before they saw each other again; according to the Jewish chronology g, Samuel died four months before Saul; but other Jewish writers say h he died seven months before; Abarbinel thinks it was a year or two before; which is most likely and indeed certain, since David was in the country of the Philistines after this a full year and four months, if the true sense of the phrase is expressed in 1Sa 27:7; and Saul was not then dead; and so another Jewish chronologer i says, that Saul died two years after Samuel, to which agrees Clemens of Alexandria k; and according to the Jews l, he died the twentieth of Ijar, for which a fast was kept on that day:
and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him; his death being a public loss, not only to the college of the prophets, over which he presided, but to the whole nation; and they had reason to lament his death, when they called to mind, the many good offices he had done them from his youth upwards; and when the government was in his hands, which was administered in the most prudent and faithful manner; and after that they had his wise counsel and advice, his good wishes and prayers for them; and the rather they had reason to lament him, since Saul their king proved so bad as he did, and at this time a difference was subsisting between David and him:
and buried him in his house at Ramah; where he lived and died; not that he was buried in his house, properly so called, or within the walls of that building wherein he dwelt; though the Greeks m and Romans n used to bury in their own dwelling houses; hence sprung the idolatrous worship of the Lares, or household gods; but not the Hebrews, which their laws about uncleanness by graves would not admit of, see
Nu 19:15; but the meaning is, that they buried him in the place where his house was, as Ben Gersom interprets it, at Ramah, in some field or garden belonging to it. The author of the Cippi Hebraici says o, that here his father Elkanah, and his mother Hannah, and her two sons, were buried in a vault shut up, with, monuments over it; and here, some say p, Samuel’s bones remained, until removed by Arcadius the emperor into Thrace; Benjamin of Tudela reports q, that when the Christians took Ramlah, which is Ramah, from the Mahometans, they found the grave of Samuel at Ramah by a synagogue of the Jews, and they took him out of the grave, and carried him to Shiloh, and there built a large temple, which is called the Samuel of Shiloh to this day:
and David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran; on hearing of the death of Samuel, there to indulge his mourning for him; or rather that he might be in greater safety from Saul, being further off, this wilderness lying on the south of the tribe of Judah, and inhabited by Arabs, and these called Kedarenes; and now it was that he dwelt in the tents of Kedar, Ps 120:5.
g Seder Olam Rabba, c. 13. p. 37. h In Kimchi & Abarbinel in loc. i Juchasin, fol. 11. 1. k Stromat. l. 1. p. 325. l Schulchan Aruch, par. 1. c. 580. sect. 2. m Plato in Mino. n Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 6. p. mihi, (?) 1011. o P. 30. p Heldman apud Hottinger in ib. q Itinerar. p. 52.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The death of Samuel is inserted here, because it occurred at that time. The fact that all Israel assembled together to his burial, and lamented him, i.e., mourned for him, was a sign that his labours as a prophet were recognised by the whole nation as a blessing for Israel. Since the days of Moses and Joshua, no man had arisen to whom the covenant nation owed so much as to Samuel, who has been justly called the reformer and restorer of the theocracy. They buried him “ in his house at Ramah.” The expression “his house” does not mean his burial-place or family tomb, nor his native place, but the house in which he lived, with the court belonging to it, where Samuel was placed in a tomb erected especially for him. After the death of Samuel, David went down into the desert of Paran, i.e., into the northern portion of the desert of Arabia, which stretches up to the mountains of Judah (see at Num 10:12); most likely for no other reason than because he could no longer find sufficient means of subsistence for himself and his six hundred men in the desert of Judah.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Death of Samuel. | B. C. 1057. |
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.
We have here a short account of Samuel’s death and burial. 1. Though he was a great man, and one that was admirably well qualified for public service, yet he spent the latter end of his days in retirement and obscurity, not because he was superannuated (for he knew how to preside in a college of the prophets, ch. xix. 20), but because Israel had rejected him, for which God thus justly chastised them, and because his desire was to be quiet and to enjoy himself and his God in the exercises of devotion now in his advanced years, and in this desire God graciously indulged him. Let old people be willing to rest themselves, though it look like burying themselves alive. 2. Though he was a firm friend to David, for which Saul hated him, as also for dealing plainly with him, yet he died in peace even in the worst of the days of the tyranny of Saul, who, he sometimes feared, would kill him, ch. xvi. 2. Though Saul loved him not, yet he feared him, as Herod did John, and feared the people, for all knew him to be a prophet. Thus is Saul restrained from hurting him. 3. All Israel lamented him; and they had reason, for they had all a loss in him. His personal merits commanded this honour to be done him at his death. His former services to the public, when he judged Israel, made this respect to his name and memory a just debt; it would have been very ungrateful to have withheld it. The sons of the prophets had lost the founder and president of their college, and whatever weakened them was a public loss. But that was not all: Samuel was a constant intercessor for Israel, prayed daily for them, ch. xii. 23. If he go, they part with the best friend they have. The loss is the more grievous at this juncture when Saul has grown so outrageous and David is driven from his country; never more need of Samuel than now, yet now he is removed. We will hope that the Israelites lamented Samuel’s death the more bitterly because they remembered against themselves their own sin and folly in rejecting him and desiring a king. Note, (1.) Those have hard hearts who can bury their faithful ministers with dry eyes, who are not sensible of the loss of those who have prayed for them and taught them the way of the Lord. (2.) When God’s providence removes our relations and friends from us we ought to be humbled for our misconduct towards them while they were with us. 4. They buried him, not in the school of the prophets at Naioth, but in his own house (or perhaps in the garden pertaining to it) at Ramah, where he was born. 5. David, thereupon, went down to the wilderness of Paran, retiring perhaps to mourn the more solemnly for the death of Samuel. Or, rather, because now that he had lost so good a friend, who was (and he hoped would be) a great support to him, he apprehended his danger to be greater than ever, and therefore withdrew to a wilderness, out of the limits of the land of Israel; and now it was that he dwelt in the tents of Kedar, Ps. cxx. 5. In some parts of this wilderness of Paran Israel wandered when they came out of Egypt. The place would bring to mind God’s care concerning them, and David might improve that for his own encouragement, now in his wilderness-state.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
First Samuel – Chapter 25
David in Maon, vs. 1-9
The first thing to be noted is the death of Samuel. His funeral was attended by large numbers of the Israelites, from all over the land. He had been their prophet, judge, and leader for many years, perhaps as many as eighty years. For a long time he had been their unchallenged judge and had continued as their advisor almost through the reign of Saul, which lasted forty years (Act 13:21). He had taught their young prophets and anointed their kings. Though he had been set aside by the majority for a king, he was still revered and respected. He was buried at Ramah, his ancestral home (1Sa 1:1).
Upon the death of Samuel David removed from the central area of Judah far to the south to the wilderness of Paran. This may have been because he felt less secure without Samuel to support him, or he may have felt that without the restraint of the old prophet Saul would resume his pursuit more vigorously. Paran was that broad desert area reaching from the wilderness of Sin around Mount Sinai northward to encroach the southern areas of the tribe of Simeon south of Ziph. It was the farthest south David had yet ventured in his flight.
The particular area of Paran where David and his men now found themselves was Carmel. Carmel lay about midway between Beersheba and En-gedi in the wilderness of Judah, or Jeshimon. It was the grazing lands of a rich man of Judah named Nabal, a descendant of Caleb. Nabal lived in Maon, which was close by. His wealth consisted of sheep and goats, which numbered in the thousands.
Nabal is introduced as a churlish (or foolish) and wicked man, though his wife, Abigail, was noted for her wisdom and great. beauty. David had become associated with the man’s shepherds while they were keeping the flocks in Carmel where he was. He had not taken any of their animal for food, but had protected them from others (see verse 16), and Nabal’s shepherds liked David.
At the time of the sheepshearing in Carmel, when there was much slaughtering of the fat young lambs and kids, David decided to request something from Nabal in return for his considerate treatment of him previously. He stint ten young men with a courteous request to Nabal at the sheepshearing. They began by expressing a desire of peace upon Nabal, his house, and all he had. They then rehearsed how David had been with Nabal’s men in the wilderness, affording them the protection of his men, and taking nothing in return. Now he had sent to Nabal to request something in return, whatever the man was willing to give. And so they presented David’s words to Nabal.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES
1Sa. 25:1. And Samuel died. Josephus says that Samuel governed and presided over the people alone, after the death of Eli, twelve years, and eighteen years in conjunction with Saul, the king. He likewise adds, They wept for him a very great number of days, not looking on it as a sorrow for the death of another man, but as that in which they were everyone of themselves concerned. He was a righteous man, and gentle in his nature, and on that account he was very dear to God. In his house, i.e., in a court or garden attached to his house. Every respectable family in the East still has its own house of the dead, and often this is in a little detached garden, consisting of a small stone building, where there is no rock, resembling a house. It has neither door nor window. (Cf. 1Ki. 2:34; Job. 30:23.) (Jamieson.) David arose, etc. It might be that David felt himself in more danger now that the restraint which Samuel might have exercised over Saul was removed, or, as Keil suggests, the wilderness of Judah might no longer afford sustenance to him and his large body of six hundred men. The wilderness of Paran seems to have been a somewhat undefined tract of country extending from the southern border of Canaan to the Sinaitic desert on the south, the wilderness of Shur on the west, and the territory of Edom on the east. The examination of the various Scripture references to this region seems to show that the term was sometimes used for the entire wilderness tract of this district. (See Smiths Biblical Dictionary.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.1Sa. 25:1
THE DEATH OF SAMUEL
I. The death of the righteous often seems unseasonable in relation to the living. It is often so in family and social life. Children especially need a kind and strong hand to guide and train them, and when their fathers or their mothers hand is such an one, their removal by death seems most inopportune and an unmitigated calamity. We think how much better it would have been for the family if the parents life had been prolonged for a little season, until the childrens characters were more established, and they were altogether more fitted to face the world alone. And the same thing often takes place in national life. A great and good man is removed when it seems as if the country in which he has been so great a power for good must suffer irreparable loss by his removal, and that the time of his departure is the time when the nation most needs him. Samuels death at this time seemed a most unseasonable event so far as the welfare of Israel was concerned. Although he had retired from public life, he could hardly fail still to exert some power for good over Saul, and the universal lamentation at his death shows that the respect of the people was undiminished, and, therefore, his influence upon them was still great and salutary. Looking from a human stand-point, it seemed especially desirable that his life should be prolonged until David had succeeded to the throne, and peace and order had taken the place of the present misrule and anarchy.
II. But the value of the life of the righteous often becomes more manifest at his death, and so the lessons of his life more influential. The sun rises upon the earth morning by morning, and its coming is so regular and certain that men take its appearance and all the light and heat that it brings as a matter of course, and do not realise how many and how inestimable are the blessings that it bestows, or how indispensable it is to our well-being. But if there came a morning when the sun did not rise, and if it were known that it would shine upon the world no more, how the value of sunlight would come home to every man, and how universal would be the lamentation over its absence. So it is often with a good mans influence. It is so constant, so unobtrusive, and yet so fraught with blessing, that none realise what he is and what he does until he is gone, and then they know his value by his loss. But the awakening to a sense of his worth gives force to the lessons of his lifeboth to those of deed and wordand so he being dead still speaks, and often to more attentive and obedient ears than when living. This is doubtless the key to what often seems at first sight so mysterious and dark a providence, the death of the righteous when their life seems so much needed. It is quite possible it was so in Samuels case. It is certain that the people who had disregarded his advice were the same who now lamented him, and it may be that their sense of loss brought home more powerfully to their hearts and consciences the truths which he had taught them in the days which were past.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The aged man is laid aside, and sinks out of the popular view; and when, at length, he dies, people are startled as they recall how great a man he was in his prime, how great a work he did. It is something to live so that ones death will be truly mourned by a whole people. The old, who sadly think themselves forgotten, may find solace, not only in reviewing the past, but also in the persuasion that yet once again they will be vividly remembered, while the younger should strive to anticipate that coming time, and show respect and affection while it can be fully enjoyed.Translator of Langes Commentary.
THE GENERAL EFFECT OF SAMUELS WHOLE CAREER
Observe what his position was, and how he filled it. He was not a founder of a new state of things, like Moses, nor a champion of the existing order, like Elijah or Jeremiah. He stood, literally, between the twobetween the living and the dead, between the past and future, the old and the new, with that sympathy for each which, at such a period, is the best hope for any permanent solution of the questions which torment it. He had been brought up and nurtured in the old system. His early dedication to the sanctuary belonged to that age of vows of which we saw the excess in the rash vows of Jephthah, of Saul, and the assembly at Mizpeh: in the more regular, but still peculiar and eccentric devotion of Samson to the life of a Nazarite. He was also the last of the Judges, of that long succession who had been raised up from Othniel downwards to effect special deliverances. (1Sa. 7:12.) But he must be regarded as the first representative of the new epoch which was dawning on the country. He is explicitly described as Samuel, the Prophet. (Act. 3:24; Act. 13:20.) By the ancient name of seerolder than any other designation of the prophetic officehe was known in his own and after times, and he is the beginning of that prophetical dispensation which ran parallel with the monarchy from the first to the last king. And, unlike Moses or Deborah, or any previous saint or teacher of the Jewish Church, he grew up for this office from his earliest years. His work and his life are the counterparts of each other, and his mission is an example of the special mission which such characters are called upon to fulfil. In proportion as the different stages of life have sprung naturally and spontaneously out of each other, without any abrupt revulsion, each serves as a foundation upon which the other may standeach makes the foundation of the other more sure and stable. In proportion as our own foundation is thus stable, and as our own minds and hearts have grown up thus gradually and firmly, without any violent disturbance or wrench to one side or to the other; in that proportion is it the more possible to view with calmness and moderation the difficulties and differences of othersto avail ourselves of the new methods and new characters that the advance of time throws in our way, to preserve and to communicate the childlike faithchanged, doubtless, in form, but the same in spiritin which we first knelt in humble prayer for ourselves and others, and drank in the first impressions of God and heaven. The call may come to us in many ways; it may tell us of the change of the priesthood, of the fall of the earthly sanctuary, of the rise of strange thoughts, of the beginning of a new epoch. Happy are they who are able to perceive the signs of the times, and to answer without fear or trembling, Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.Dean Stanley.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Davids Continued Flight, 1Sa. 25:1 to 1Sa. 26:25.
The Death of Samuel. 1Sa. 25:1
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.
1.
Why was all Israel gathered together? 1Sa. 25:1
All Israel was gathered together because Samuel had died. They came to Ramah to lament him and to bury him. The fact that he was buried in his house is a reference to a custom of the day for a man to be buried on his own property. The Hebrew word might have better been translated a sepulchre, especially one that is much adorned. Such a reference is made in Isa. 14:18 and also in Ecc. 12:5. Samuel was buried in his own private tomb on his own property.
2.
Where was the wilderness of Paran? 1Sa. 25:1 b
The wilderness of Paran was in the Negeb, the southern part of the land of Palestine. Several main divisions are made in the Promised Land. The Hill Country was the center of the land and sloped down to the west to the Mediterranean Sea. From the Hill Country another slope went east to the Jordan Valley. This mountainous region is often referred to simply as the Hill Country. The Philistine Plain was occupied by the enemies who were constant in their opposition to the people of God. The Valley was the territory of the Jordan which ran the full length of Canaan, beginning in the foothills of Mt. Hermon on the north and ending at the Gulf of Akabah on the south. The South was the land below Beersheba. This wilderness area was very sparsely populated, and some have concluded that it has always been an uninhabited and uninhabitable place. Recent studies made in the area have shown that there were many settlements here in ancient times, some of them dating back to the days of Abraham. Moses and the people of Israel wandered for forty years in the Wilderness of Paran (Num. 13:3). Much of this time was spent in and around Kadesh-Barnea. David went to this extreme southern border of the land of Israel in order to escape the wrath of the demented king.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(1) And Samuel died.At this periodnamely, about the time when Saul and David met at En-gedidied Samuel, full of years and honourperhaps rather than honours, for a long time the old prophet had lived apart from the court, and alienated from the king he had chosen and anointed. Since Moses, none so great as Samuel had arisen. Briefly to recapitulate his work: his influence had in great measure restored the Law of Moses to the affections of the people. Before his time, the words and traditions which the great lawgiver, amidst the supernatural terrors of Sinai, had with some success impressed upon the great nomadic tribe of the Beni-Israel were almost forgotten; and the people among whom, for a long period, no really great leader had sprung up were becoming rapidly mixed up, and soon would have been hardly distinguished from the warlike tribes of Canaan in the neighbouring countries. But Samuel, aided by his great natural genius, but far more by the Glorious Arm, on which he leaned with a changeless trust from childhood to extreme old age, quickened into life again the dying traditions of the race, and taught them who theythe down-trodden Israelitesreally werethe chosen of God. He restored the forgotten laws of Moses, by the keeping of which they once became great and powerful, and by the creation of an earthly monarchy he welded into one the separate interests of the twelve divisions of the race; so that from Dan to Beersheba there was but one chief, one standard. But his greatest work was the foundation of the Prophetic Schools, in which men were trained and educated carefully, with the view of the pupils becoming in their turn the teachers and guides of the people. (These schools, which exercised so great an influence upon the future of Israel, and their especial character have been already discussed.)
And all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him.When the hour of his death came, we are told, with a peculiar emphasis of expression, that all the Israelitesnot one portion or fragment only, as might have been expected in that time of division and confusionwere gathered together round him who had been the father of all alike, and lamented him, and buried him, not in any sacred spot or secluded sepulchre, but in the midst of the home which he had consecrated only by his own long, unblemished career in his house at Ramah.Stanley, Jewish Church, Lect. 18 Josephus makes especial mention of the public funeral honours paid to the great prophet. They wept for him a very great number of days, not looking on it as a sorrow for the death of another man, but as that in which they were all concerned. He was a righteous man, and gentle in his nature, and on that account he was very dear to God.Antt. vi. 13, 5. F. W. Krummacher beautifully writes on this public lamentation. It was as if from the noble star, as long as it shone in the heaven of the Holy Land, though veiled by clouds, there streamed a mild, beneficial light over all Israel; now the light was extinguished in Israel. It is probable by in his house, the court or garden attached to the prophets house is signified. To have buried him literally in his house would have occasioned perpetual ceremonial defilement. We read also of Manasseh the king being buried in his own house (2Ch. 33:20), which is explained in 2Ki. 21:18 by the words, in the garden of his own house. In modern times Samuels grave is pointed out in a cave underneath the floor of the Mahommedan Mosque on Nebi Samuel, a lofty peak above Gibeon, which still bears his honoured name. There is, however, a tradition that his remainsor what purported to be his remainswere removed with royal pomp from Ramah to Constantinople by the Emperor Arcadius, at the beginning of the fifth century.
The wilderness of Paran.The LXX. (Vatican) read Maon instead of Paran, not conceiving it probable that the scene of Davids camp would be so far removed from Maon and Carmel, the localities where the following events took place. Paran is properly the south of the Arabian peninsula, west of Sinai; but it seems to have given its name to the vast extent of pasture and barren land now known as the Desert of El Tih. Of this the wilderness of Judah and Beersheba would virtually form part, without the borders being strictly defined. The LXX. emendation, therefore, is quite unnecessary.Dean Payne Smith.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
The End Of A Prophet and An Introduction To A Fool ( 1Sa 25:1-3 ).
The death of Samuel introduces a period of folly, possibly in order to bring out what the loss of his influence resulted in. This period commences with the story of Nabal the fool, (‘Nabal is his name and folly is with him’ – 1Sa 25:25) illustrative of the folly of the wealthy in Israel towards David under Saul, and continues with Saul’s further gross act of folly against David in which he declares, ‘I have played the fool, and erred exceedingly’ (1Sa 26:21).
It is probably not accidental that having described Samuel’s death and his being buried ‘in his house’, Nabal is described as ‘of (the house/family) of Caleb’. In the context the second description may be seen as rather ominously pointing to the fact that Nabal too will also shortly be joining his fathers.
A further thing to note is that the description of Samuel’s death and burial which then introduces the folly and end of Nabal (1Sa 25:1), parallels similar words about Samuel’s death and burial which commence the passage which introduces the final folly and end of Saul (1Sa 28:3). Nabal’s end as ‘a fool’ would thus seem to be intended as a kind of pre-indication of what will happen to Saul the fool. This parallel can be seen as confirmed by a number of further indications that we should relate the two:
1). Nabal’s ‘three thousand sheep’ (1Sa 25:2) may be seen as paralleling Saul’s ‘three thousand men’ (1Sa 24:2).
2). David is depicted as ‘your son’ to both of them (1Sa 24:11; 1Sa 24:16; 1Sa 25:8).
3). Nabal holds a feast in his house ‘like the feast of a king’ (1Sa 25:36).
4). Both would soon suffer premature death because of their opposition to David (1Sa 25:38; 1Sa 31:6).
In contrast we have the presentation of David, the man who ‘dealt wisely’ (1Sa 18:15; 1Sa 18:30) and was of ‘a beautiful countenance’ (1Sa 16:12), which can be paralleled with the presentation of Abigail, Nabal’s wife, as a woman of ‘good understanding’ and ‘beautiful countenance’. Both of them (David and Abigail) would enjoy ‘life’ together and share a glorious future. Thus the story of Nabal and Abigail is a kind of cameo of the story of the lives of Saul and David, the one foolish and condemned, the other wise and beautiful and destined for life and glory.
Analysis.
a
b And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran (1Sa 25:1 b).
c And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel, and the man was very prosperous, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats. And he was shearing his sheep in Carmel, and the name of the man was Nabal (1Sa 25:2-3 a).
b And the name of his wife Abigail, and the woman was of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance (1Sa 25:3 b).
a But the man was churlish and evil in his doings, and he was ‘of (the house of) Caleb’ (1Sa 25:3 c).
Note that in ‘a’ Samuel died and all lamented him, and he was buried ‘in his house’ (in his family garden or tomb) and in the parallel we have a man about to die whom no one will lament, who was of good stock, i.e. ‘of Caleb’, and was, unsuspectingly, about to join Caleb ‘in his house’. His death is being depicted as a kind of forerunner to that of Saul, the death of a fool. It is in contrast with the one who lives and who carries on himself the mantle of Samuel. In ‘b’ we have David, the man anointed by Samuel who will live, and in whom the future lay as he carried on and extended Samuel’s work, and whom we know from what we have been told already was of beautiful countenance (1Sa 16:12) and wise in his dealings (1Sa 18:15; 1Sa 18:30), and in the parallel we have the woman Abigail (‘my father is joy’) who will live and will share that future, who was also of good understanding and of beautiful countenance. Centrally in ‘c’ we have a description of a prosperous man, who was celebrating an abundant ‘harvest’ of wool with an outward show of hospitality, but whose name was Nabal (‘fool’, compare Psa 14:1; Pro 30:22). Like Saul he would not include David, and thus he lived and died like a fool.
1Sa 25:1
‘ And Samuel died, and all Israel gathered themselves together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah.’
We had almost lost sight of Samuel amidst the follies of Saul and YHWH’s preservation of David, but we are now reminded that he had continued his prophetic work in Israel, and was generally greatly loved. Thus when he died all Israel gathered together to lament him. And he was then buried in his ancestral home, no doubt in a special tomb or mausoleum in the grounds (compare 2Ki 21:18; with 2Ch 33:20. To literally bury him in the house would be to render it permanently unclean). What a contrast with Nabal whom no one seems to have lamented, (although he no doubt had a rich funeral), and with Saul who was disgraced in his death (1Sa 31:10) and was only remembered by a few (1Sa 31:11), who buried him away from his ancestral home (31sa 1:13).
In this passage the description of Samuel’s end leads on to the story of a man who behaved like a fool and died like a fool. A parallel description in 1Sa 28:3 leads on to the story of how Saul also behaved like a fool, and how, while he appears to have died bravely, he came to a fool’s end. If David had been with him at the battle with the Philistines at which he died things might have gone very differently.
1Sa 25:1 b
‘And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran.’
In contrast with the death of Samuel is the fact that his protg David continued his advancement. He did not die but ‘arose’ and went into the wilderness and pasture land of Paran, where he was to learn an important lesson and gain a good and beautiful wife to replace Michal who had been taken from him (25:44). For him life, and God’s purposes, went on. We must not see ‘wilderness’ simply as representing a desert. In such wildernesses there would be much good pasture land, and when at times such places as the Negev were irrigated they could be very fertile . ‘The wilderness of Paran’ was in the area south and south west of the Dead Sea, It represented a large region bounded by the wilderness of Shur on the west and Edom on the east, with the wilderness of Sinai to the south. In it had wandered both Ishmael (Gen 21:21) and the wandering Israelites, and from it had gone out the spies into Canaan (Num 10:12; Num 12:16; Num 13:3). It thus reached to the borders of Canaan. Like all such regions it was not closely defined, and the name was clearly seen here as loosely describing a large area extending northwards towards Maon.
1Sa 25:2
‘ And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel, and the man was a very important man, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.’
Living in the town of Maon, with extensive lands in Carmel (see Jos 15:55), was a prosperous and important man who had large flocks of sheep and goats. Maon and Carmel (now Khirbet el-Karmil) were in a wilderness area west of the Dead Sea, and 12 kilometres (eight miles) south south east of Hebron. Such areas were regularly open to attack by marauding tribesmen and bandits looking for spoils. (We should note that this was a different Carmel from Mount Carmel on the Mediterranean coast).
“And he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.” As described above, the end of sheep-shearing was a time of great festivity, when the wool harvest was celebrated. Ample food and drink would be made available and visitors would be welcomed. Note how Nabal’s festivities are describes as ‘like the feast of a king’ (1Sa 25:36). Indeed to turn people away from the provision made would be looked on as a sign of and favour and enmity. Thus it was quite common for the leaders of local desert tribesmen, who had refrained from molesting the flocks and whose presence had ensured the peaceful conduct of the sheepshearing and had prevented unwanted visitors from interfering with it, to send representatives assuring the sheepshearers of their goodwill and at the same time asking for their share of what was being provided as being ‘friendly neighbours’. To refuse such a request would have been looked on as an act of inhospitality, and therefore of enmity, for it was a time of recognised hospitality.
1Sa 25:3 a
‘Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail, and the woman was of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance.’
The man’s name was Nabal, which means ‘fool’ (compare Psa 14:1). This was possibly a nickname by which he had become popularly known because of the kind of man he was. In contrast his wife was called Abigail which means ‘joy is my father’. She was a sensible and wise woman and very beautiful. It is probable that the writer intends us to see here a contrast between Saul and David for he has previously revealed the folly of Saul (13:13; 26:21 – sacal), and the wisdom and beauty of David ( 1Sa 18:15 ; 1Sa 18:30; 1Sa 16:12).
1Sa 25:3 b
‘But the man was hard (obstinate, churlish) and evil in his doings, and he was of (of the house/family of) Caleb.’
In striking contrast with his wife, Nabal was obstinate and unpleasant in his dealings. The mention of his connection with the house/family of Caleb (literally ‘of Caleb’) indicated that he came from a noble house, and was possibly intended in context as a hint of the fact that he would soon be joining his fathers in the same way as Samuel had.
Caleb was of the ‘royal’ house of Judah. He had settled Hebron and the hill county around (Jdg 1:8-15). His brother Othniel had subsequently been Judge and War-leader of Israel (Jdg 3:9). Thus, like Saul, Nabal had noble forebears. But he was a fool.
As we have seen the contrast between Nabal and Abigail could not be more striking. He was a fool, she was of ‘good understanding’. He was evil and ungenerous, she was good and generous. He was repulsive in character, she was ‘beautiful’, both in character and appearance. He was arrogant and thoughtless, she was humble and thoughtful. He was ungodly, she was godly. He was an antagoniser, she was a peacemaker. We could equally say the same about Saul as he had become, and David.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
1Sa 25:1-44 The Story of Nabal and Abigail 1Sa 25:1-44 we have the story of Nabal and his wife Abigail. David and his men were living in exile from King Saul and were protecting the possessions of this rich man in Carmel. When David sent some of his men to Nabal with a request for assistance, they were treated harshly and turned away. In his wrath, David went to slay this man, but his wife Abigail interceded in behalf of her husband and turned away David’s wrath. God then judged Nabal and he died. David then came and took Abigail as his wife.
Robb Thompson makes an interesting observation about this story in a message on relationship. He was mentioning the important of addressing an individual in a positive manner which brings out the best in a person. He then used the illustration of Nabal and Abigail. When Nabal replied to David with threats it brought out the warrior in him, but his wife Abigail addressed David as king and brought out the response of a king in his behaviour. Thus, we see the same individual responding differently to these two individuals depending upon how he was initially addressed. [33]
[33] Robb Thompson, Winning in Life, on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.
1Sa 25:2 And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions 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.
1Sa 25:2
Job 1:3, “His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.”
1Sa 25:3 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.
1Sa 25:3
Ecc 7:17, “Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?”
1Sa 25:13 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.
1Sa 25:13
1Sa 30:10, “But David pursued, he and four hundred men: for two hundred abode behind , which were so faint that they could not go over the brook Besor.”
1Sa 25:21 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.
1Sa 25:21
Pro 17:13, “Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.”
1Sa 25:28 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.
1Sa 25:28
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Nabal’s Foolishness
v. 1. And Samuel died, v. 2. And there was a man in Maon, v. 3. Now, the name of the man was Nabal and the name of his wife Abigail; and she was a woman of good understanding, v. 4. And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep, v. 5. And David sent out ten young men, v. 6. and thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, v. 7. And now, I have heard that thou hast shearers, v. 8. Ask thy young men, v. 9. And when David’s young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all those words, v. 10. And Nabal answered David’s servants and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? v. 11. Shall I, then, take my bread and my water and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be? v. 12. So David’s young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings, v. 13. And David said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his sword,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
DEATH OF SAMUEL (1Sa 25:1).
1Sa 25:1
And Samuel died. According to Josephus, Samuel had for eighteen years been contemporaneous with Saul’s kingdom. If this calculation, which probably rests upon some Jewish tradition, be at all correct, we must include the years of Samuel’s judgeship in the sum total of Saul’s reign (see on 1Sa 13:1), as evidently his fall was now fast approaching. Samuel’s life marked the beginning of the second age of Israelite history (Act 3:24). Moses had given the people their law, but Samuel in the schools of the prophets provided for them that education without which a written law was powerless, and called forth also and regulated that living energy in the prophetic order which, claiming an all but equal authority, modified and developed it, and continually increased its breadth and force, until the last prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, with supreme and Divine power reenacted it as the religion of the whole world. And as neither his educational institutions nor the prophetic order, whose ordinary duties were closely connected with these schools, could hare flourished without internal quietness and security, Samuel also established the Jewish monarchy, which was ideally also necessary, because the Messiah must not only be priest and prophet, but before all things a king (Mat 2:1, Mat 2:6; Joh 18:37). And side by side with the kingdom he lived on to see the military successes of the first king, and the firm establishment of the royal power; but to witness also the development of that king into a despot, the overclouding of his mind with fits of madness, the designation of his successor, the probation of that successor by manifold trials, his ripening fitness under them to be the model of a theocratic king, and his growth in power so as practically to be now safe from all Saul’s evil purposes. And so in the fulness of time Samuel died, and all Israel gathered together and made lamentation for him (see Gen 1:10), and buried him in his house. The tomb at present shown as that of Samuel is situated upon a lofty hill, the identification of which with Ramah is very uncertain. Probably he was buried not actually in his house, as that would lead to perpetual ceremonial defilement (Num 19:16; Luk 11:44), but in some open spot in his garden. So Joab was buried in his own house (1Ki 2:34). At Ramah. Thenius thinks that the prophets shared with the kings the right of intramural burial.
DAVID IN THE WILDERNESS OF PARAN (1Sa 25:1-42).
DAVID ASKS A GIFT OF THE WEALTHY NABAL AND IS REFUSED (1Sa 25:1-13).
1Sa 25:1
David arose. This is not to be connected with the death of Samuel, as though David had now lost a protector. But as he had fully 600 men with him, and his force was continually increasing, it was necessary for him to roam over a wide extent of country in order to obtain supplies of food. The wilderness of Paran. Paran strictly is a place in the southernmost part of the peninsula of Arabia, a little to the west of Mount Sinai; but there can be little doubt that it gave its name to the vast extent of pasture and barren land now known as the desert of El-Tih (see 1Ki 11:18). Of this the wildernesses of Judah and Beersheba would virtually form parts without the borders being strictly defined. We need not therefore read “the wilderness of Maon,” with the Septuagint and many commentators. On the contrary, we have seen that the hold in 1Sa 24:22 was the hill Hachilah in that neighbourhood, and David now moved southward towards the edge of this vast wilderness.
1Sa 25:2
A man in Maon. Though strictly by descent belonging to Maon (for which see on 1Sa 23:24), his possessionsrather, “his business,” “occupation” (see Gen 47:3, and Ecc 4:3, where it is translated work)were in Carmel, the small town just north of Maon, where Saul set up a trophy at the end of the Amalekite war (1Sa 15:12), and to which Abigail belonged (1Sa 27:3). He is described as very great because of his wealth arising from his large flocks of sheep and goats, which fed upon the pasture land which forms the elevated plateau of Carmel, where he was shearing his sheep, usually a time of lavish hospitality (2Sa 13:23, 2Sa 13:24).
1Sa 25:3
Nabal, the word rendered fool in Psa 14:1; literally, “flat,” “vapid.” Abigail means “one who is the cause (father) of joy,” i.e. one who gives joy. She, with her bright understanding and beautiful person (the Hebrew word takes in much more than the countenance; see 1Sa 16:18, where it is rendered comely person), is in contrast with the coarse, churlish man who was her husband. His name was either one which he had acquired by his conduct, or if given him by his parents shows that they were clownish people. He was of the house of Caleb. The written text has, “he was according to his heart,” celibbo, i.e. a self-willed man, or one whose rude exterior answered to his inner nature; but there are linguistic difficulties in the way of this reading, and the Kri is probably right in correcting calibbi, a Calebite, a descendant of Caleb, who had large possessions assigned him in the neighbourhood of Hebron (Jos 15:13-19), which is only ten miles northwest of Carmel. The versions support the Kri, though the Syriac and Septuagint render doglikeone who, like a dog, though he has plenty, yet grudges others. The meaning of the name Caleb is literally “a dog.”
1Sa 25:4, 1Sa 25:5
Though David had gone some distance southward of Carmel, yet it was worth his while to send men to Nabal’s sheep shearing, as the maintenance of his numerous force must have been a continual difficulty. The large number, ten, also shows that he expected a liberal gift of food. Probably such missions were not uncommon, and the large sheep masters were glad to supply the wants of one who guarded their flocks and defended them from the incursions of the desert tribes.
1Sa 25:6-8
Say to him that liveth in prosperity. The Hebrew is obscure, but the rendering of the A.V. is untenable, and also very tame. Literally it is, “Ye shall say to him, For life!” Probably it was a colloquial form of greeting, and equivalent to “good luck, “success,” life in Hebrew being sometimes used for prosperity. So Luther translates it, and Rashi and the Babylonian Talmud are also in its favour. The reading of the Vulgate, “To thy brothers” (be peace), is to be altogether rejected. We hurt them not. Literally, “we caused them no shame” (see Jdg 18:7), we did nothing to vex and injure them. Really the words mean that David had protected them, and enabled them to feed their flocks in safety. The fact that David waited till the sheep shearing, when hospitality was the rule, proves that he did not levy blackmail upon his countrymen, though necessarily he must have depended upon them for the food indispensabIe for the support of his men. A good day. I.e. a festive day, which should bring us a share in thy prosperity. Thy son David. A title expressive of the reverence due from the youthful David to his senior, and an acknowledgment of Nabal’s superiority over his fugitive neighbour.
1Sa 25:9
They ceased. Literally, “they rested;” i.e. either they remained quiet awaiting Nabal’s answer, or sat down, as is the custom in the East, for the same purpose.
1Sa 25:10, 1Sa 25:11
There be many servants, etc. Nabal would scarcely have ventured to speak in so insulting a manner if David had been at Maon, but as he had moved with his men a long distance towards the south, he. gave free vent to his rude feelings without restraint. David was to him a mere slave who had run away from his master, Saul. My bread, my water. These are the necessaries of life, while the flesh was the special luxury provided for the festival. David’s ten young men would not literally carry water to him at so great a distance, nor did Nabal mean more than our phrase “meat and drink.” The use, nevertheless, of water as equivalent to drink marks the value of water in the hill country, and also the abstemious habits of the people.
1Sa 25:12, 1Sa 25:13
Gird ye on, etc. David’s determination was fierce and violent. No doubt Nabal’s insult irritated him, and possibly also the rude outlaws round him would have protested against any other course; but Nabal’s words, rude though they were, would not justify David in the rough vengeance which he meditated. Abigail throughout her speech argues that David was taking too violent a course, and one for which he would afterwards have been sorry.
ABIGAIL PACIFIES DAVID (1Sa 25:14-35).
1Sa 25:14-17
One of the young men. Hebrew, “a lad of the lads,” i.e. one of the servants (see on the word 1Sa 1:24); when used in this sense it has no reference to age (see 1Sa 2:17). This man was probably some old and confidential servitor. To salute. Hebrew, “to bless” (see 1Sa 13:10; 2Ki 4:29). He railed on them. Literally, “flew upon them like a bird of prey.” We were not hurt. Literally, “not put to shame” (see on 1Sa 25:7). The language of a people always bears witness to their character, and it is a mark of the high spirit of the Israelites that they thought less of the loss than of the disgrace of an injury. As long as we were conversant with them. Hebrew, “as long as we went about with them.” In the fields. Really, “in the field,” the wilderness, the common pasture land. A wall. I.e. a sure protection both against wild beasts and Amalekite and other plunderers. A son of Belial. A worthless, bad man (see on 1Sa 1:16), so coarse and violent that it is hopeless to expostulate with him.
1Sa 25:18-20
Five measures of parched corn. The measure named here, the seah, contains about a peck and a half. As this seems little, Ewald reads 500 seahs, but probably it was regarded as a delicacy. Clusters of raisins. Rather, as in the margin, lumps of raisins. The bunches of grapes when dried were pressed into cakes. Sending her servants in front leading the asses which carried the present, she followed behind, and met David as she was coming down by the covert of the hill. Hebrew, “in secret of the hill,” under cover of the hill, i.e. she met him as she was descending into some glen into which he had entered from the other end.
1Sa 25:21, 1Sa 25:22
David justifies his fierce anger by referring to the services he had rendered Nabal, and which had been requited so shabbily. For the phrase so do God unto the enemies of David see on 1Sa 20:16. A superstitious feeling probably lay at the root of this substitution of David’s enemies for himself when thus invoking a curse.
1Sa 25:23-25
Abigail fell before David on her face. This very abject obeisance may have been grounded on her belief in David’s future kingship, or it may simply mark the inferior position held by women in those days (see 1Sa 25:41). Her whole address is couched in very humble terms. David (1Sa 24:8) only stooped with his face to the ground before Saul. Upon me. Abigail represents herself as the person really guilty, on whom the iniquity, i.e. the punishment of the offence, must fall. Nabal is a mere son of Belial, a worthless, bad man, whose name Nabal, i.e. fool, is a sign that folly is with him, and accompanies all his acts. As a fool he is scarcely accountable for his doings, and Abigail, whose wont and business it was to set things to rights, saw not the young men, and so was unable to save them from her husband’s rudeness.
1Sa 25:26, 1Sa 25:27
Abigail begins her appeal by affirming that it was Jehovah who thus made her come to prevent bloodshed; she next propitiates David with the prayer that his enemies may be as Nabal, insignificant fools; and finally asks him to accept her present, not for himself,that would be too great an honour,but as good enough only for his followers. The first of these affirmations is obscured by the rendering in the A.V; and should be translated, “And now, my lord (an ordinary title of respect, like our sir), as Jehovah liveth, and as thy soul liveth, so true is it that Jehovah hath withholden thee from blood guiltiness, and from saving thyself with thine own hand; and now let thine enemies,” etc. The same words recur in 1Sa 25:31, 1Sa 25:33. Blessing. I.e. gift, present (see 1Sa 30:26). This beautiful term shows the deep religiousness of the Hebrew mind. The gift is something that comes not from the donor, but from God, in answer to the donor’s prayer.
1Sa 25:28
Forgive the trespass of thine handmaid. Reverting to her words in 1Sa 25:24, that the blame and punishment must rest on her, she now prays for forgiveness; but the intermediate words in 1Sa 25:26, emphasised in 1Sa 25:31, have raised her request to a higher level. Her prayer rests on the ground that she was saving David from a sin, and that in his thirst for vengeance he was bringing upon himself guilt. If the form of Abigail’s address was most humble, the matter of it was brave and noble. A sure house. I.e. permanent prosperity (see on 1Sa 2:35). Because my lord fighteth. Hebrew, “will fight.” David was not fighting these battles now because he was not yet enthroned as the theocratic king. It was Saul’s business at present to fight “Jehovah’s battles,” either in person or by his officers (1Sa 18:17). The words, therefore, distinctly look forward to the time when David as king will have the duty imposed upon him of protecting Jehovah’s covenant people. Evil hath not been found in thee. Hebrew, “shall not be found in thee,” i.e. when the time comes for thee to take the kingdom no one shall be able to allege against thee any offence by which thou hast lost thy title to the kingly office; nor afterwards as king shalt thou be guilty of any breach of thy duty to Jehovah, Israel’s supreme Ruler, so as to incur rejection as Saul has done.
1Sa 25:29-31
Yet a man is risen. Rather, “And should any one arise to pursue thee,” etc. The reference is of course to Saul, but put with due reserve, and also made general, so as to include all possible injury attempted against David. Bound in the bundle of life. Hebrew, “of the living.” The metaphor is taken from the habit of packing up in a bundle articles of great value or of indispensable use, so that the owner may carry them about his person. In India the phrase is common; thus, a just judge is said to be bound up in the bundle of righteousness; a lover in the bundle of love. Abigail prays, therefore, that David may, with others whose life is precious in God’s sight, be securely kept under Jehovah’s personal care and protection. In modern times the two words signifying “in the bundle of the living” form a common inscription on Jewish gravestones, the phrase having been interpreted in the Talmud, as also by Abravanel and other Jewish authorities, of a future life. Shall he sling out, etc. In forcible contrast with this careful preservation of David’s life, she prays that his enemies may be cast away as violently and to as great a distance as a stone is cast out of a sling. The middle is the hollow in which the stone was placed. Ruler. i.e. prince. It is the word rendered captain in 1Sa 9:16; 1Sa 10:1, but its meaning is more correctly given here. Grief. The word really means much the same as stumbling block, something which makes a person stagger by his striking against it unawares. Abigail prays, therefore, that when David has become prince, and so has to administer justice, this violent and revengeful act which he was purposing might not prove a cause of stumbling and an offence of heart to himself, by his conscience reproaching him for having himself done that which he had to condemn in others.
1Sa 25:32-35
David, in his thankful acknowledgment of Abigail’s remonstrance, sees in it the hand of Jehovah the God of Israel, who had sent her, i.e. stirred her up to come. He commends also her advice, literally, her “taste,” i.e. wisdom, discretion. It is the word rendered behaviour in 1Sa 21:13. But for this prudent conduct on her part in thus coming to meet him on the way, he solemnly assures her on oath that nothing could have saved Nabal and every male in his household from death. Finally, he accepts her present and dismisses her with the assurance that all was forgiven.
DEATH OF NABAL AND MARRIAGE OF DAVID AND ABIGAIL (verses 36-42).
1Sa 25:36-38
For he was very drunken. Hebrew, “and he was very drunken.” This was not the cause of his heart being merry, but the result; he gave himself up to enjoyment till he became drunken, and then his merriment was over. When Abigail came back he was stupefied by drink, and it was not until the next day, when his debauch was passing off, that he was capable of being told what his wife had done. And when Abigail recounted to him David’s fierce resolve, and how she had pacified him, he seems to have given way to a fit of violent indignation, flying out possibly at her as he had at David’s messengers (1Sa 25:14), the result of which was an attack of apoplexy, and after lying in a state of insensibility for ten days, he died.
1Sa 25:39-42
Hath pleaded the cause of my reproach. In the causes tried at the gate of an Israelite city the friends of the accused both pleaded his cause, defended him from wrong, and punished any who had wronged him. So God had avenged David, while preventing him by Abigail s interference from avenging himself (see 1Sa 24:13). As a widow’s legal mourning seems to have lasted only seven days, David, on hearing of Nabal’s death, sent messengers to Abigail at Carmel to ask her in marriage. He was probably moved to this not merely by her sensible conduct, but also by the news that Michal had been given to another. She expresses her willingness in true Oriental fashion by saying she was ready to perform the most abject menial duties, even for his servants, and at once with five maidens proceeds to join him. It is a proof that David considered himself practically secure against Saul’s attempts that he thus married and allowed women to accompany his small force, as their presence would not only impede the rapidity of his movements, but also implies a certain amount of case and comfort for their maintenance.
ADDITIONAL PARTICULARS RESPECTING DAVID‘S MARRIED Life (1Sa 25:43, 1Sa 25:44).
1Sa 25:43, 1Sa 25:44
Besides Abigail, David also took to wife Ahinoam of Jezreel, a small village among the hills of Judah (Jos 15:56), and not the better known town of that name in the tribe of Issachar. Ahinoam was the name also of Saul’s wife (1Sa 14:50). They were also his wives. I.e. besides Michal. She had been given by Saul to Phalti the son of Laish, called Phaltiel in 2Sa 3:15, where we read of his lamentation at her being torn from him by Ishbosheth in order that she might be restored to David. Gallim is described in Isa 10:30 as being situated between Gibeah of Saul and Jerusalem.
HOMILETICS
1Sa 25:1-12
Honour to the dead and insult to the living.
The facts are
1. Samuel dies, and is buried at Ramah amidst the sorrow of Israel.
2. David, returning to the wilderness, sends a greeting to Nabal, a wealthy man at Carmel, and asks for some favour to his young men on account of the friendly aid recently rendered to Nabal’s shepherds.
3. Nabal, in a churlish spirit, sends an insulting reply, and refuses the request.
4. Whereupon David resolves on taking revenge for the insult. The allusion here to the death of Samuel, while a necessary part of the history of the age, seems to be introduced to prepare the way for the continuance of the narrative concerning David, who now has become the principal figure in the national life. We have to consider the teaching of the good man’s death and the churlish man’s insult.
Honour to the dead. The various points brought out in the brief reference are, the brevity of the notice compared with the length of service, the ground of the public homage, the loss and gain to Israel, the extent of influence revealed, and the temporary subsidence of party conflicts. Formulating the truths thus suggested, we see
I. That THE SCANTY REFERENCE IN THE BIBLE TO THE PERSONAL WORK AND DEATH OF GOD‘S BEST SERVANTS is in instructive CONTRAST WITH THE RECORDS CONCERNING CHRIST. Samuel’s life was long and immensely useful to the world by the reformation wrought in Israel by the force of his character, and the preparation made for prophetic teaching and stable government. A holier and more devoted man was not found, and yet one verse tells us all about his death and burial. The same reticence is true concerning Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and indeed all the most distinguished of men. They during life spoke little of themselves, and referred little to their ancestors. The apostles also live, labour, and die, and no stress is laid on their work and death, a circumstance in keeping with the self-abnegation which never made themselves prominent objects of faith. The contrast with Christ is impressive. He is all and everything. His self-reference is perfect egotism if he be a mere human being ordained only in higher degree than others to execute a Divine purpose. The exaltation of his name, work, and death by the apostles is most natural and harmonious with the silence of the Bible in relation to all others if he be really Divine. The question of his personality cannot be settled by mere verbal discussions. Broad facts must be considered, and these clearly determine the verbal sense where exegetes may be supposed to differ. This kind of argument appeals to the common sense of men, and accords also with the instinct of the Christian heart to worship Christ.
II. That THE HONOUR PAID TO THE DEAD, so far as referred to in Scripture, is THAT DUE TO HOLY CHARACTER AND SERVICE. The allusion here and elsewhere to a proper homage to the dead is clearly associated with the holy life and conduct previously recorded in the sacred narrative. There is a singular silence in the Bible with respect to any honours paid to men, on account of the greatness supposed to consist in warlike exploits. True greatness lies in good abilities being pervaded by a spirit of piety, and consequently consecrated to the advancement of the kingdom of God on earth. The value of a man’s life is to be sought in the contribution he makes to the spiritual impulse by which the world is brought nearer to God. The supreme honours often paid to mere titular rank, to wealth, to military prowess, and even to bare learning, are expressive of a human judgment which is discounted by the language of the Bible, and will be reversed when, adjudged by the lofty standard of Christ, every man shall receive according to the deeds done in the body.
III. That THE DEATH OF TRULY GOOD MEN is both a LOSS AND A GAIN TO THE WORLD. Israel properly mourned because the “godly man” failed, for the activity and personal influence of the greatest man of the age henceforth would cease. We cannot say whether a good man’s activity of spirit no longer operates as a power on men after his deathprobably it does if there be any truth in the conservation and persistence of spiritual forces; but so far as survivors are concerned they are unconscious of it, and, on the other hand, are henceforth more open to the action of other visible influences. We lose much when good men die; yet we gain something. The whole life becomes more impressive in death than during its continuance. The germinal good sown in the heart by silent goodness and actual effort is quickened around the grave into healthy growth. The sobering, elevating influence of a sainted memory is a permanent treasure. Many have to bless God for the death of his saints. Heaven becomes more real to those whose beloved ones have gone before, and the levities of life are subdued by the thought of our temporary separation from the “general assembly.”
IV. That THE REALITY AND EXTENT OF A GOOD MAN‘S INFLUENCE OVER OTHERS IS BROUGHT OUT IN DEATH MORE THAN IN LIFE. The public homage paid to Samuel was the nation’s response to his life’s appeal to the heart and conscience. Like Elijah, he no doubt often deplored the degeneracy of the age, and questioned whether he was doing any substantial good. This doubt is the common experience of all God’s servants. They cannot see the incidence of the rays of light as they silently fall on the dull heart of the people, though in theory they know that every ray performs its part in the great spiritual economy of the universe. But the subjects of holy influence do receive in some degree all that comes forth from a consecrated life, and it often requires the removal of a good man from this world to make manifest how strong a hold he has had on the thought and feeling of others. There are many instances of this in all grades of society. Churches and families reveal the power of a character when that character ceases to exercise its wonted energies. This should induce calmness and confidence in all who strive to bless the world by a devoted life. Those who exercise moral power are not always the best judges of its force and extent. God mercifully keeps from our view some of the good we are doing, lest we fall into the snare of the devil.
V. That MAN‘S CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE SACREDNESS AND MYSTERY OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, when aroused, is SUPREME OVER EVERY THOUGHT AND FEELING. All Israel, embracing Saul, David, the prophets, and the slanderers and conspirators at the court, assembled around the grave of Samuel and wept. The strifes and rivalries of parties, the deadly feuds and cruel animosities of life, the most urgent of human passions, were for the time set aside under the influence of that deep, all-mastering feeling that human existence on earth is a sacred mystery. The holiest and most honoured are seen to succumb to the strong hand which carries off the most worthless. Each asks, Is this the end? Is there nothing beyond? If there is, what? Thus it is man’s reflectiveness, awakened by the death of the great, which causes him to recognise at the same time both his littleness and his greatness. The solemnity of having a rational existence comes on all in presence of death. That we are made for something far above what now engages our attention is forced on the spirit, and our connection with an invisible sphere and final tribunal rises into awful distinctness. This frequently recurring sense of the sacredness and mystery of existence is a check on sinful tendencies, and furnishes occasions for the application of the gospel to the hearts of men. Gospel truth learnt in early years will often assert its power in men as, leaving awhile the contentions and sins of life, they stand by the open grave.
Insult to the living.
The question arises, Why is it that this narrative of Nabal’s churlishness occupies so prominent a place in the sacred records, seeing that so adventurous a life as that of David must have abounded in striking incident? Among, then, the topics suggested by the account of the churlish man’s insult we may notice
I. THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH EVENTS ARE RECORDED IN SCRIPTURE. Is this principle ascertainable? Can any hypothesis concerning it be verified by an induction of facts? Granting an affirmative reply to these questions, do we here get a harmony of Scripture superior to that of literal agreement in details? Now, in dealing with such questions we have to be guided by a few broad facts, such as, the order of Providence among men is subservient to the working out of the redemptive purpose in Christ; the redemptive purpose is wrought out through the instrumentality of chosen servants, succeeding one another by Divine arrangement; events touching the lives of these men affected the performance of their part in the accomplishing of the purpose, in so far as they developed character or brought the great principles for which they lived into conflict with opposing principles; the Bible is designed to be a record of the events which advanced the unfolding of the redemptive purpose, either directly, or by indirectly shaping the character and conduct of those engaged in its outworking, and forcing the Divine idea into sharp contrast with various forms of evil. The attempt to find the principle of selection of facts for incorporation in God’s record of the history of redemption in any other direction must fail. The great thought of this Book of Samuel is the conflict of the Messianic hope with opposing evils. Hence all through the life of David we see that the “salvation of the Lord,” i.e. the great spiritual reformation to be wrought as a prelude to a future and more blessed one, was the issue at stake; and those events are evidently related which helped it on, and such as were opposed to it. Principles are embodied in each of these instances, and thus the relation of events to the unfolding purpose of God is that quality in them which accounts for their insertion in the Scriptures. The verification of this is an interesting study. It may suffice here to note that when we consider the great influence on the life of David of such a woman as Abigail, and therefore on his work for the world, we can see the propriety of some account of her in relation to him, and we shall see directly how completely Nabal’s churlishness was an illustration of the grovelling spirit which scorns such lofty spiritual aspirations as are involved in working out the Divine purpose for mankind.
II. THE CAUSES AND CURE OF DOMESTIC INFELICITY. The home life of Nabal was evidently not happy, arising partly from utter diversity of taste, temperament, and culture, and partly from dissimilarity of moral conduct and religious principle. A low, grovelling disposition, revelling in sensual indulgence and proud of wealth, could not but embitter the life of a “woman of good understanding,” and of such fine spiritual perceptions as are indicated by her words to David (verses 27-31). There are unfortunately many such homes. Wise and holy women are held to the humiliation and sorrow of a lifelong bondage. In modern times the causes of domestic infelicity are variousfashion, that considers station before happiness; love of wealth, that lays beauty, sweetness, and culture at the feet of mammon; inconsiderate haste, acting on partial knowledge of character; concern for a livelihood irrespective of moral qualities; incompatible religious sentiments; selfishness on the one side, seeking inordinate attention, and neglect on the other, heedless of the sacred bond. In many cases the release is only in death, so utter is the desolation. So far as Abigail was concerned, her discretion and self-command mitigated the evils of her home; but the radical remedy is a renewal of the spirit, a turning of the life to God.
III. THE OBLIGATIONS OF WEALTH. That every talent imposes on its possessor corresponding obligation is a first principle of morals and religion. No man holds material wealth for himself. He is a member of society, and bound to exercise his gifts for the welfare of others. The common responsibilities attached to wealth therefore devolved on Nabal, and no narrow, private views or acquired greed of gain could release him from the laws of God, however irksome they might make obedience to it. But there were special reasons why he was bound to allow David to share in his plenty; for was he not known to be a man persecuted for righteousness’ sake, of the same tribe as Nabal, admitted by the popular voice to have been a benefactor by his prowess on behalf of the nation, the guardian, by means of his men, of Nabal’s servants in a recent season of peril, and regarded in Nabal’s house (verses 27-31) and elsewhere as the coming king, well fitted by his qualities to raise the spiritual and social condition of the people? The modest request of David was just, and the duty of the rich man was clear. The question of the obligations attaching to the possession of wealth needs to be pressed home with earnestness and elucidated with intelligence. The “love of money” is so strong in some as to blind the intellect and harden the heart against a recognition of the proper uses of it. No fixed standard can be set up for the distribution of wealth, for the duties of giving and spending are relative to position and surroundings. The first thing to recognise is that wealth is not for self-indulgence or aggrandisement, but for the enrichment of all around. The next is the cultivation of a kindly, generous spirit that looks tenderly on the more needy, combined with a sound judgment as to the best means of enabling many to enjoy the distribution of wealth as the recompense of labour and skill. Above all, every man should, in a spirit of love and gratitude, lay all on the altar of God, and see to it that a good proportion be devoted to the cause of Christ. None have ever regretted consecrating wealth to God. But that is not consecration to God which appropriates to religious uses when dependent ones are lacking means of support (Mar 7:11). It would work a revolution in the social condition of our country, and that of the mildest and most beneficent kind, as well as give an immense impulse to the cause of religion, did men of wealth but conscientiously estimate their obligations to God and man, and act accordingly.
IV. CONTEMPT FOR SPIRITUAL ASPIRATIONS. “Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants nowadays that break away from their masters.” Thus did Nabal, knowing well who David was, what course he had pursued, what trials had befallen him, and what high spiritual anticipations were associated with his chequered life, express his contempt for the coming king and his supposed mission in Israel. This was clearly the case of a rich man, fond of sensual indulgence, boastful of his possessions, indifferent to the culture, moral elevation, and spiritual prosperity of his countrymen, and looking with scorn on the men who long for a higher form of life in which purity, knowledge, and joy in God are prominent features. He wanted to have nothing to do with “theorists,” “fanatics,” and men of that type. The country was well enough, and the son of Jesse was not wanted. The insult to the living was insult to man. Men are often only the exponents of principles that survive when they are gone. Samuel during his early labours was the energetic exponent of the spiritual idea of God’s kingdom as against the grovelling conceptions of Israel’s function entertained by the degenerate nation. Later David became its chosen representative, and in this his anointing as a more worthy man than Saul had its significance. Those who, like Jonathan, Gad, and Abiathar, identified themselves with David became a party in the State devoted to the assertion of the higher hope, while the men who prompted Saul to evil, the Ziphites, and now Nabal, were the supporters of the low, earthly ideal of Israel’s life. Their antagonism to David was, therefore, deeper than at first appears; it was based on lack of sympathy with, and in fact positive dislike of, the spiritual aspirations cherished by David, and which he in the providence of God was destined largely to enunciate and realise. What is meant by “such as love thy salvation“? (Psa 40:16). Evidently those who are yearning for that great deliverance from evil which God was then working out for Israeltypical of the wider deliverance which the true King of Zion is now working out for men. And as men like Nabal despised the holy aspirations of David, so do the same men now despise the aspirations of those who think not their work done till spiritual religion is universal. The Saviour heard men say, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” The pure and lofty aspirations of his life met with the reverse of a response in grovelling minds. Men do not object to a religion, but they do dislike a holy religion.
Practical lessons:
1. Let it be our effort so to live that men may remember us with feelings of loving interest.
2. The tone of our daily life may often be raised, and a shield against temptation may be found, by occasionally communing in spirit with the honoured dead whom we have known.
3. In all arrangements for life we should allow moral and religious considerations to have chief influence.
4. Conscientious regard for the teaching of God’s word in reference to wealth, and special prayer for guidance in its use, cannot but make it a blessing to the possessor and to others.
5. It requires careful thought to trace out the connection between growing riches and distaste for spiritual religion (Mar 10:23-27).
1Sa 25:13-17
Creed and practice.
The facts are
1. David, stung by the insult, prepares to take summary vengeance on Nabal.
2. A servant, overhearing his intention, reports it to Abigail.
3. He also relates to her the circumstances of David’s kindness to Nabal’s men, and appeals to her for intervention, as he has no faith in Nabal’s wisdom or generosity. The course taken by David would ordinarily be termed natural for an Eastern chieftain; that of the servant was more considerate than usually is found among men of his class when placed in personal peril. Regarding the two causes separately, we may express the teaching thus:
I. THERE IS AT TIMES A SAD DISPROPORTION BETWEEN THE BELIEFS AND THE PRACTICE OF EVEN THE BEST OF MEN. David was undoubtedly the most spiritually enlightened, patient, and devout man then living. The psalms of the period indicate a wonderful faith in the care and goodness of God, and his recent conduct had illustrated his patience, generosity, and forbearance. The elevated tone of his language to Saul (1Sa 24:11-15), in which he commits his personal wrongs to God, is worthy of New Testament times. The common faith of his life could not but have been strengthened by the solemnities of the funeral from which he had lately returned. Nevertheless David could not bear an insult and ingratitude, but must in unholy zeal cease to trust his cause to God, and avenge evil with his own hand. Sons of Zebedee live in every age, who cannot wait the calm purpose of God to vindicate his saints, while at the same time professing to he of a spirit born of heaven, and akin to that of him “who when he was reviled, reviled not again.” This falling below our ideal is a too common calamity in individual and Church life. The question may rise whether we really believe what we say we do when conduct does not harmonise therewith, for is not real faith influential? The great verities of our Christian Scriptures, respecting Christ’s love, our destiny, the world’s spiritual need, and the unspeakable importance of eternal things, are enough to enchain every soul to holy consecration that knows no reserve. It is well that we estimate the disparity between creed and conduct; the dishonour it brings, the harm to religion it entails, and the effect of it on our prayers (Jas 5:16).
II. OUR STANDARD OF CONDUCT IS TO BE TAKEN NOT FROM GOOD MEN, but from the EXPLICIT TEACHING OF SCRIPTURE AND THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. As we read the books of men with reserve, and accept only that which accords with a standard of truth apart from them, so our reading of the conduct of saints is to be discriminating. They are often illustrious examples of good, but not our models. Our conduct under analogous circumstances is not to be regulated by that of David, but by the teaching which tells us not to “avenge” ourselves, but to return good for evil, and even love our enemies. If men ask what this non-personal retaliation means, the answer is, the life of Christ. That it is alien to human tendencies and often regarded as unmanly does not make it less Christian. Very few persons “enter into the kingdom of God” in the sense of behaving in the world as Christ did. Even Christian men sometimes speak as though it were madness to display just the spirit of meekness, love, and compassion which marked his career under provocation. Who dare say in the truest sense, “We have the mind of Christ “?
III. DISCRIMINATION AND PROMPTITUDE ARE VALUABLE QUALITIES IN AVERTING EVILS INCIDENT TO HUMAN WRONG DOING. The evil consequences of one great sin on the part of a good man may be very serious, and, as in this case, calling for exceeding care if they are to be averted. The conduct of the servant (1Sa 25:14-17) is worthy of imitation in many departments of life. He did not selfishly flee to secure himself, but, reading well the purpose of David, thought of the safety of all, formed a just estimate of Abigail’s tact and courage, and of Nabal’s stupidity, and without delay laid before his mistress the provocation offered to David. A wise and prompt servant is a blessing in a home. These qualities go far to render men successful in life; and if more attention were paid in early years to the development of them, many an one would be saved from disaster, and the whole machinery of saints would move more smoothly. May we not also see an analogy here to the case of a man who, foreseeing spiritual calamity to others, promptly devises means of delivering them from it?
Practical lessons:
1. We should be on the watch against sudden provocations of our unholy tendencies, and we shall find an habitually prayerful spirit one of the best aids to the immediate suppression of passion.
2. It is worth considering how much the Church and world have lost by failure on the part of Christians to live out the spirit and precepts of Christ.
3. It is a question whether sufficient attention is paid to the suppression of the love of fighting and taking of revenge in children, and how far literature and customs foster these evils.
4. In cases of moral conduct prompt action is always best.
1Sa 25:18-31
Wise persuasiveness.
The facts are
1. Abigail, aware of the danger, provides an ample present, and secretly sends on her servants to prepare the mind of David for an interview.
2. On seeing David she humbly seeks an audience, and intimates that Nabal was not to be regarded as of importance.
3. She pleads her cause by reminding David of the kind restraint of Providence in keeping him from wrong, of Nabal’s utter unworthiness of his notice, of the provision made for the young men, of his own integrity and coining distinction, of his spiritual safety amidst trials, of the future satisfaction of not having causelessly shed blood, and then begs that she may not be forgotten in coming days of power. This narrative may be considered in relation to Abigail and to David. In the former it affords
I. AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE ART OF PERSUASION. The course pursued by Abigail was creditable to her courage, tact, piety, and loyalty to truth. A more beautiful instance of the art of persuasion in the sphere of private life is not found in the Bible. It may be considered in two ways.
1. In relation to the method adopted. This may be seen by noticing the line of argument. David is, after a respectful act of obeisance, informed that the omission of which he complained was without the knowledge of the person who was largely responsible for acts of hospitality (1Sa 25:25). Then, with exquisite delicacy, he is reminded of the sin of avenging self, and of the goodness of God in restraining from it (1Sa 25:26). This appeal to the moral sense is strengthened by an assurance that the offending person was far beneath the notice of one so distinguished, and that dignity could well afford to let him alone (1Sa 25:24). Moreover, the occasion which properly roused his generous concern for hungry and deserving servants was passed, as ample provision was at hand for them (1Sa 25:27). Passing from others, David is assured of confidence in his Divine call and the integrity of his life, despite all slanders (1Sa 25:28). And though persecution is hard to be borne, yet he is reminded that full compensation is made in being securely kept by God, and thus blessed with the spiritual life embraced in the everlasting covenant (1Sa 25:29)a blessing which wicked foes cannot share. To crown all, he is led to think of the not distant day when, as king of God’s people, he will enjoy the highest honours; and it is gently suggested that it would be a pity to mar the joys of such a time by reflection on an act of personal revenge by deeds of blood. A beautiful instance of what a wise, holy woman can do when emergency arises.
2. In relation to the general principles involved. Persuasion is required in the pulpit, the home, and the common intercourse of life; and observation proves how much depends on the adoption of right principles in using it. Some never succeed. The human soul can be successfully approached by certain avenues only. To be successful there ought to be
(1) A tone and manner befitting the persons and the circumstances.
(2) A clear but delicate reference to the governing sense of right; for conscience properly addressed is sure to become an internal advocate for us.
(3) A readiness to meet every lawful claim and satisfy every generous instinct; for heed is given to those who are zealous in doing right.
(4) An evident appreciation of the actual position in which those are whom we address; for confidence in our judgment and professed sympathy is then awakened.
(5) A gentle appeal to the most sacred religious hopes and aspirations which, though unexpressed, may exercise a controlling power over life.
(6) Regard to the principle of self-interest as a force in life supplementary to higher considerations. It is worth a study to become “wise to win souls.”
II. AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE INFLUENCE ON TEMPER AND CONDUCT OF RELIGIOUS CONSIDERATIONS. There was power in Abigail’s argument derived from her appeal to David’s sense of the wrong of revenge, and the assurance that his generous concern for his young men was now unnecessary. But that which evidently touched David most was her reference to his being the object of God’s love and care. To be restrained by a loving God, to be in favour with him amidst the wrongs of evil men, to have an interest in the higher spiritual life which is nourished and guarded by God was more than all beside. How could one so richly and undeservedly blessed be revengeful or act in any way unworthy of the name of God? The apostle adopts the same line of argument when he, enjoining a spirit of forgiveness, reminds his readers of the forgiveness they have received (Eph 5:32). If we would be humble, gentle, forgiving, and grateful, let us consider what it is to have our “names written in heaven” (Luk 10:20), and to be objects of a love from which nothing can separate us from. 8:38, 39). A judicious use of such reflections and considerations is extremely important in spiritual culture. Men are deeply touched by the thought of what God has done for them. A little religious retrospect would save many a man from yielding to violent impulses. The same result is secured by cherishing due regard to our lofty aspirations. Those who are to be raised to thrones will not do mean and wrongful deeds. Who can estimate the influence of Christian anticipations on present conduct?
III. AN ILLUSTRATION OF DEEPENING FAITH IN MESSIANIC PURPOSES. Men like Doeg, Cush, and the Ziphites might combine and by slander seek to destroy faith in David’s integrity, and so seem to put back the realisation of the purposes for which he had been anointed; and the Psalms reveal how these things sometimes depressed his spirit. But all this time the more intelligent and devout saw clearly that he was the man to build up the kingdom, and Abigail, by this beautiful revelation of her confidence in his coming elevation to power, was only a revelation to him of advancing faith. The strength thus brought to his heart reminds us of the comfort evidently conveyed to the Saviour’s heart by Peter’s explicit avowal (Mat 16:16, Mat 16:17). And as time advances there will arise, as a cheering set off to the scorners and detractors, superior minds bearing witness to the Divine truth and coming triumph of Christ’s kingdom. Equally so will confirmations rise up of the call of the Christian to share in the higher service of the future.
General lessons:
1. A wise man will bring his impulses to the light of religious truth and allow it to tone them down.
2. In cases of difficulty, where temper is concerned, a quiet, fervent spirit is of great importance.
3. To have a place in the Lamb’s book of life is full compensation for the ills we may suffer at the hands of men.
4. It is beneath the dignity of a Christian man to contend with the mean and base.
5. It is a sound maxim to suffer inconvenience rather than do anything that will tend to mar the enjoyment of the success we hope to win.
1Sa 25:32-35
Restraining mercy.
The facts are
1. David, recognising the hand of God, expresses his sense of his mercy and blesses Abigail for her advice.
2. He perceives, in the light of her remonstrance, the terrible evil of the passion that had swayed him.
3. Accepting her present, he dismisses her in peace. The success of Abigail’s wise conduct was now assured in a good man being saved the guilt and shame of acting at variance with his professed trust in God; and while duly honouring the instrument of deliverance, God’s restraining mercy is fully brought into prominence. Notice
I. RESTRAINING MERCY IS A FACT IN EVERY LIFE. This instance was conspicuous, but David elsewhere acknowledges the constant keeping of his God (Psa 19:13; Psa 141:9). We owe much to God for what we are not and do not, as also for what we are and do. “By the grace of God I am what I am” applies to prevention as well as endowment. Every man is conscious of carrying within him a power of evil in excess of what finds outlet in deeds, and its repression is due not only to human wisdom and strength. The conditions of social life that check the development of inward sinfulness are of God as truly as the truth we cherish that we may not sin against him (Psa 119:11). The friends who counsel and warn, the ordinances that tend to weaken the force of evil and nourish holiness, are the agencies of the same gracious God who endowed us with the helping conscience to which they appeal. If occasional providences, be they disasters or personal interventions, draw special attention to the unseen hand, they do not render the restraint at other times less real because they are more steady and gentle. There is a spirit that strives silently with man and holds him back from ruin.
II. OUR RECOGNITION OF RESTRAINING MERCY IS MORE PRONOUNCED WHEN WE HAVE PASSED THROUGH UNUSUAL TEMPTATIONS. Temptations are common experience, but sometimes they come in “like a flood.” The admission of God’s kindly and constant restraint is an item of daily belief, attended with more or less gratitude; but when the soul has been brought face to face with a terrible sin by the force of violent impulses, and kept from committing it by what is called a narrow chance, then the good hand of God is distinctly recognised. In the lull of the storm we see clearly the rocks on which character well nigh made shipwreck. The light of truth reveals whither we were going, and the soul is aghast at the spectacle. In the lives of most there have been occasions when we were on the very verge of destruction, or, like David, were about to mar our consistency and usefulness by a sad transgression. The refined spirit of a Christian shrinking in horror at the very thought of what might have been cannot but say, “Blessed be the Lord God;” and where human instruments have been employed, a benediction falls on them for their kindly aid. These acts of recognition, so full of gratitude and joy, are but faint indications of that inexpressible joy and gratitude when, in survey of all life’s dangers, the soul will praise the “mercy that endureth forever.”
III. A PROPER RECOGNITION OF RESTRAINING MERCY IS ATTENDED WITH A CALM AND STEADY ATTENTION TO THE DUTIES OF OUR SPIRITUAL POSITION. David, as chosen servant of God, quietly accepts the gift of Abigail, and, dismissing her, reverts to the normal course of trusting in God and biding his time. He lived out his true character all the better for this narrow escape. It is the natural effect of mercy, when recognised, to render us more true to our holy calling in God’s service. We go on our way with stronger determination to submit to his will, whatever it may bring, and to live in closer fellowship with him.
General lessons:
1. It is good to place our stormy passions in the clear light of God’s truth.
2. Our spiritual life acquires more elevation and tone by occasionally reflecting on God’s restraining mercy.
3. The sin of indulging in violent passions must not be overlooked in the deliverance from their overt expression.
4. From an experience of deliverance from fearful moral perils we may enlarge our knowledge of the possibilities of life, and find increased reasons for habitual watchfulness.
1Sa 25:36-44
Contrasts, patience, and domestic ties.
The facts are
1. Abigail, finding Nabal in the midst of a drunken revel, refrains from speaking of her interview with David.
2. In the morning, on her relating what had transpired, he became insensible, and soon after dies.
3. On hearing of his death David recognises afresh the mercy that had restrained him, and sees the wisdom of leaving judgment to the Lord.
4. David, deprived of his wife Michal, though possessed of Ahinoam, seeks to take Abigail to wife, and she, accepting his advances, consents. The sacred narrative is wonderfully effective in making David the central figure amidst the diversity of detail alluded to, and thus indicates the unity of principle on which it is framed, as well as foreshadows the higher presentation of Christ as the one figure, discernible by the eye of faith, amidst the varied teachings of Scripture. The manifold teaching of this section, while associated with David as the central figure, may be most conveniently represented under three heads. We have here
I. CONTRASTS OF CHARACTER. Nabal may be regarded as an instance of a type of character well known in every agelow in taste, devoted to material gains, insensible to lofty spiritual aspirations, the miserable victim of disgusting habits, exercising a pernicious influence, and coming to an end dishonourable and ruinous. Grades of this character may be found, but the essential features of it are sensuality, irreverence, and earthliness. The chapter presents us with three characters agreeing in a common contrast to thisAbigail’s, David’s, Samuel’s. Each of these, in the sphere allotted by Providence, stands out as the very opposite of Nabal. That which formed the inspiring power in them was intelligent devotion to the higher interests of life and strong faith in the Divine purpose that was being worked out in Israel. The reference in 1Sa 25:1 to the honourable burial of Samuel, and in 1Sa 25:36-38 to the disgraceful end of Nabal, as well as the intermediate references to David and Abigail, show that the contrast of characters lies in four thingsspirit, aims, influence, and end. All characters may be tested by these criteria. The spirit is either devout, reverent, trustful, and obedient, or grovelling, profane, alien to God. The aim in life is the creation of the spirit, and is either to promote individual and public righteousness in association with God’s purpose in the Messiah, or to gather wealth and find transitory gratification. The influence is either to elevate, inspire, and enrich the world with what is best and enduring, or to drag down, embitter, and brutalise mankind. The end, as in the case of Samuel, is either peace, honour, and future blessedness, or wretchedness, dishonour, and future woe. In every age and locality where truth is loved and rejected these opposite tendencies and issues are found, and it would be instructive and impressive to develop with illustrations from history the gradations of contrast. The clue to contrasts in taste, habit, and final condition is to be sought in the state of the spirit in its relation to God. “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” “You hath he quickened who were dead.”
II. THE JUSTIFICATION OF PATIENCE. It is possible to take David’s words (1Sa 25:39) as expressing thanks for preservation from sin, and at the same time pleasure that his churlish enemy was now smitten; but the sense more congruous with the circumstances seems to be that he was, on reflection, more and more grateful for Divine restraint; and the fact that God had, without his agency, done what seemed to him best was evidence that man need never hasten to vindicate himself by violent measures, but may be patient under wrong. He was glad that God, and not he, had vindicated right. Events in the course of Providence will justify abstention from evil even under strong provocation. Many a man, patiently repressing violent passions, and content to endure rather than savagely avenge wrong, has lived to see the day when God, in some unlooked for way, has visited the wrong doer with chastisement, and then, while thankful for restraint, he is able to see in the Divine conduct a justification of the patience once so hard to exercise, and that seemed to men of the world so inexpedient and weak. And here comes out the great truth that the meek and quiet virtues enjoined by Christ are always justified by Providence, though at the time they are exercised they seem to be contrary to human nature. This is but a branch of a still wider truth, that all holiness of feeling and conduct is in the issue coincident with self-interest. Utility may not be the basis of morality, but in its broadest sense, taking in endless existence and future relations, it is exemplified in the effects. A few observations may suffice on this subject.
1. It often requires much effort to be truly virtuous. David felt it harder to abstain from avenging wrong than to avenge it. The positive side of his virtue was patient trust in the justice of God, and the impulses of the old man are against this. Very often personal losses and social disadvantages attend our patient endurance of evil, and these set into operation our strong feelings of resentment, our estimate of profit and loss, and our professed love of right.
2. All such virtue has the promise of success. To trust in God, to be patient in tribulation, and kindred qualities are pregnant with victory. Right feeling and conduct per se have a tendency, as Butler has shown, to ultimate happiness; and the ordinations of Providence are all subordinate to the vindication of right.
3. Personal and general history show that patient trust in God’s justice is honoured. Martyrs have found it better to leave their cause to God. The results of their endurance are perpetual, and most blessed and powerful. Every Christian can see in his own life that God does not forsake his saints, but turns their patient trust to his honour and glory, and the higher education of the individual and the race. Events will justify religious feeling in any form. It answers in every way to be like Christ.
III. THE DOMESTIC FACTOR IN LIFE. The details concerning Nabal are given because of David’s place in the history of redemption, and for the same reason we have an account of David’s domestic relationships. It is well known that the domestic tie is of extreme importance in every life. Men are helped or hindered, blessed or cursed, by the kind of influence that sways the home. Considering how much the general character is affected by the development of the tender and pure feelings proper to home life, the loss to the world arising from domestic miseries is incalculable. What a change in society were our toilers blessed in the person of their wives with the love, the refinement of feeling, and the intelligent Christianity which knows how to make home a welcome, cheery place! Men like Nabal would be much worse were it not for the restraining influence of an Abigail. David’s public and private career was necessarily the better for the presence in his home of such a woman, though the elevating influence of her character was impaired by his adoption of polygamy. Many are the counteracting influences under which the best of men develope, and Scripture, by thus calling attention to David’s domestic affairs, gives us a clue to some of the circumstances amidst which his virtues and failings appeared. The extreme importance of the domestic factor in life should urge to care in contracting alliances, in the maintenance of a spirit at home in harmony with the sacred character of the marriage bond, and in rendering home life subservient to a faithful and efficient discharge of one’s calling in life (Eph 5:22-33; 1Pe 3:1-7). The question of marriage is a delicate one, and needs to be handled with great care, but it is doubtful whether the Church has in her pastors and teachers done as much for the education of the people on the subject as is required. A wise pastor will know how to incorporate earnest Scripture teaching with his ordinary ministrations without intruding into the privacies of life, and wise parents have it in their power to save their sons and daughters from many troubles by first winning confidence, and then judiciously aiding to right decisions.
General lessons:
1. In order to form a correct estimate of a life we must take into account the end, and the bearing of the principles cherished on the endless existence beyond the grave.
2. The practical exhibition of the Christian spirit in our dealings with bad men is often more difficult than the maintenance of a devout spirit in relation to God.
3. The cure for some of the ills of modern life is in making home more attractive to those now seeking unhallowed joys elsewhere.
4. A nation careful of the purity and fulness of domestic life will survive those making light of these qualities,
HOMILIES BY B. DALE
1Sa 25:1. (RAMAH.)
Samuel’s death and burial.
“And Samuel died.”
1. The end of the great prophet’s life is recorded in brief and simple words. This is according to the manner in which the death of men is usually spoken of in the Scriptures. Whilst their life is narrated at length, their death is either passed over in silence or mentioned only in a sentence, as of comparatively little consequence in relation to their character, work, and influence. There is one significant exception, viz; that of him “who once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.”
2. In the last glimpse afforded of him before his decease he is described as “standing as one appointed over the company of the prophets,” and occupied with them in celebrating the praises of God (1Sa 19:20). During the years that had since elapsed he was left unmolested by Saul; and it is hardly likely that David ever ventured to Ramah again, although he probably kept up indirect intercourse with his aged and revered friend (1Sa 22:5), and was often in his thoughts.
3. In connection with the mention of his death it is stated that “David arose and went down” (from “the hold” in the hill of Hachilah, to which he had returned from Engedi) “to the wilderness of Paran.” He may have done so for reasons independent of this event, or without the knowledge of it; or possibly because he feared that with the removal of Samuel’s restraining influence Saul might renew his persecution. However it may have been, the melancholy intelligence would speedily reach him.
4. “Samuel died.” Good and great as he was, he could not escape the common lot of men. “One event happeneth to them all.” But that which comes as a judgment to “the fool” (1Sa 25:38) comes as a blessing to the wise. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” The news of it came upon the people as a surprise and filled them with grief. “It was as if from that noble star, so long as it shone in the heaven of the holy land, though veiled by clouds, there streamed a mild beneficent light over all Israel. Now this star in Israel was extinguished” (Krummacher). “Another mighty one had passed away. The very heart of the nation sighed out its loving, weeping requiem. But who among them all mourned as that son of Jesse, on whose head he had at God’s command poured the anointing oil, as he arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran? Doubtless in those waste places he heard again in living memory the echoes of the prevailing cry of him who was so great among those that call upon the name of the Lord. Doubtless his own discipline was perfected in this new sorrow, but he learnt in losing Samuel to lean more simply and alone on Samuel’s God” (‘Heroes of Hebrews Hist.’). We have here
I. THE DECEASE OF AN ILLUSTRIOUS MAN: saint, prophet, intercessor, judge, restorer of the theocracy, founder of the monarchy. “He was a righteous man, and gentle in his nature; and on that account he was very dear to God” (Josephus). “Samuel, the prophet of the Lord, beloved of the Lord, established a kingdom and anointed princes over his people. And.before his long sleep he made protestations in the sight of the Lord, etc. And.after his death he prophesied, and showed the king his end” (Ec 46:13-20). He died
1. In a good old age. At what age we know not; but long ago he spoke of himself as “old and grayheaded” (1Sa 12:2). His protracted life was an evidence of his self-control and piety, a mark of Divine favour, and a means of extended usefulness. He was cut down not like “the flower of the field,” which blooms for a day and is gone, nor like the spreading forest tree smitten by a sudden blast; but rather like the ripe corn, bending down beneath its golden burden and falling under the sickle of the reaper; arid “as shocks of corn are brought in in their season,” so was he “gathered to his people.”
2. At the proper time. When his appointed work was done, the new order of things firmly established, and he could by his continuance do little more for Israel, he was “taken away from the evil to come” through which the nation was to attain its highest glory. “He was the link which connected two very different periods, being the last representative of a past which could never come back, and seemed almost centuries behind, and also marking the commencement of a new period intended to develop into Israel’s ideal future” (Edersheim). “If David’s visible deeds were greater and more dazzling than Samuel’s, there can be no doubt that David’s blaze of glory would have been impossible without Samuel’s less conspicuous but far more influential career, and that all the greatness of which the following century boasts goes back to him as its real author” (Ewald).
3. In peaceful retirement; removed from public strife, under Divine protection, surrounded by prophetic associates, reviewing the past, contemplating the present, and awaiting the final change. A holy and useful life is crowned with a peaceful and happy death.
4. In Divine communion, which constitutes the highest life of the good. In God (with whom he had walked from his childhood, and whose inward voice he had so often heard) he found his chief delight, to his will he cheerfully submitted, and into his hands he committed his spirit in hope of continued, perfect, and eternal fellowship. The ancient covenant to be “the God” of his people overshadowed the present and the future; nor did they suppose (however dim their views of another life) that he would suffer them to be deprived by death of his presence and love “All live unto him” and in him. He “died in faith.” His decease was like a peaceful summer sunset.
“Not the last struggle of the sun
Precipitated from his golden throne
Holds, dazzling, mortals in sublime suspense;
But the calm exode of a man,
Nearer, but far above, who ran
The race we run, when Heaven recalls him hence”
(W.S. Landor).
II. THE MOURNING OF A WHOLE PEOPLE. “And all Israel” (represented by their elders) “were gathered together” (out of common veneration and love), “and lamented him (whom all knew and none would see again), and buried him in his house at Ramah” (“the ancient and the manor house,” so long his residence, and endeared to him by so many tender associations). It was “a grievous mourning,” as when Jacob was buried at Machpelah (Gen 1:11; Act 8:2). The honour rendered to his memory was simple and sincere, very different from that which, it is said, was paid to his dust in later times, when “his remains were removed with incredible pomp and almost one continued train of attendants from Ramah to Constantinople by the Emperor Arcadius, A.D. 401” (Delany, 1:148). But “of Samuel, as of Moses, it may be said, ‘No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day'” (Stanley). The national mourning was an indication of
1. The high esteem in which he was held, on account of his great ability, eminent piety, and beneficent activityhis integrity, firmness, gentleness, consistency, disinterestedness, adaptability, and living communion with God (1Sa 2:30; Psa 112:6). “A true Christian. may travel in life under troubles and contempts; but mark his end, and you shall find (as peace, so) honour. Life is death’s seed time; death life’s harvest. As here we sow, so there we reap. He that spends himself upon God and man shall at last have all the honour that heaven and earth can cast upon him” (R. Harris).
2. The deplorable loss which had been sustained. “The men who had once rejected Samuel now lamented him; when the light of his presence was departed they felt the darkness which remained; when the actual energy of his example had ceased to act they remembered the strength of his principles, the consistency of its operation. There was a feeling common to man. Whilst we enjoy the gift we ofttimes forget the Giver, and are awakened only to the full consciousness of the value of that which we once possessed by finding that we possess it no longer” (Anderson).
3. The unjust treatment which he had received, and which was now regretted. His predictions had proved true (1Sa 8:11), and his course was fully vindicated. “The sorrow at his decease was the deeper, the more heavily the yoke of Saul’s misgovernment pressed on them.”
4. The continued influence he exerted upon the nation. “The holy expression stamped by him on the tribes of Benjamin and Judah remained for centuries uneffaced. Never was a single man more instrumental in sowing the soil of a district with the enduring seeds of goodness. It seems to have been mainly through his influence that piety found a home in Judah and Benjamin when it was banished from the rest of the country. Humanly speaking David could never have been king if Samuel had not prepared the way. He was to King David what John the Baptist was to Christ. Unquestionably he is to be ranked among the very greatest and best of the Hebrew worthies” (Blaikie). “And he being dead yet speaketh.”
“O good gray head which all men knew,
O voice from which their omens all men drew,
O iron nerve to true occasion true,
O fall’n at length that tower of strength
Which stood foursquare to all the winds that blew!”
(Tennyson).
Learn to
1. Honour the memory of the good.
2. Praise God for their lives.
3. Imitate their example.
4. Carry out their purposes.D.
1Sa 25:1-44. (THE WILDERNESS OF PARAN.)
David’s activity and advancement.
“And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran” (1Sa 25:1). Samuel was dead. Saul was becoming more and more incapable of fulfilling the duties of his high office. Meanwhile David was being prepared by Divine providence to grasp the sceptre when it fell from his hand and wield it in a nobler manner. He was the rising sun of the new era. And we see in this chapter numerous signs of his peculiar qualification for his future rule and of his gradual progress towards it; such as, e.g.
1. The strict discipline which he exercised among his men. Those 600 warriors dwelt in the neighbourhood of Nabal’s shepherds, and could easily have supplied their wants from the flocks kept by the latter; but “the men were very good to us,” said one of them, “and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything,” etc. (1Sa 25:15). “He was bringing his wild followers under a loving discipline and government which they had never experienced; he was teaching them to confess a law which no tyrant had created, no anarchy could set aside” (Maurice).
2. The valuable service which he rendered to his people. “They were a wall unto us both by night and day” (1Sa 25:16). He employed his followers (whom he could not lead against Saul without incurring the charge of rebellion) in protecting those who were occupied in honest industry against the plundering Bedouin, and thus doing the work which had been left undone by the king. There is no place or position but affords opportunity for useful work. Even an outlaw may be serviceable to his country.
3. The perfect equity of the claim he made. His defence of the sheep gave him a right to some share in them; and he was justified in voluntarily undertaking it by the condition of society at the time and his own peculiar position. The reply of Nabal, in its application to David, was destitute of justice, truth, and charity (1Sa 25:10, 1Sa 25:11).
4. The respectful consideration he showed in urging his claim. He did not make it unseasonably, but waited till “a good day” (a festive occasion on which men were usually disposed to be generous), and then sent ten young men to offer him a courteous greeting, state the case, and humbly seek as a favour what might have been demanded as a right (1Sa 25:6-8). He appealed to what was noblest and best in the man.
5. The conscious power which he displayed. “Greet him in my name”a name well known in Israel as that of a faithful, though persecuted, servant of Jehovah. Not a word escaped his lips, indeed, on this or any other occasion concerning his royal destiny. But he knew the strength of his position (see 1Sa 26:1-25.), which was very different now from what it was at the beginning of his wanderings, was manifested in his whole bearing, and especially in the marriage relationships into which he entered (1Sa 25:42 44).
6. The increased renown, which he bad acquired. The words of Abigail (1Sa 25:28-31) expressed the growing conviction of the godly in Israel that David was destined to be their theocratic ruler. She may also have “received certain information of his anointing and destination through Samuel, or one of the pupils of the prophets” (Keil).
7. The Divine restraint by which he was kept from doing what would have imperilled or interfered with his future honour and happiness (1Sa 25:26). When God has an important place for a man to fill, he prepares the way to it and prepares him for it, and a part of his preparation consists in his being taught faithful cooperation with the Divine purposes.D.
1Sa 25:2-39. (MAON, CARMEL)
The prosperous fool.
“Now the name of the man was Nabal (1Sa 25:3; “a son of Belial,” 1Sa 25:17; “Nabal is his name, and folly is with him,” 1Sa 25:25). This chapter is like a picture gallery in which are exhibited the portraits of Samuel and the elders of Israel, David and his men, with the Bedouin marauders in the background; Nabal, the wealthy sheep owner, his sheep shearers and boon companions, Abigail and her maidens, and Ahinoam of Jezreel (mother of Amnon, the eldest son of David). Let us pause and look at one of themNabal. “As his name is, so is he;” a fool, i.e. a stupid, wicked, and godless man. “According to the Old Testament representation folly is a correlate of ungodliness which inevitably brings down punishment” (Keil). He is such an one as is described by the Psalmist (Psa 14:1), often mentioned by the wise man (Pro 17:16; Pro 19:1; Pro 21:24), called a churl by the prophet (Isa 32:5-7), and referred to by our Lord in the parable (Luk 12:13-21). What a contrast between his appearance and that of Samuel!
I. HIS ADVANTAGES WERE GREAT.
1. He belonged to a good family. “He was of the house of Caleb,” who “wholly followed Jehovah God of Israel,” and had “a part among the children of Judah.” But he inherited none of the better qualities of his illustrious ancestor. “A good extraction is a reproach to him who degenerates from it.” Religious privileges also (such as he enjoyed from his connection with Israel), unless rightly used, only serve to increase condemnation.
2. He possessed an excellent wife; “a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance,” prudent, generous, and devout. “A prudent wife is from the Lord” (Pro 19:14). But many a man is little benefited by the gift. His worldly prosperity may be increased by her skilful management of his household (1Sa 25:14, 1Sa 25:25), whilst his spiritual condition is not improved by her example, counsel, and prayers. The persistently bad are hardened by their intimate intercourse with the good.
3. He enjoyed immense prosperity. “The man was very great (wealthy), and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats,” a palatial residence in Maon, and a house at Carmel (Kurmul), where his business lay (1Sa 25:2, 1Sa 25:36). He may have inherited his wealth, or he may have had wisdom enough to know how to make and keep it, industrious himself, and profiting by the industry of others; it is not improbable from his language concerning slaves (1Sa 25:10) that he was one of those usurers and oppressors from whose exactions many of David’s men sought to free themselves by flight (1Sa 22:2). “Here we may see the fickle and uncertain state of the world” (Willet); “the wicked in great power” (Psa 37:35), and the good oppressed (Psa 73:10). But “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luk 12:15). His abundance should make him thankful to God and generous to men. It has often, however, the reverse effect, and “the prosperity of fools shall destroy them” (Deu 8:10-20; Pro 1:32).
II. HIS CHARACTER WAS WORTHLESS. “The man was churlish” (hard and harsh) and evil in his doings (1Sa 25:3).
1. He had evidently no thought of God as the living, ever-present One, the true King of Israel, the Author and Preserver of his life, the Giver of all his blessings, the moral Ruler to whom he was responsible for their proper employment. What was material and sensible was to him the only reality. He recognised in practice no will superior to his own, and lived “without God in the world.”
2. He was regardless of the claims of other people; despising those who were beneath him in social position, headstrong, and resentful of every word which his servants might say to him in opposition to his way and for his good (1Sa 25:17); illiberal toward the needy, unjust and ungrateful, “requiting evil for good” (1Sa 25:21); disparaging the character and conduct of others (1Sa 25:10-12), and railing upon them (1Sa 25:14) in coarse and insulting language. “His wealth had not endowed him with common sense; but, like many in our own day, he imagined that because he was in affluent circumstances he might with impunity indulge in rude, ill-mannered sneers at all who were around him” (W.M. Taylor).
3. He lived for himself alone; regarding his wealth as his own (“my bread and my water,” etc.), using it only for himself; making an ostentatious display (“the feast of a king”), and indulging in intemperance, “the voluntary extinction of reason.” “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
III. HIS END WAS MISERABLE (1Sa 25:36-39).
1. He was overtaken by death very suddenly and unexpectedly, and when he was unprepared for it. “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee,” etc.
2. He suffered the natural penalty of the course which he had pursued.
3. He was consigned to his grave without honour. Whilst “all Israel mourned” for Samuel, none lamented him.
Learn that
1. The worth of a man consists not in what he has, but in what he is.
2. Wealth entails on its possessor a serious responsibility for its proper use.
3. The inequalities of men’s earthly position disappear in the light of truth and eternity.D.
1Sa 25:10. (CARMEL.)
Masters and, servants.
“There are many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master.” What Nabal said was probably the fact. Many servants did in that unsettled time break away from their masters, preferring independence with its risk and privation to servitude with its protection and provision. But the imputation which he intended to cast upon them was either wholly unjust, as in the case of David, or partially so, as in the case of many others. He omitted to state that their conduct toward their masters was due to the conduct of their masters toward them. People are never so ready to see and condemn the faults of the class to which they belong as those of the opposite class. Concerning masters and servants, consider
I. THE NATURE OF THE RELATION. It has been aptly illustrated in the following language:”A party of friends, setting out together upon a journey, soon find it to be the best for all sides that while they are upon the road one of the company should wait upon the rest, another ride forward to seek out lodging and entertainment, a third to carry the portmanteau, a fourth take charge of the horses, a fifth bear the purse, conduct, and direct the route; not forgetting, however, that as they were equal and independent when they set out, so they are all to return to a level again at the journey’s end” (Paley, ‘Mor. Philippians,’ book 3.). The relation is confined to life’s journey alone.
1. It is, in some form or other, necessary and mutually beneficial. The benefit received is really greater on the part of masters than servants.
2. It must of necessity vary with the circumstances of those among whom it exists. Hence the Mosaic law tolerated and regulated a species of slavery (though no Hebrew could become other than a “hired servant” for a specified lime); but “no other ancient religion was ever so emphatically opposed to it, or at least to all inhumanity connected with it, or made such sure preparations for its abolition” (Ewald, ‘Antiquities’).
3. It always involves mutual obligations. These “nowadays” are often neglected. The tie between master and servant (mistress and maid, employer and employed) is not what it once was. There is less dependence on the one hand, and less authority on the other. Each complains of the other: “servants are careless and too independent;” “masters are too exacting and selfish.” And the relation can only be what it ought to be by their common submission to “the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2).
II. THE DUTY OF SERVANTS (Eph 6:5-8; Col 3:22-25; 1Ti 6:1, 1Ti 6:2 Tit 2:9, Tit 2:10; 1Pe 2:18).
1. Obediencelowly, respectful, cheerful; always in subordination to the supreme will of God. This is the first duty of a servant.
2. Diligence in performing the work given them to do, with attention and earnestness, and in the best possible manner, “And be content with your wages” (Luk 3:14).
3. Faithfulness to the trust committed to them, seeking their masters’ interests as their own; honesty, thorough sincerity, “as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.”
III. THE DUTY OF MASTERS (Eph 6:9; Col 4:1).
1. Equity; giving to them “that which is just and equal,” and imposing upon them no unnecessary burdens (Mal 3:5; Jas 5:4).
2. Consideration, respect, courtesy, kindness, seeking their physical, moral, and. spiritual welfare. “Thou shalt not rule over thy servant with rigour” (Le 1Sa 25:43). And a mere money payment is not all that a fellow creature is entitled to expect, or an adequate compensation for his services.
3. Consistency; acting in accordance with their position, reproving wrong doing, setting a good example, exercising their authority and influence as a trust committed to them by God and in obedience to his will. Those who expect to receive honour must seek to make themselves worthy of it.
Let both learn
1. To be less observant of the faults of others than of their own.
2. To be more concerned about fulfilling their duties than insisting on their rights.
3. To look for their chief reward in the approbation of God.D.
1Sa 25:14-42. (CARMEL.)
Abigail.
Of her family and early life nothing is recorded. When first mentioned she was the wife of the wealthy and churlish Nabal. It was an ill-assorted union, probably due to parental arrangement. She was distinguished by a beautiful countenance and form, and (what is not always associated therewith) by a beautiful mind and character, embodying the ideal of womanhood (Pro 31:10-31). “Where do we find in all the heathen world a woman comparable with Abigail, the daughter of the wilderness?” She was a woman of
1. Superior intelligence, practical wisdom, prudence, tact, and good management. “Of good understanding” (1Sa 25:3). The part she took in the affairs of her husband is evident from the servants telling her of the threatening danger (1Sa 25:17), and her apology (1Sa 25:25). Her discretion was also shown in her reserve (1Sa 25:19).
2. Prompt decision, energy, and activity. “Abigail made haste,” etc. (1Sa 25:18). Not a moment was lost, and she was promptly obeyed.
3. Unaffected humility, meekness, modesty, and self-devotion. “She fell before David on her face,” etc. (1Sa 25:23, 1Sa 25:41). Her meekness and patience must have been greatly tried by the temper of Nabal, and had doubtless previously averted many a disaster.
4. Noble generosity and sacrifice. “Two hundred loaves,” etc. (1Sa 25:18). She felt that no sacrifice was too great to save her husband and his household. “David’s men and David felt that these were not the gifts of a sordid calculation, but the offerings of a generous heart. And it won them, their gratitude, their enthusiasm, their unfeigned homage” (Robertson).
5. Conciliatory, faithful, eloquent speech, and pacifying, beneficent influence (1Sa 25:24-31). Having taken the blame upon herself (as intercessor), and referred to her husband “with that union of playfulness and seriousness which above all things turns away wrath” (Stanley), she directed the thoughts of David to God, by the leadings of whose providence she had been sent to divert him from his purpose, utters the wish flint he to whom vengeance belongs would avenge him, humbly begs the acceptance of her offering for his young men, and beseeches his forgiveness. Then (assuming her prayer to be granted) she assures him of the brilliant future that awaited him, inasmuch as he would fulfil the purposes of Jehovah, and not his own; that, should any one seek to do him harm, Jehovah would preserve him in safety, and punish his adversaries; and that when he should be “ruler over Israel” it would be a source of comfort, and not of trouble, to him that he had not shed blood causelessly, nor taken vengeance into his own hand. Finally she says, “And Jehovah will do good to my lord, and thou wilt remember thine handmaid” (for good)”remember the things which I have spoken” (Dathe). No dissuasions from revenge could be more effective.
“When a world of men
Could not prevail with all their oratory,
Yet hath a woman’s kindness overruled.”
“Doubtless she had not studied eloquence in the schools, but the Spirit of God alone made her such an orator. God put wisdom into her heart, and it flowed out in wise discourse” (Roos).
6. Exalted piety; faith in the righteousness and goodness of God, his overruling providence, and the establishment of his kingdom (see the song of Hannah), devotion, spiritual insight, manifested in this appeal, and in her whole conduct (Pro 31:26, Pro 31:30). It is not surprising that, after the death of Nabal, “David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife” (1Sa 25:39).D.
1Sa 25:29. (CARMEL.)
The bundle of life.
1. The bundle of life, or the living (the word bundle, tseror, being used once before of the bag or purse of money which each of Joseph’s brethren found in his sack of corn, Gen 42:35), signifies the society or congregation of the living out of which men are taken and cut off by death (Barrett, ‘Synopsis of Criticisms’). It contains those who possess life, continued and prosperous life, in the present world in the midst of the dangers to which they are exposed, and by which others are taken away from “the land of the living” (Isa 4:3). Life is a gift of God, and its continuance is presumptive of his favour.
2. What is here desired and predicted concerning them is based upon their moral distinction from other men. They are, like David, servants of God, and differ from others, as David from Saul and Nabal, in their character and conduct. They constitute the community of the godly in “this present evil world,” and “their names are written in heaven.”
3. They are of inestimable worth in the sight of God. He values all men because of their capacity for goodness, but much more some on account of their actual possession of it. Their worth surpasses all earthly possessions and distinctions. “The whole system of bodies (the firmament, the stars, the earth, and the kingdoms of it) and spirits together is unequal to the least emotion of charity” (Pascal).
4. They are his special possession; belong to him in a peculiar manner, because of what he had done for them “above all people,” and their own voluntary devotion to him. “Know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself.” “The Lord taketh pleasure in his people,” and calls them “my jewels” (Mal 3:17).
5. They live in intimate communion with him. “A people near unto him” (Psa 148:14); “bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God.”
6. They are preserved safely from the malicious designs of their enemies, and from all evil. “Should a man arise to pursue thee and seek thy soul,” etc. The expression is derived from the common usage of men, who put valuable things together and keep them near their persons to prevent their being lost or injured. “Your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3).
7. They have a common participation in the strength and blessedness afforded by his presence and favour. Their life is of the highest kindlife in the truest, fullest sense, directly derived from him who is “the Fountain of life,” and involving all real good. “In thy presence,” etc. (Psa 16:11.) The life of others is but “a race to death,” and they are “dead while they hive.”
8. They are designed for useful service; not merely to be looked upon and admired, but employed according to the will of the owner. It is for this that they are preserved.
9. They have “the promise of eternal life.” Their spiritual fellowship with God and with each other in this life is an earnest of its continuance and perfection in the life to come. “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” The pious Jew dies with the words of the text upon his lips, and has them inscribed upon his tomb. “Whosoever is so hidden in the gracious fellowship of the Lord in this life that no enemy can harm him or injure his life, the Lord will not allow to perish, even though temporal death should come, but will then receive him into eternal life” (Keil). “And so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
10. Their destiny (like their character) is the opposite of that of the ungodly. “Concerning the bodies of the righteous it is said, ‘He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds’ (Isa 57:21); and of their souls it is said, ‘And the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God.’ But concerning the bodies of the wicked it is said, ‘There is no peace, saith God, to the wicked.’ And of their souls it is said, ‘And the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling'” (Talmud, quoted by Hurwitz).D.
1Sa 25:32, 1Sa 25:33. (CARMEL.)
Moral restraints.
1. Between the purpose to transgress and the intended act of transgression there is usually an interval, and in that interval there may occur physical restraints, rendering the act impossible but not affecting the purpose or disposition; or moral restraints, affecting the purpose, and often altering it and thereby preventing the act. The latter alone truly tests and reveals the character. And of this nature was the restraint put upon David when he was on his way to inflict vengeance on Nabal and his household for the affront which he had received.
2. His terrible purpose seems surprising after his forbearance toward Saul (1Sa 24:7, 1Sa 24:22). But the conquest of temptation is not unfrequently the occasion of subsequently succumbing to it. This happens when any one supposes that he is no longer in danger from it, and ceases to watch against it, and depend on God for his safe keeping. “David was not secure against the temptation to personal vengeance and to self-help, although he had previously resisted it. The lesson of his own weakness in that respect was all the more needed that this was one of the most obvious dangers to an ordinary Oriental ruler (1Sa 24:21). But David was not to be such, and when God in his good providence restrained him as he had almost fallen, he showed him the need of inward as well as of outward deliverance, and the sufficiency of his grace to preserve him from spiritual as from temporal dangers” (Edersheim). Consider special moral restraints as
I. MUCH NEEDED EVEN BY A GOOD MAN, because of
1. External incentives to sin. The language of Nabal was adapted to excite anger and revenge, as his servant plainly perceived (1Sa 25:17).
2. Sudden impulses of passion, under which one of ardent temperament especially is in danger of taking a rash oath (1Sa 25:22), and rushing towards its accomplishment without fully considering what he does, or “inquiring of the Lord” whether it is right.
3. Natural deficiency of strength to resist temptation, and natural liability to self-deception. Reason and conscience should always hold the rein, but how often is it torn from their grasp by fiery passions! David probably also thought for the moment that it was right to avenge the wrong which had been done; but even if Nabal’s offence were the greatest conceivable, he was not yet constituted king and judge of the people, much less ought he to inflict so fearful a vengeance for a private offence. “Lord, what is man? What need have we to pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation!”
II. VARIOUSLY VOUCHSAFED ACCORDING TO HIS NEED. What is most needed is the restoration of reason and conscience to their proper place and power, and this is often brought about by
1. Providential circumstances, leading to reflection and the recognition of the will of God.
2. Wise and faithful counsel (1Sa 25:26-31), indicating that will, addressed to conscience, and persuading to the adoption of a worthier course.
3. Inward influence, exerted by the Spirit of God, giving the inclination and strength to walk in “the good and right way.” “Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man,” etc. (Job 33:29). And with him whose heart is not “fully set to do evil” he worketh not in vain.
III. GRATEFULLY ASCRIBED BY HIM TO GOD. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,” etc. He is grateful to the messenger of God, but first and chiefly to God himself; and his gratitude is sincere and fervent on account of
1. The evil which has been prevented.
2. The good which has been conferred.
3. The abounding mercy which has been experienced.
Do you think that any one will praise God in heaven with so loud a voice as I shall?” said one (who had been speaking of the course of flagrant transgression from which by Divine mercy he had been reclaimed). “Yes,” was the reply, “I hope to do so, because by Divine mercy I have been kept from it.” “It is not a converting, but a crowning grace; such an one as irradiates and puts a circle of glory about the head of him upon whom it descends; it is the Holy Ghost coming down upon him in the ‘form of a dove,’ and setting him triumphant above the necessity of tears and sorrow, mourning and repentance, the sad after-games of a lost innocence” (South, ‘Prevention of Sin an Invaluable Mercy’).D.
HOMILIES BY D. FRASER
1Sa 25:29
The bundle of life and the sling.
The appeal of Abigail had all the more persuasiveness that she avowed her sympathy with David’s cause, and her faith in the Divine purpose to make him king. Such a conviction was by this time widely diffused in the land among those who feared Jehovah and honoured the prophet Samuel. We have seen that it was confessed by Saul himself, and by Jonathan it was cherished with generous pleasure. But Nabal would not have it mentioned in his presence. In his eyes David was a mere runaway servant of the king who had turned freebooter. His wife showed the vigour of her mind, the clearness of her judgment, and the strength of her faith in not fearing the displeasure of Nabal or the wrath of King Saul, but declaring her confident belief that the Lord would raise David to be ruler over Israel. On this ground she entreated him not to burden his conscience or sully his name with a hasty deed of blood. What a power of figurative expression those Eastern believers had; and not least those devout women whose spirits were stirred by urgent occasions to ardent utteranceDeborah in her triumph, Hannah in her song, Abigail in her appeal!
I. THE FIGURE OF SAFETY. A soul bound up in the bundle of life with Jehovah. What could a Nabal’s churlishness, or even a Saul’s pursuit, avail against a man whose life God guarded by night and day? If we use Abigail’s phrase we extend its meaning. The question with her was of David’s preservation to fill the throne of Israel; but it is not for us under the New Testament to set our hearts on earthly rank. Our treasure is in heaven. Our inheritance is reserved for us till our Lord’s return. Our days are few and uncertain. But we have an eternal life, freely given to us in Christ Jesus; and the bundle of life means for us the unity of all the living ones in Christ, the totality of the life which “is hid with Christ in God.” They who are bound up therein have been taken out of the bundles of sin and death, extricated from what is evil and therefore doomed to destruction, and have been by the power of the Holy Ghost joined to Christ and the Church. Happy day that sees this done! Strong security that follows! Who is he that can harm us if we are Christ’s, bound up in the bundle of life with God our Saviour?
II. THE FIGURE OF REJECTION. Abigail made no further reference to Nabal. He was her husband, and in no case could he be formidable to David. All she asked was that the son of Jesse would magnanimously overlook his churlishness. But the whole country rang with reports of the angry pursuit of David by the king’, and Abigail predicted that his enemies would have discomfiture and rejection from the Lord his God. With rare felicity of allusion she spoke of their souls as flung away, as a stone is cast “out of the middle of a sling.” The very mention of the weapon with which David had gained his first great success must have stirred his faith and courage. The figure, as the history shows, was remarkably appropriate to the career of David’s chief enemy, Saul. “As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, so is he that giveth honour to a fool” (Pro 26:8). Now honour had been given to Saul. He was anointed and exalted to the throne, and yet was at heart unwise and disobedient. So was the stone laid in the pan of a sling. After a while we see the stone whirled round in the sling, i.e. we see Saul troubled and tossedwayward, disturbed, passionate, insanely jealous. The end was now drawing near, and the stone was about to be east out of the sling in despair and death on Mount Gilboa.
On 1Sa 25:32, 1Sa 25:33 Dr. South has left us a sermon entitled, ‘Prevention of sin an invaluable blessing.’ In the “application” of it the preacher shows that a much higher satisfaction is to be found from a conquered than from a conquering passion. “Revenge is certainly the most luxurious morsel that the devil can put into a sinner’s mouth. But do we think that David could have found half the pleasure in the execution of his revenge that he expresses here upon the disappointment of it? Possibly it might have pleased him in the present heat and hurry of his rage, but must have displeased him infinitely more in the cool, sedate reflections of his mind.” Another point which South enforces is that the temper with which we receive providential prevention of sin is a criterion of the gracious or ungracious condition of our hearts. “Whosoever has anything of David’s piety will be perpetually plying the throne of grace with such like acknowledgments asBlessed be that Providence which delivered me from such a lewd company or such a vicious acquaintance! And blessed be that God who cast stops and hindrances in my way when I was attempting the commission of such and such a sin; who took me out of such a course of life, such a place, or such an employment, which was a continual snare and temptation to me! And blessed be such a preacher and such a friend whom God made use of to speak a word in season to my wicked heart, and so turned me out of the paths of death and destruction, and saved me in spite of the world, the devil, and myself!”F.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
1Sa 25:1. And Samuel died This great prophet was in the ninety-seventh or ninety-eighth year of his age: he had ruled sixteen, or, as others think, twenty years before the reign of Saul, and judged the Israelites, that is, was their principal judge, for about forty years after. No wonder that so righteous a ruler, and so just a judge, should be universally lamented, especially when the wisdom and equity of his government, compared with Saul’s tyranny and extravagancies, made his memory more dear, and his loss more regretted. He was buried in his house at Ramah; for the Jews had no places of public sepulture. Each family had its private sepulchres; which appears to have been the case from Abraham to the time of Joseph of Arimathea. They were, indeed, for the most part, in fields and rocks; and Samuel is the first that we read of who was buried in, or at his own house; probably in his garden: see ch. 1Sa 28:3 though we are afterwards told that Joab was buried in the same manner, 1Ki 2:34 and the practice, for aught we know, might have been frequent among them; as we are told it was enjoined the Thebans, “before they built a house, to build a sepulchre in the place.” Samuel was now attended by all Israel to his grave; and his remains were removed, many centuries after, with incredible pomp, and almost one continued train of attendants, from Ramah to Constantinople, by the emperor Arcadius, Ann. Dom. 401.
REFLECTIONS.The best of men are dying worms. Samuel departs in peace: he had lived highly respected, and dies universally lamented. His last days he had spent far from a busy world, in the pleasing enjoyment of presiding in the school of the prophets at Naioth, where he was at leisure to look forward to that rest to which he was going, and wait his joyful dismission. He was buried in Ramah, in his own house or garden, and all Israel mourned his loss; a loss the more sensibly felt in the present distracted condition of their country under Saul’s outrageous government. David hereupon retires to Paran, that he might be more out of the way of Saul. Note; (1.) In age it becomes us particularly to look forward, and as we get nearer our journey’s end, to prepare for our great change. (2.) The death of a great and faithful minister will draw forth tears of real grief from all who know the invaluable blessing they have lost, and who sensibly feel the want of his admonitions, preaching, and prayers.
Wilderness of Paran Which was to the south of Judea, and on the confines of Arabia, nay, the Mahometans make it a part of Arabia Deserta; and David himself is generally thought to own it such in that dolorous complaint of the 120th Psalm, where he laments his so long continuance in the tents of Kedar: but that by no means follows; for he might, upon Saul’s pursuit, have passed from Paran to Arabia, and so sojourned there a considerable time; but as it was the place of Ishmael’s residence, it cannot, I think, well be doubted to have been part of Arabia. There seems no doubt, from the whole of this history, that Paran, Maon, and Carmel, were contiguous. See note on chap. 1Sa 23:14.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
VII. Samuels death. Davids march into the wilderness of Paran. The history of the foolish Nabal and the wise Abigail
1Sa 25:1-44
1And Samuel died; and all the Israelites [Israel] were gathered together, and lamented him and buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose and went down1 to the wilderness of Paran.2
2And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel. And the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats; and Hebrews 3 was shearing3 his sheep in Carmel. Now [And] the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail; and she was a woman [the woman was] of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance; but the man was churlish and evil 4in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb.4 And David heard in the wilderness 5that Nabal did shear his sheep. And David sent out [om. out] ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel and go to Nabal and 6greet5 him in my name. And thus shall ye say to him that liveth6 in prosperity [om. that liveth in prosperity], Peace be both [om. both7] to thee, and peace be to 7thy house, and peace be unto all that thou hast. And now I have heard that thou hast shearers.8 Now thy shepherds which [om. which] were with us; we hurt9 them not, neither was there aught missing unto them all the while they were in Carmel. 8Ask thy young men and they will show [tell] thee. Wherefore let the young men find favor in thine eyes, for we come in a good day; give, I pray thee, whatsoever 9[what] cometh to thine hand unto thy servants10 and to thy son David. And when [om. when] Davids young men11 came they [and] spake to Nabal according to all 10those words in the name of David, and ceased.12 And Nabal answered Davids servants and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be [are] many 11servants13 nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my flesh [meat] that I have killed for my shearers, 12and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be? So [And] Davids young men turned [ins. to] their way, and went again [returned] and came and told 13him [ins. according to14] all those sayings. 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.
14But [And] one of the young men told Abigail, Nabals wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of [from] the wilderness to salute our master; and he railed15 15on them. But [And] the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything, as long as we were conversant with them, when we were 16in the fields [field]. They were a wall unto us both by night and day all the while 17we were with them keeping sheep. Now therefore [And now] 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 [bad man] that a man [one] cannot speak to him.16
18Then [And] Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves and two bottles [skins] of wine and five sheep ready dressed and five measures [seahs] of parched corn and an hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs and laid them 19on [ins. the] asses, And she [om. she] said unto her servants [young men], Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But [And] she told not her husband Nabal. 20And it was so, as she rode [And she was riding] on the ass that she came down by [and descending into] the covert of the hill [mountain], and behold, David and his 21men came down [were coming down] against her, and she met them. Now [And] David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed17 of all that pertained unto him, and he hath requited 22me evil for good. So and more also do God unto the enemies of [om. the enemies of18] David if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light19 any that pisseth against the wall [any male].
23And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before 24David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground,20 And fell at his feet,21 and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be [On me, even me, my lord, be the sin], and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the 25words of thine handmaid. Let not my lord, I pray thee [om. thee], regard this man of Belial [this bad man], even [om. even] Nabal. For, as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name and folly22 is with him. But I, thine handmaid, saw not the 26young men of my lord whom thou didst send. Now, therefore [And now], my lord, as the Lord [Jehovah] liveth and as thy soul liveth, seeing [om. seeing] the Lord [Jehovah] hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood [into blood-guiltiness] and from23 avenging [saving] thyself with thine own hand. [ins. And] now, let 27thine enemies and they that seek evil to my lord be as Nabal. And now, this blessing which thine handmaid hath brought24 unto my lord, let it even [om. even] be 28given unto the young men that follow my lord. I pray thee, forgive [Forgive, I pray thee] the trespass of thine handmaid; for the Lord [Jehovah] will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord [Jehovah], 29and evil hath not been [shall not be] found in thee all thy days. Yet [And] a man is risen25 to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul [life]; but [and] the soul [life] of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord [Jehovah] thy God, and the souls [life] of thine enemies, them [it] shall he sling out as out of 30the middle [sling out in the pan26] of a [the] sling. And it shall come to pass, when the Lord [Jehovah] shall have done [shall do] to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed [shall appoint] 31thee ruler over Israel, That this shall be no grief27 unto thee nor offence of heart unto my lord, either [om. either28] that thou hast shed blood causeless [causelessly] or [and] that my lord hath avenged himself [hath saved himself with his own hand]. But [And] when the Lord [Jehovah] shall have dealt [shall deal] well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid.29
32And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord [Jehovah] God of Israel, which 33[who] sent thee this day to meet me; And blessed be thy advice [understanding30], and blessed be thou, which [who] hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood 34[into blood-guiltiness] and from avenging [saving] myself with my own hand. For [And] in very deed, as the Lord [Jehovah], God of Israel liveth, which [who] hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely [om. surely] there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning-light any 35that pisseth against the wall [any male]. So [And] 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.
36And Abigail came to Nabal. And behold, he held a feast in his house like the feast of a king; and Nabals heart was merry within him, for [and] he was very 37drunken, wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light. But [And] it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and [that] his wife had [om. had] told him31 these things, that [and] his heart died 38within him and he became as a stone. And it came to pass about ten days32 after, 39that the Lord [Jehovah] smote Nabal that [and] he died. And when [om. when] David heard that Nabal was dead [ins. and] he said, Blessed be the Lord [Jehovah] that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil, for [and] the Lord [Jehovah] hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail 40to take her to him to wife. And when [om. when] the servants of David were come [came] to Abigail to Carmel they [and] spake unto her saying, David sent us unto 41thee to take thee to him to wife. And she arose and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thy handmaid be [thy handmaid is] a servant to 42wash the feet of the servants of my lord. And Abigail hasted and arose and rode upon an [the] ass with five damsels of hers that33 went after her, and she went after the messengers of David and became his wife.
43David also [And David] took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they were also both of 44them his wives. But Saul had given [And Saul gave] Michal his daughter, Davids wife to Phalti the son of Laish, which [who] was of Gallim.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Sa 25:1. Brief account of Samuels death.And Samuel died.The narrator supposed Samuels death to fall in the time of the events here related.All Israel mourned him, not merely because his career as judge and leader up to the time of the establishment of the kingdom was fresh in the memory of the people, but because his political work as prophet and watcher over the kingdom had remained to the end of profound importance for the whole people, as is clear from his relation to Saul and David on the one hand, and his position as head of the prophetic community, on the other. At his burial the people were no doubt represented by their elders. As to such mourning for the dead see Gen 50:10.And buried him in his house at Ramah.Not literally: in his house,this would not have accorded (Lev 19:16) with the Jewish purification laws (Then.),but in some space, court or garden (Mat 27:60) belonging to the house. Grot.: Sepulchres were then usually private, see Gen 23:9; Gen 50:5. On such interments in the house, comp. 1Ki 2:34; 2Ki 21:18; 2Ch 33:20. Tradition puts the burial-place of Samuel on the height of Mizpah, where it is yet shown. The harmonization of this statement with our passage by regarding Ramah as a region (Pressel, s. v. Ramah in Herzog) is untrustworthy by reason of the untenableness of this geographical and topographical supposition and the distance of Mizpah from the city Ramah (comp. Ngelsbach in Herz. XIII. 399). In Ramahfor the prophets seem, though we infer it only from this passage and 1Sa 28:3, to have shared with the kings the right of burial within the city (Thenius).34
1Sa 25:2 sq. Davids affair with the rich land-holder and herd-owner Nabal of Maon, after he had gone down from his hitherto abode in the highland of Engedi farther south and into the wilderness of Paran. The Sept. (Vat.) has Maon instead of Paran, and this is taken as the original reading by Then., Ew., Bunsen, because the wilderness of Paran would be too far off (at least fifteen geographical miles) from Nabals residence (Thenius). But this supposition is certainly unnecessary (Win. s. v. 193, Rem. 1); for David, descending southward, withdrew into the northernmost part of this somewhat undefined wilderness, which extended widely between the wilderness of Shur on the west, the present Jebel et-Tih on the south, the Edomite territory on the east, and the land of Canaan on the north (Winer).35 Cler.: the boundaries of this desert are not clearly defined. Comp. Keil on Num 10:12. Probably the wilderness of Judah no longer afforded sustenance to David and his large body of six hundred men (Keil). Nabal is called a man of Maon because he dwelt in this city in the hill-country of Judah (Jos 15:55). His business (see Exo 23:6) on the contrary was in Carmel, where Saul had raised his monument of victory over the Amalekites, whence also came his wife Abigail, the Carmelitess (1Sa 27:3). It is the present Kurmul on the elevated plain of the highland of Judah, about a mile north of Maon [and ten miles south-east of Hebron.Tr.]. It is thence easily understood how Nabal, living in the mountain-city Maon, had his herds on the high plain in Carmel. Thenius understands mount Carmel [in the north], because a mountain is spoken of in 1Sa 25:5; 1Sa 25:7-8; 1Sa 25:13; 1Sa 25:20; 1Sa 25:35, and because it is said that Nabal had his possessions, his herds, on Carmel, and the mountain-meadow would be specially wholesome for the sheep and goats. But, as to height, the place Carmel lay on a mountain-plain, which afforded the best pasture for the herds. Moreover, the distance of Mount Carmel from the scene of this history [nearly one hundred miles north-west.Tr.] would exclude it. Maon, Carmel, Ziph, are named together in Jos 15:55. Nabals claim to the title of very great, that is, rich man, is proved by the size of his herds (three thousand sheep and one thousand goats).Sheep-shearing was usually accompanied by festivities, as now also on great estates. While the rich man was shearing at Carmel, David sent to him; the protasis begins with and it came to pass, in the shearing ( ), 1Sa 25:3-4, is explanatory parenthesis, and the apodosis begins with 1Sa 25:5 (Then.).36 The statements of the names, Nabal, Abigail, and the descriptions of the persons are arranged chiastically: The woman good of understanding (sensible, wise) and beautiful of formthe man, on the contrary, hard, churlish of disposition and wicked in conduct. As to the last word of the verse, the Kethib or text () according to his heart would mean following only the desire of his mind (Maur.), that is, self-willedwhich is, however, linguistically impossible (Buns.). The Qeri or marginal reading (), found also in some manuscripts and printed editions in the text (Then.), is, with Targum and Vulgate, certainly preferable: he was of the family of Caleb. The two former statements sufficiently characterize his disposition; a third would be out of keeping with the simplicity of the description. On the other hand, the statement of his origin accords with his importance as a man great by his riches, and it is introduced as something new by the words and he (), which would not suit the continuation of the moral portraiture. Caleb had received for a possession the region of Hebron, near which Maon and Carmel lay (Jos 15:13 sq.). Comp. 1Sa 30:14 : the southland of Caleb, a region in the south of Judah. The translation of the Sept., a doggish, cynical man (so Arab, and Syr.) and of Josephus leading a cynical life (from a dog) must be rejected. [So Boothroyd: irritable as a dog (Philipps.)Tr.].
1Sa 25:4. As Nabal was a man rich in herds, it was worth while to send an embassy to him from some distance for the purpose indicated in the context. The distance would indeed be great and improbable, if with Thenius we took Carmel to be the mountain of that name. The stately number ten of the messengers shows the importance and solemnity of the embassy; such a solemn sending would not suit the proximity of Maon, Davids abode according to the reading of the Sept. In Carmel Nabal had a house (1Sa 25:35-36). The Sept. adds to Nabal: the Carmelite, taking the designation from 1Sa 30:5, where it belongs to Abigail. Ask in my name after his peace, give him friendly greeting. Comp. Exo 18:7.
1Sa 25:6. Here the content and form of the greeting is exactly prescribed. First, the general wish: [Eng. A. V.: to him that liveth (in prosperity)]. The translation to my brothers (, Vulg.), is impossible by reason of the following thou; it could only be my brother = friend, but it is an arbitrary conjecture. Some take the word () as adjective [living, so Eng. A. V.Tr.]. Clericus joins it to the preceding say and renders: to the living (say), if ye find him alive, S. Schmid: and thus shall ye say: to the living (that is, the living God) I commend thee. But the first (Clericus) is superfluous, since in sending the messengers, David assumed that Nabal still lived; the latter (Schmid) is untenable because of the arbitrariness of the reference to God. Bttcher connects it with the say, and takes the Sing. () in the sense of man (as one possessing vigorous life), adducing the use of the Plu. () and the Collective-form () in the sense of people, as in 1Sa 18:18; Num 35:3; 2Sa 23:13. The meaning would then be: Say to the living one, that is, to the man. But the Sing, is never used in this sense. Against De Wettes earlier rendering: say to the well-living [so Philippson and Eng. A. V.Tr.] is the fact that the simple word will not bear this meaning [the addition of well or in prosperity is unwarranted.Tr.]. The Sept. has for this year ( as in Gen 18:10; Gen 18:14), that is, mayest thou with thy house be in peace till the return of this happy daya tolerably far-fetched idea, impossible as a translation of the text, and a mere makeshift to avoid the difficulty.It is better (considering the difficulties) to take the word as Subst. = life. It is objected that only the Plu. is so used; but the Sing, is found not only in the formula of swearing by the life of thy soul, of Jehovah, but also in Lev 25:36 in the signification life. The phrase (), however, can then mean neither for a long time, for many years (Vulg. according to another reading, and Jos.), nor for the life, the whole lifetime, forever (Chald., D. Kimchi, Dathe); the expression does not allow these renderings, which introduce a foreign idea (long), unless we change the following letter () into the suffix () and read for thy life. But, instead of this bold and unsupported conjecture, it is better to take life (De Wette: zum leben unto life) as = fortune, prosperity, and to regard the expression as a popular form of congratulation, not found in the literary language; Luther: success (glck auf)! Maurer: to life, that is, may it turn out well; may thy affairs be fortunate [so Rashi, and apparently Talmud Bab., Berakoth fol. 55, 2.Tr.]. We cannot admit such a congratulation is superfluous by reason of what follows (Then.), for the threefold special peace on Nabal, his house and his possessions is the unfolding of the general wish, the latter is the prelude, the former the triple chord. It may be freely rendered thou shalt live or live thou long! [Bib. Com. prefers to attach the following letter () as suffix and render: and ye shall say thus about his life, which seems forced and unsatisfactory, though it accounts for the , which in its present position is disturbing. Cahen: ainsi pour la vie! thus for life! which is obscure. Wellhausen sees nothing better than to my brother. In support of the rendering which Erdmann adopts Gesenius cites the Arabic formula: may God grant thee life! The phrase cannot be said to have received a satisfactory explanation.Tr.]
1Sa 25:17 sq. After the instruction to greet comes the direction how to present his earnest request to Nabal. Now I have heard that thou hast shearers.These words correspond precisely to the real life, and can only be rightly understood when we recollect that the regularly recurring sheepshearing was one of the greatest events in the housekeeping of such an establishment. In accordance with the urgency of his request, which is due to his pressing need of sustenance for his men, Davids introduction is very circumstantial and is based on a captatio benevolenti; he reminds Nabal of the peaceful association of his men with Nabals herdsmen during his stay in the wilderness (thy herdsmen were with us), of the forbearance exercised by his warriors towards the unarmed herdsmen (we did not injure them as in Jdg 18:7; on the form see Ges. 53, 3 Rem. 6), and of the honorable disinterestedness with which his people had refrained from appropriating the property of others (nothing was missing to them). The last words may refer, however, to the protection afforded the herdsmen by Davids people against the predatory incursions of the neighboring desert-tribes; for such protection against thieving attacks (which came especially from the south) is expressly affirmed in 1Sa 25:16; 1Sa 25:21. Thus, even in his outlawry, David showed himself the protector of his people (Keil). Apart, therefore, from eastern custom, according to which such a request would seem no ways strange, David had a certain right to ask a gift from Nabals superfluity; he had indirectly no small share in the festal joy of Nabal and his house; without some part of the superfluity of the inhabitants whom he protected, he could not have maintained himself with his army (Ewald). And this must modify Sthelins remark (p. 19), that this narrative shows that David blackmailed even his own countrymen, regarding himself, like an Arab sheikh, as lord of the desert where he lived. For the rest Robinson remarks II. 429 [Am. ed. I., 498Tr.] in reference to the permanence of customs in the East: On such a festive occasion near a town or village, even in our own day an Arab Sheikh of the neighboring desert would hardly fail to put in a word, either in person or by message; and his message, both in form and substance, would be only the transcript of that of David.In a good day, that is, a festive, happy day; sheep-shearing was conducted like a festival (comp. Gen 38:12; 2Sa 13:23), when feasts were held, strangers entertained, and portions given to the poor. Give what thy hand finds, that is, as much as thou canst, to thy servants and thy son David, an expression of deepest reverence and devotion, and of the piety of the younger man towards the older, in order that he might share in his paternal goodwill.
1Sa 25:9. The messengers executed their commission, making the request in Davids name. And they sat down, so we must translate the Heb. word (), not they waited modestly for an answer (Buns.), not they were silent (Vulg., Grot., De Wette). That they sat down is not a superfluous remark, but serves to complete the description, which is true to the reality in the smallest details. Formal sitting down is part of oriental custom in such visits; it is not necessary, therefore, to refer to their need of rest, though, after so long a journey, they need not have been weakly persons (Then.), to require rest. Thenius change of text so that this shall read and he arose ( after Sept. he sprang up) is improbable.
1Sa 25:10 sq. The insulting answer with which Nabal contemptuously rebuffed Davids ambassadors. Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?He knew him well; all the more insulting is this answer, whose meaning is: what do I care for David? what have I to do with him? There are many servants nowadays that break away every one from his master.(The Art. stands here with Partcp., not with Subst., , because the former alone is to be distinctly defined (Maurer)).To his impertinent question Nabal adds a rude insult to Davids servants, whom he characterizes as good-for-nothing runaways, and also to David himself, to whose relation to Saul he maliciously alludes.
1Sa 25:11. Nabal speaks out his mean, niggardly mind (, Perf. with consec., here expressing future time, Ges. 126, 6, Rem. 1). The whole sentence is to be taken as a question: Shall I take? The bread and water represents the necessary sustenance of life. The flesh stands for luxuries beyond mere necessaries. Instead of water the Sept. has wine in accordance with its arbitrary way of getting rid of difficulties. In the excitement of his avaricious soul, Nabal declares that he will give David and his men neither necessaries of life nor what he had killed for the feasting of his shearers.[Bib. Com.: The mention of water indicates a country where water was scarce, Jos 15:19. Or, bread and water may=meat and drink.Tr.]
1Sa 25:12. The report of this contemptuous and insulting rebuff.
1Sa 25:13. David determines to take bloody revenge for the insult and hostile reception. Nabals wicked response to his friendly and modest overture excites his anger. The following narrative shows that he herein sinned before God, but also how Gods wonderful providence saved him from the factual completion of his sin.
1Sa 25:14-22. Abigail, Nabals wife, goes to David.
1Sa 25:14-17. One of Nabals servants informs Abigail of what has occurred; he relates Nabals bearing towards Davids greeting (1Sa 25:14), describes the friendly protection they had had from Davids people (1Sa 25:15-16), asks Abigails counsel and help in respect to the danger that threatened her husband and his whole household, and excuses himself for applying to her by referring to Nabals bad character and inaccessibility to well-meant representations and requests.
1Sa 25:14. A lad of the lads.The word lad (), which is wanting in Sept. and Vulg. [which render, as Eng. A. V., one of the lads.Tr.], is indeed a rounding of the phrase, but is not, for this reason, and because these translations have properly declined to transfer the phrase literally, to be regarded as the error of a copyist (Then.). [lit. to bless.Tr.] = to congratulate, greet, comp. 1Sa 13:10.And he drove over them, that is, as above described, with insulting, angry words.[Eng. A. V. railed on them, better flew on them.Tr.] See on 1Sa 14:32, 1Sa 15:19.37
1Sa 25:15 is the confirmation of the words of 1Sa 25:8 : ask thy young men, and they will tell thee. The testimony of these youths to the friendly and helpful conduct of Davids men agrees exactly with what David told his messengers to say, 1Sa 25:7. On the phrase: all the days of our walking with them ( , Eng. A. V.: conversant with them), it is to be remarked, that sometimes, as here, substantives of time, place or manner stand in construct relation to a whole sentence (Ew., 286, 3, 1).The words: while we were in the field (Vulg., Syr., Arab.: in the wilderness), are not to be connected with the following (Sept., Syr., Then.), making they were a wall to us [1Sa 25:16] the apodosis, because then in the words: as long as we were with them keeping the flocks, there would be a second indication of time in the same sentence (comp. Zec 2:5).
1Sa 25:16. A wall, that is, a powerful protection against the wild beasts and the attacks of robbers from the Arabian desert.
1Sa 25:17. Is determined (), is a thing settled, as in 1Sa 20:9. It is not necessary on account of the and he (), which refers not to David, but to Nabal, to insert with the Sept. thou () after consider (), as Thenius insists, for such a contrast is not demanded. Nabal is described as a bad man [so should Eng. A. V. read instead of son of Belial.Tr.], see on 1Sa 1:16; 1Sa 30:22; 2Sa 2:12; 1Ki 21:10. So that one cannot speak (=from speaking), or he is too wicked for one to be able to speak to him. This is the confidential expression of the estimation in which Nabal was held by his household and servants, comp. 1Sa 25:3.
1Sa 25:18 sq. To avert the impending danger, Abigail, on the representation and at the request of the faithful servant, sets out to go to David without her husbands knowledge, with a rich present of various articles of food. They carried two hundred loaves of bread, two skins, not jars (De Wette), five prepared sheep, of parched corn (, 1Sa 17:17=by-meat) five seahs=one and two-thirds ephahs (Then.). Sept. has five ephahs instead of five seahs, thinking the latter too little for so many people [the seah about one and a half pecks, ephah=about four and a half pecks.Tr.]; but it would not be too little as entremets. We need not, therefore, with Ewald read five hundred seahs.[Abigails present was intended not to supply Davids army, but to show her good-will.Tr.]; one hundred cakes of dried grapes (), two hundred cakes of pressed figs ().
1Sa 25:19. Her journey is described in the minutest particulars; she sends the servants on before with the present, herself following, riding on an ass, in order the better to superintend the movement.
1Sa 25:20. Her meeting with David. In the covert, a hidden place in the mountain. It was probably a depression between two peaks of a mountain (Keil), so that Davids march, in the main upward, was here downward, and he encountered Abigails train, which was also moving downward.[Wellhausens objection to this explanation as topographically taking too much for granted, seems unfounded, and there is no need for taking the verb () in the general sense of pursuing ones way.Tr.]
1Sa 25:21-22. A parenthetical explanation of Davids feeling and motive in making this movement. = had said.Only to deception [Eng. A. V. surely in vain], that is, only to be deceived in my just expectations, have I kept, etc. (comp. 1Sa 25:16), so that nothing was missed, he is indebted to me for the undiminished possession of his herds. David had a right to expect grateful requital from Nabal, instead of which Nabal returned him evil for good.
1Sa 25:22. Oath of vengeance. In this formula [God do so to me and more also, etc.], the divine punishment is commonly invoked on the swearer: God punish me if, etc. (comp. 1Sa 14:44; 1Sa 20:13). In some cases it is invoked on the person addressed, as in 1Sa 3:17.[But there it is for failure in the person addressed, and, in general, the curse is invoked on the person failing to do something mentioned.Tr.]But here the curse is directed against persons not present; the sense is: God shall punish Davids enemies, if I take not this vengeance on them; so surely as God will not let this evil go unpunished, will I, etc. Instead of enemies () Then, reads, after Syr. and Arab.: his servant (); but these versions have evidently substituted this reading to avoid the difficulty of the text.[In spite of the support of Vulg. and Chald. (and indirectly of Syr. and Arab.), the word enemies must be omitted with Sept., being here meaningless and disturbing, and the curse must be considered as invoked on Davids own head. Erdmanns defence of the text is far-fetched and unavailing. See Text. and Gram.Tr.]Mingentem ad parietem, that is, every male. Bhr on 1Ki 14:10 : The expression may have been taken originally from dogs, and it is certainly not an honorable designation of the male sex, being used every-where (1Ki 16:11; 1Ki 21:21; 2Ki 9:8) of those who are cast out and exterminated.[See Ges., Thes. s. v. , where the authorities are quoted, and decision given for the meaning male person, and not mean, insignificant maleTr.]David swears to root out Nabal and all the males of his house in revenge for the insult to his person, which he regards as a sin against the Lord in whose service he is.[There is not the least evidence that David so regarded, or had a right so to regard Nabals fault; he acted under a weak, human impulse of unworthy revenge, from which he was estopped by Gods mercy.Tr.]
1Sa 25:23-31. Abigails address to David.
1Sa 25:23 sq. In the most circumstantial manner five things are first mentioned as to Abigails conduct on meeting David, before the narrative comes to her words, which in their form and content confirm what is said in 1Sa 25:3 of her understanding. Her mode of doing reverence to David is based on her conviction that he is the divinely chosen future king of Israel, comp. 1Sa 25:30. This conviction had spread not only in the kings house (Saul included), but also among the people.On me, me, my lord, be the blame ( , see Ges., 121, 3). At the outset she gives the matter such a turn that David has to deal with her only, and is obliged to put Nabal out of sight. At the outset she assuredly opposes to Davids vengeance the contradictory statement, that, on the one hand (1Sa 25:25), she did not see Davids servants and knew nothing of Nabals contemptuous behaviour, and, on the other hand, she takes all the blame on herself. Think not, she says, of the bad man, Nabal; for he is what his name signifies: foolishness is his companion ( with him). Here, as often happens, foolishness appears connected with wickedness and ungodliness. Consider me alone as the guilty person with whom thou hast to do. She does not, however, ask for pardon and forbearance; this she does not do till 1Sa 25:28; till then she urges what may turn David away from his revenge; from there on she points out to him the blessing he will receive from the Lord if he grants her request. 1Sa 25:26-27. She begins with and now each of the three sentences with which she introduces the petition, and seeks to secure Davids favor for it. First, indicating the highest point of view in which, as a God-fearing woman, she regards this meeting with the vengeful David, she affirms that God has thus restrained him from committing a grievous sin. ( is not here the superfluous of indirect discourse, but is (Then.) dependent on the double .) So true asso true is itthe Lord hath kept thee from coming into blood-guiltiness and saving thyself. David would have brought the crime of blood on himself, and with his own hand against Gods will and command have procured help for himself.Then she says: May all thy enemies be as Nabal, such fools as he; that is, thou standest under Gods protection and guidance, so that all who as thine enemies will, like Nabal, do thee evil, shall like him become fools, and fall under Gods punishment. Seb. Schmid: whosoever does good to his enemies, and takes not vengeance on them, him will God Himself avenge, as it is said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay. Thirdly, she says, 1Sa 25:27 : And now, this present blessing () = gift of blessing, 1Sa 30:26; Gen 33:11. It is a delicate feature of her wise and skilful procedure that she offers the present, with which she designs to make good her husbands neglect by dispensing what he ought to have offered, not to David himself, but to his men. On the: in the retinue of my lord comp. Exo 11:8; Jdg 4:10 (Keil).
1Sa 25:28. Forgive the trespass of thy handmaid.With this brief word, which rests on that other: on me be the blame, she now makes her request for forgiveness and sparing. The following words to 1Sa 25:31 inclusive contain the promise of the divine blessing which, by fulfilling this request, David will receive instead of the curse that would follow revenge. Her personal affair serves her as occasion to speak to David of the future of his house and his life, and, indeed, she belongs to the prophetic women who, like Hannah, filled with the Spirit of the Lord, share in the theocratic inspiration and in the prophetic outlook into the future development of the theocracy. She says to David that the Lord would not leave the fulfilment of her request unrequited: 1) For the Lord will make my lord a sure house. Since she is sure of Davids call to the kingship of Israel, she means by sure house permanent kingly rule in his house. Comp. the divine promise, 2Sa 7:8 sq. [Bib.-Com. compares Rahabs faith and foresight, Jos 11:9-13, and cites Abigail as an illustration of how faith and reason may concur now in leading men to Christ. In connecting her prayer for forgiveness with the reference to Davids future reign, she is asking for complete pardon to be in force then.Tr.] 2) For my lord will fight the battles (wars) of the Lord. On the expression wars of the Lord, comp. 1Sa 18:17. In the celebrated warrior, who has fought and conquered in the name and power of the Lord, she sees the future royal hero, who, in the wars which the covenant-God as King of His people will wage against their enemies, will prove himself Gods champion. 3) And no evil will be found in thee all thy days. Evil () is here misfortune, not wickedness (Mich., Dathe). She does not mean to say: Thy hand will not be stained with wickedness, as would be the case if thou tookest revenge for this insult; she says that in 1Sa 25:31. Here she predicts for him safety and good fortune as the gift of the Lord.
1Sa 25:29 attaches itself in its content to this third affirmation. The text reads hath arisen or arises (), instead of which we must, with Then, and Bttch., after Tanchum, read it as Impf. (): And should a man arise. Though she knows that Saul is persecuting David, she yet with delicate reserve expresses herself hypothetically. In relation to what precedes the sense is: Though such a misfortune should come upon thee that some one should rise against thee yet it will not continue. [The text, however, as rendered in Eng. A. V., gives a good sense, and, as the fact was so notorious, the more open reference to Sauls persecution could not be considered as an offence against delicacy. Bib.-Com., interpreting the sense properly, renders: Though a man is risen yet, etc.Tr.] What is bound in a bundle is safely kept. The bundle of the living [Eng. A. V. life] with the Lord is thus the figurative expression for those whose life is under the protection of Gods love. In contrast with the wicked human power, which might seek after his life, she points him to the safe preservation of his life which is involved in the inclusion of his person in the community of the godly, whose lifethat is, their temporal-earthly life, since she is not speaking here of the eternal life beyond, to which Keil finds here an indirect reference38is preserved inviolable in Gods hand. Then the contrast: But the life of thy enemies will he sling out in the pan of the slingan energetic expression for the divine rejection in contrast with gracious preservation. The pan of the sling is the hollow for the reception of the missile. See Gen 32:26 [hollow of the thigh].
1Sa 25:30 is the protasis, 1Sa 25:31 the apodosis. In the words: And when the Lord shall appoint thee ruler over Israel, Abigail shows that she is acquainted with Gods choice and calling of David to be king of Israel. This she had probably learned through personal acquaintance with those prophetic circles, her spiritual affinity with which is shown by her words. Here she looks out beyond the attacks of his enemies to the goal of his divine calling which David has reached. Then (1Sa 25:31) this will not be a stumbling-block and vexation of heart to thee that thou didst shed blood without cause, and also that my lord with his own hand helped himself. The word this () does not refer to the request for forgiveness in 1Sa 25:28 (Keil), but to the two following facts, namely, bloodshed and self-help. The sense is: After obtaining the kingdom, thou wilt not have a bad conscience in the recollection of having shed innocent (innocent, that is, in respect to such revenge) blood, and depended on thyself for help. In the words: And when the Lord shall do good to my lord, she briefly includes all her wishes and hopes for David, that to her so deeply-grounded request for forgiveness (1Sa 25:28) she may in conclusion attach the thought of future prosperity. ( is to be taken as condition or hypothetical indication of the desired result).
1Sa 25:32-35. Davids answer and conduct to Abigail.
1Sa 25:32. Thankful acknowledgment that the Lord had sent her to him. So, in his whole life even in errors and faults David knows himself to be under the oversight and guidance of the divine providence.
1Sa 25:33. Having given due honor to the Lord, he praises Abigails wisdom and her opposition to his purpose so displeasing to the Lord. He acknowledges that she has restrained him from bloody revenge and ungodly self-help, and confesses his sin and guilt in forming such a plan.
1Sa 25:34. His discourse advances rapidly to the declaration (which strengthens that thankful acknowledgment) that, but for her interposition, he would have exterminated Nabals house. For otherwise (), Vulg. alioquin, otherwise [Eng. A. V. in very deed].By the life of the Lord, the God of Israel, who, etc., I swear that if thou, etc., that nothing would have remained.The thought that the Lord had brought her to meet him is here completed by the parenthetic declaration: God the Lord has here Himself interfered with my purpose, and through thee prevented the execution of the wicked deed.39
1Sa 25:35. David accepts the present, and dismisses Abigail with the assurance that her request is granted. To accept the person ( ) = to have regard to, Gen 19:21.
1Sa 25:36-38. Nabals death.
1Sa 25:36. Abigail finds Nabal in the revel of a feast.Like a kings feast, as rich and luxurious. Compare the description of the rich man, Luke 19. Merry on account of it, that is, the feast. The reference (in ) to the feast (Maur., De W., Keil), as in Pro 23:30, answers better to Nabals thorough self-abandonment to pleasure than the reference to his person: within him [so Eng. A. V.]; and this view is confirmed by the following words: he was very drunken. 1Sa 25:37. Not till next morning, when the wine was gone out of him, that is, not by vomiting, but by the gradual passing off of the debauch, can Abigail tell him what has happened. The choleric man is so affected by it that he has an apoplectic stroke. The cause of this is neither horror at his loss (Then.), for Abigails gift to David was insignificant, nor at the danger, hitherto unsuspected, which threatened him (Cler., Mich.), for this could not surprise him, he must have contemplated its possibility when he dismissed Davids messengers,40but the violent anger and vexation of the passionate man (always hard and inflexible), because his right had been usurped, his authority as master ignored, and the whole business transacted by his wife against his will with the hated David.His heart stone; here we must retain the text [he became a stone], and not render with the VSS.: as a stone (Then.)., the strong hyperbole of the text corresponding to the preceding expression: his heart died, and the reading of these VSS. being obviously an explanatory change [so Eng. A. V.].
1Sa 25:38. It is expressly said, that Nabals death, which did not occur till ten days after the stroke, was a dispensation of the Lord. As an execution by Gods hand, this death is here, though not expressly in words (as in 1Sa 25:39), yet in the connection represented as a punishment for his ungodliness.
1Sa 25:39-42. Abigail Davids wife.
1Sa 25:39. In Nabals sudden death David recognizes Gods judgment for the insult offered him, over against the revenge which he himself would have taken, from which the Lord estopped him in order Himself to exercise vengeance. This rests on the thought that the insult offered David was also offered to the Lord, since David was the Lords Anointed, and represented the Lords cause. The figure is of a case in law, which is settled by the judicial decision. The law-cause of my reproach, that is, the reproach offered me, on account of which the Lord had to appear against Nabal as Judge and Avenger. Connect the from the hand with pleaded [], not with my reproach, and render pregnantly [Germ. zeugmatically.Tr.]: he has conducted my cause to a conclusion out of the hand, that is, he has collected the costs from the condemned person, and has settled the matter by the infliction of the proper punishment.And the wickedness of Nabal. The connection shows that these are the words of David, not of the narrator (Then.).
1Sa 25:40. Davids formal application for the hand of Abigail.
1Sa 25:41. With the expression of the deepest devotion in gesture and word, according to oriental custom, she declares herself ready to become Davids wife.
1Sa 25:42. She sets out with a small train, five damsels, her ordinary retinue ( ), to follow Davids servants and become his wife.
1Sa 25:43-44. Appendix concerning Davids matrimonial and domestic relations, occasioned by the account of his marriage with Abigail.And Ahinoam David had taken from Jezreel, that is, before his marriage with Abigail (Then.); Jezreel is not the city in Issachar (Jos 19:18), but in the hill-country of Judah (Jos 15:55-56), near Maon, Carmel and Ziph. And these two also, where also () refers to Michal, 1Sa 18:28.
Ver.44. Saul had given (, as the had taken above, in Pluperf. sense) Michal to Palti (2Sa 3:18) to wife. Gallim, in Benjamin, between Gibeah of Saul and Jerusalem, Isa 10:30.
HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
1. The universal mourning among the whole people at Samuels death is a sign that they had preserved the deepest impressions and influences of his reformatory work, and honored in him, even after his withdrawal from public labors, the great restorer of the genuine theocracy. Their sorrow at his decease was the deeper, the more heavily the yoke of Sauls misgovernment pressed on them. It was as if from the noble star, as long as it shone in the heaven of the holy land, though veiled by clouds, there streamed a mild, beneficent light over all Israel. Now this star was extinguished in Israel (F. W. Krummacher).
2. Self-help by ones own might through revenge is as sinful and ungodly when one knows or supposes that he has suffered insult for the Lords sake, or in His service, as when one feels his own honor violated. There is always thus a headstrong and impatient anticipating of Gods counsel and work in the interest of passion, opposition to the fundamental law, according to which Gods justice, not mans revenge, is the guardian of moral order, and every man receives what is his in the right time and way, according to the attitude of his heart to God. By his excitable temperament, which tends to overflow in passion, David is in great danger of setting himself against the supreme tribunal of divine justice, and taking vengeance into his own hands instead of leaving it to God. For the first time we find him not master of his spirit, overborne by the passion, which is indeed a natural trait of his character.He purposes to break the peace, to seize the property of others, and to stain his hands with the blood of peaceful, yea, kindred citizens. This time surely he had not prayed, nor inquired of the Lord through the Light and Right [Urim and Thummim]. If he had executed what his wrath suggestedand it was not his doing if it went no farther than suggestionhe would have given the death-blow to his honor and his cause (F. W. Krummacher).
3. God rules and watches with such paternal special providence and care over those that humbly look to His guidance that, when they are in danger through their own flesh and blood of falling into sin, He raises up persons to guide them by exhortation, warning, and instruction into the right way, He enlightens and strengthens them by His word, so that they see in good time their moral danger and how to avoid it, and go firmly on, and at last praise the Lord for such gracious preservation. David praised God that He had kept him from sin, and yet saved his honor.So well does everything at last turn out with those who give heed to God and their own heart. God receives them when they fall, and raises them up when they are cast down; but the ungodly, who listen to nothing and hate instruction, cool their wrath and perish (Roos).That David, like every human being, was not free from desire of revenge, to which he was especially exposed from his liveliness of feeling, is shown in 1 Samuel 25. But there is needed only a slight rousing of his conscience, and he says to Abigail (1Sa 25:31-32): The Lord be praised who hath sent thee to meet me to-day. And blessed be thy discourse, and blessed be thou, etc. And what Abigail could do, could not the presence of the Holy One have done, before whom he stood when he sang his Psalm? (Hengst., 4:302.)
4. Abigail belongs to the prophetic personages of this time, and takes a prominent place among the pious women of the Old Covenant. In contrast with her ungodly, doltish, hard-hearted, thankless, avaricious, purse-proud, rough, and riotous husband, she is deeply pious, clever and intelligent, thankful, generous, humble, of noble disposition and fine tact, intellectual, and gifted with pleasing and winning speech.Solomon says: By wise women the house is builded, but a foolish woman destroys it. This word finds a noble confirmation in Abigail as housewife in respect to this perverse man sunk in sordid avarice and gross materialism.Where do we find in all the heathen world a woman comparable with Abigail, the daughter of the wilderness? Unfortunate, indeed, she is. Ah, her house, however blessed with earthly goods, is no Bethany-cottage. With deep sorrow she must call her rude, Mammon-serving husband a fool. But she bears with him in patient, hopeful love and faithfulness, and doubtless often lifts holy hands to God for him. So for him she goes to David, like a sacrificial lamb taking her husbands misdeed on herself. She holds up also to David the grievous sin with which he would have laden himself if he had carried out his purpose against the man.Indeed the truth and sincerity, the dovelike simplicity united to sanctified wisdom, which appears in the childlike-pious address of the noble woman, is worthy of our liveliest admiration. Who can fail to see that here already the Spirit from above was working mightily? Is it not almost as if in her we heard an advanced disciple of the Gospel speak? Has not her word: Thou shalt be bound in the bundle of the living of the Lord been long naturalized in the language of the whole Christian congregation as a favorite expression, and as the designation of the most precious thing that man can desire on earth? (F. W. Krummacher).What wisdom, what humility, what free-heartedness, what order we find in her words! How well she knew how to speak to Davids heart! How well her whole discourse was suited to her position as woman! I know no example of eloquence that excels this. Doubtless she had not studied eloquence in the schools, but the Spirit of God alone made her such an orator. God put wisdom into her heart, and it flowed out in wise discourse (Roos).Abigail appears as an organ of the Spirit of God, the prophetic spirit breathes through her words, and she speaks to David in the manner of the prophets. She sees clearly and declares to David with vigorous, heart-searching, and conscience-piercing words, that his high-handed, revengeful purpose is against Gods law and order; she convinces him of his deep guilt, and brings him to acknowledge that she is Gods instrument to save him from a wicked deed which would have cast a dark shadow over his future life; she announces his future royal calling and his lofty mission therein as hero to wage the wars of the Lord against the enemies of Gods people, earnestly exhorts him to walk conformably to the glory and holiness of this calling, predicts under this condition the continuance of the royal dignity in his house (comp. 2 Samuel 7), and promises him the rich blessings of the favor of God. Thus in her is presented the type of the guardian watch-office of prophecy in relation to the royal office. Abigail could so speak only as moved or filled by the prophetic Spirit; and the means thereto was her personal relation to the prophetic circles, whose centre Samuel was till his death and to which all truly God-fearing persons attached themselves. As the prophetic community was at this time of great importance for awakening and cherishing a new religious-moral life in the people, it cannot be surprising if we meet with personages, like Abigail, among the people, filled and illuminated with the prophetic Spirit.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Chap. 25. J. Disselhoff: Let the righteous smite me kindly and reprove me: 1) Even the beloved of the Lord, when he watches not his heart, falls into wrath that deserves reproof; 2) The gracious God sends His beloved ones the deserved reproof through some human mouth; 3) The way in which any one receives reproof shows how far he is a man after Gods own heart.
1Sa 25:1. Remember your teachers, etc. Heb 13:7. [The aged man is laid aside, and sinks out of the popular view; and when at length he dies, people are startled as they recall how great a man he was in his prime, how great a work he did. It is something to live so that ones death will be truly mourned by a whole people. The old, who sadly think themselves forgotten, may find solace not only in reviewing the past, but also in the persuasion that yet once again they will be vividly remembered; while the younger should strive to anticipate the feelings of that coming time, and show respect and affection while it can be fully enjoyed.Tr.]
1Sa 25:2 sqq. Cramer: Wealth, consideration, power, and good fortune, are nothing without wisdom (Pro 17:16). Therefore we should prefer wisdom and virtue to all temporal things; for riches and rank do not help against folly.Schlier: What does money help us, when we make Mammon our idol, and know only how to rake and scrape and get rich? How well it would be if we did but once believe that money is not mans fortune, and that with all riches we may yet be unfortunate people.[Hall: Even the line of faithful Caleb will afford an ill-conditioned Nabal. Virtue is not, like unto lands, inheritable.Tr.]
1Sa 25:10 sq. Berl. B.: The fountain of his speech is avarice, and the stream is malignity. So the rich of the world are often haughty and unfriendly, and thereby show themselves to be true Nabals or fools, as Christ also named that rich farmer.Schlier: Let us not look at Nabal, we will rather think of ourselves.There is nothing that releases us from the duty of thankfulness, let the other person be as he will. To whomsoever you owe thanks, to him you should also show your thanks. And such ingratitude is doubly a wrong, when the fault on the others part, because of which you refuse the thanks, is only an imagined fault, when you have only a wicked grudge against him, as Nabal considered David a seditious person, although he was the most faithful subject of the king.[Scott: When worldly men are determined not to relieve the necessitous, they often excuse themselves by railing; by charging the vices of some poor persons upon all; and by representing almsgiving as an encouragement to idleness, impertinence, and extravagance: nor are the most excellent characters any defence against such undistinguishing invectives.Tr.]
1Sa 25:13. Starke: How subject are the best of Gods saints to weak passions! Ye who are pious, recognise this fact, and diligently call on God for the government of His Spirit (Jer 10:23). Schlier: If wrong is done us, we will commit vengeance to the Lord, and will be afraid of all self-revenge. He who suffers injuries and commits his revenge to the Lord, is a righteous man; but it is unmanly to give free course to ones revenge, and to do what flesh and blood prompts.Berl. B.: David here felt something quite human, and fell into sudden heat at the affront offered him, and the contemptuous ingratitude of the rude arch-churl. His passions started up, and most of all because Nabal had treated him shamefully when he had done him no hurt. In such a case it may well be said: The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God (Jam 1:20).[1Sa 25:13. Henry: Is this thy voice, O David? Can this man after Gods own heart speak thus unadvisedly with his lips? .Is this he who, but the other day, spared him who sought his life, and yet now will not spare anything that belongs to him who had only put an affront on his messengers? Lord, what is man! What need have we to pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation! 1Sa 25:18 : Henry: The passion of fools often makes those breaches in a little time, which the wise, with all their wisdom, have much ado to make up again.Tr.]
1Sa 25:19. Starke: Silence has its time, speech has also its time. Well for those who know how to suit themselves thereto (Ecc 3:7 sq.).
1Sa 25:22. Berl. Bib.: David here completely changes into a barbarous man, and forgets himself altogether. If this purpose had been carried into execution, Saul would for the first time have had a just cause for pursuing him as a disturber of the public peace.
1Sa 25:23 sqq. Schlier: Mens wrath is a frightful enemy, and works not the righteousness of God, and yet there is a means of making this enemy no longer hurtful, namely, a friendly, loving word.Let us especially when one falls into wrath observe well whether we cannot perhaps quiet such wrath by a mild, gentle word. A word spoken in season, and with an eye to the Lord, is not in vain.When we are on a bad way, the Lord comes not in miracles and signs to bring us to good ways, but He interposes through men. He warns us through parents and friends and other connections, and their word is the Lords word.
1Sa 25:27. Starke: Free and rich gifts bring blessing with them; therefore give, and it is given to you (2Co 9:5-6).Osiander: 1Sa 25:29. Our life is not in the power of our enemies, except so far as God permits it them (Job 2:6).[1Sa 25:31. Henry: When we are tempted to sin, we should consider how it will appear in the reflection. Let us never do anything for which our own conscience will afterward have occasion to upbraid us.Taylor: Only a woman could have managed such a negotiation as this so smoothly and successfully; but only a God-fearing woman would have managed it so as to bring David to a sense of the sinfulness of the act which he had been about to commit.
1Sa 25:32-35. Hall: A good heart is easily stayed from sinning, and is glad when it finds occasion to be crossed in ill purposes.Wicked vows are ill made, but worse kept. Our tongue cannot tie us to commit sin. Good men think themselves happy, that since they had not the grace to deny sin, yet they had not the opportunity to accomplish it.Tr.]
1Sa 25:36-38. Schlier: So true it is that sin is ruin to the people. What multitudes think that with avarice one can get rich, and yet avarice is a root of all evil; how many think by hard-heartedness and selfishness to get on, and yet thereby every one is only building up his own misfortune; what multitudes think that if they should give themselves up to excesses, they would get pleasure and enjoyment therefrom, and yet all good-living comes only of evil.[Hall: It was no time to advise Nabal, while his reason was drowned in a deluge of wine. A beast, or a stone, is as capable of good counsel as a drunkard. O that the noblest creature should so far abase himself as for a little liquor to lose the use of those faculties whereby he is a man!O that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!Tr.]
1Sa 25:39 sqq. Schlier: It is a good thing to trust in the Lord and give up everything to Him. All self-revenge in every case comes of evil; but to contain ones self, to suppress ones wrath, to turn over vengeance to the Lord, brings good fortune and blessing.
[1Sa 25:2-11. Nabal: 1) His advantages: a) Of excellent family (1Sa 25:3, comp. Jos 14:6; Jos 15:13); b) Very wealthy; c) Having a wife most remarkable not only for personal beauty (1Sa 25:3), but for thoughtfulness, energy, tact and grace. 2) His faults: a) Avaricious and stingy in the extreme; b) Yet ostentatious of his wealth (1Sa 25:36); c) A drunken sot; d) A fool; e) Rude and insulting habitually (1Sa 25:17). What a son of Caleb! what a husband for Abigail! 3) His ignoble end. Remembered for his faults, and from his connection with the men he insulted.
[1Sa 25:23-31. A specimen of the soft answer that turneth away wrath: 1) She takes the blame on herself, so as to divert attention from the offender (1Sa 25:24). 2) She extenuates the offence, and makes amends for it, as far as the circumstances admit (1Sa 25:25; 1Sa 25:27). 3) She delicately assumes that the wrathful purpose will be abandoned through divine influence (1Sa 25:26). 4) She turns the angry mans mind towards a future of great and sure prosperity, through Jehovahs blessing (1Sa 25:28-29). 5) She declares that in that happy time he will be glad he did not to-day incur blood-guiltiness (1Sa 25:30-31). The sum of the whole is that she makes him forget his wrath in thoughts of Jehovah and of the brilliant future which Jehovah has in reserve for him. The result appears in 1Sa 25:32-33.
[1Sa 25:32-33. South: Prevention of sin is one of the greatest mercies that God can vouchsafe a man in this world. South a) shows the danger that sin unprevented may never be pardoned, and b) argues that prevention is better than pardon; and in the Application, urges a) that a higher satisfaction is to be found from a conquered than from a conquering passion; b) that the temper with which we receive providential prevention of sin is a criterion of the gracious or ungracious disposition of our hearts; c) that we ought thankfully to acquiesce in any providential crosses, since these may be the instruments of preventing grace.Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1][1Sa 25:1. Some MSS. have simply went, instead of .Tr.]
[2][1Sa 25:1. This reading is well defended by Erdmann against the Sept. Maon which is preferred by Wellh. and Bib. Comm.Tr.]
[3][1Sa 25:2. Eng. A. V. here follows the Vulg., factum est ut tonderetur grex eius. But the exacter rendering seems to be: and he was, when he was shearing his sheep, in Carmel (so Cahen, Philippson, and apparently Sept.). On the other hand the Syr. takes in the sense: and it came to pass, the rest of the clause being the Relative protasis, 1Sa 25:3-4 parenthesis, and 1Sa 25:5 the apodosis: and it came to pass, when he was shearing, etc., (and the name his sheep), that David sent, etc. This construction is adopted by Then., Erdmann, and in part (1Sa 25:3) by Cahen. To this Wellh. properly objects that 1Sa 25:2 is closely connected with 1Sa 25:3, and 1Sa 25:4 with 1Sa 25:5, and that the proposed construction would require the suffix to . The Heb. text (simple Inf.) is confirmed by Sept. and Chald. and perhaps by Syr. (Partcp. without following Pron.), and it is to be noticed that the Greek has (as in 1Sa 25:20) and not , which is the usual rendering of the pleonastic or anticipatory (as in 1Sa 25:37-38). Statements, more naturally conceived by us as parenthetic, are frequently put in Heb. in the form of continuous narration.Tr.]
[4][1Sa 25:3. So the Qeri. The Kethib or text is discussed by Erdmann in Expos.Tr.]
[5][1Sa 25:5. Literally: ask him as to peace. On the pointing of see Ges. Gr., 44, 2 Rem. 2.Tr.]
[6][1Sa 25:6. . In the impossibility of determining the form and sense of this word it seems better to omit the certainly wrong rendering of Eng. A. V. (though it is adopted by Philippson), especially as the word, whatever its meaning, cannot affect the general sense of the clause. See Erdm. in Expos.Tr.]
[7][1Sa 25:6. This both is intended as translation of , but this letter must be stricken out, or, possibly, attached to preceding word (Bib. Com.).Tr.]
[8][1Sa 25:7. So the Heb. and the VSS., except Sept. which reads: that thy shepherds are now shearing for thee, connecting the following with the Partcp., which the connection does not allow. Yet the Heb. phrase sounds curt and strange. We should expect thou art shearing, or, they are shearing for thee.Tr.]
[9][1Sa 25:7. The Seghol of the is a neighboring form to Chireq, both being degradations (the latter more advanced) of the original Pattach.Tr.]
[10][1Sa 25:8. Sing. in some MSS. and Edd., thy servant, namely, thy son, David, perhaps from failure to see the application to Davids young men. Sept. omits the word.Tr.]
[11][1Sa 25:9. Some MSS. read servants, indicating a certain vacillation in the use of these synonyms.Tr.]
[12][1Sa 25:9. Erdmann: sat down, Chald., Vulg., Philippson, Cahen, Wellhausen as Eng. A. V., Bib. Comm.: rested. Syr. eludes the difficulty (as it often does) by omitting the word. For various text-words which Sept. () may have had before it see Schleusner s. v. If we retain the Heb., the rendering of Eng. A. V. is as good as any other; for the impression made on us is that Nabals answer followed immediately on the delivery of the message (so that there was no occasion to rest), and, if a considerable time (as a night) had intervened between message and answer, it would probably have been mentioned. Yet the passage is not satisfactory; we do not expect to be informed here that Davids messengers ceased when they had said their say, or sat down to rest; we should rather look for some intimation of churlish bearing on Nabals part, which, however, cannot well be found (even by changing our word) in the present form of the Heb. text.Tr.]
[13][1Sa 25:10. Wellh. inserts the Art. before , yet Heb. (perhaps the conversational language particularly) allowed latitude in this respect.Tr.]
[14][1Sa 25:12. So Heb., Chald., Sept. and Erdmann (gleich); the is omitted by Syr., Arab. and Vulg. which last Eng. A. V. probably follows.Tr.]
[15][1Sa 25:14. Or, flew on them. See the Exposition. Chald. and Syr. was disgusted with them (from or )Tr.]
[16][1Sa 25:17. The rendering of the Syr. is strange: he was with the shepherds. Is this a copyists erroneous repetition of the end of the preceding verse?
[17][1Sa 25:21. Sept. (we prescribed not) and Theodotion (we demanded not) take this wrongly as 1 plu. Impf. (in the Coislin. it is Sing.), where Symmachus has in the sense of perished (see Schleusner), Vulg. periit.Tr.]
[18][1Sa 25:22. The sense of the common formula requires the omission of this phrase, for the insertion of which there is no good reason here. It is not improbable, as Wellhausen suggests, that it was added by a copyist who saw that in fact David had not carried out his scheme of destruction, and would thus avert the imprecation from his head to that of his enemies. But such an imprecation is always to be considered as resting on two conditions: 1) if it be wrong, it must be withdrawn, and 2) if its occasion be removed, it is null and void.Tr.]
[19][1Sa 25:22. The word light () is omitted in Sept., Syr., Vulg., and in many MSS. and Edd.; it was perhaps introduced by a copyist from 1Sa 25:34.Tr.]
[20][1Sa 25:23. We should here expect as one MS. has it.Tr.]
[21][1Sa 25:24. In this description of Abigails demeanor (1Sa 25:23-24) the on before and the two prostrations are somewhat difficult. The difficulty is removed by the Sept. which omits the second fell (1Sa 25:24). But here we should probably maintain the harder reading, and it is likely that Abigail’s anxiety and trepidation made her movement somewhat elaborate and complicated.Tr.]
[22][1Sa 25:25. Aquila: (see Ges., Thes. on ), on which says Schol. (in Schleusner): , .Tr.]
[23][1Sa 25:26. We here expect the to be repeated before the Inf.Tr.]
[24][1Sa 25:27. The fem. form (see 1Sa 25:35) is found in some MSS. and Edd., and in some is given as Qeri.Tr.]
[25][1Sa 25:29. Erdmann: should a man arise. Sept. has the Fut. The rendering of Eng. A. V. seems to suit the connection better.Erdmann: the bundle of the living, which is the same in general meaning with Eng. A. V.Tr.]
[26][1Sa 25:29. So the Heb., Sept. and Syr. The general meaning is clear, but the VSS. vary in the rendering. Chald: As those who sling stones in a sling. Vulg.: inimicorum tuorum anima rotabitur quasi in impetu et circulo fund. The Heb. is difficult, but perhaps for that reason better retained.Tr.]
[27][1Sa 25:31. Commonly now rendered stumbling-block.Wellh. would regard as clerical repetition of and as courtly correction of the latter, and would omit these two words. This would give the simple rendering: This will not be to thee an offence and a stumbling-block (Sept. ), and get rid of the apparently cumbrous to my lord. Yet here again simplifying corrections are suspicious.Tr.]
[28][1Sa 25:31. The either is translation of , which is better stricken out.The construction seems to require us to supply his hand () as in 1Sa 25:26; 1Sa 25:33).Tr.]
[29][1Sa 25:31. The Sept. adds flatly and indelicately to do good to her.Tr.]
[30][1Sa 25:33. Thy good sense, discretion.Tr.]
[31][1Sa 25:37. The Arab. VS. and some MSS. insert all ().Tr.]
[32][1Sa 25:38. Wellh. rejects the Art. as the time is not defined, but the Heb. allows in such cases definiteness of statement.Tr.]
[33][1Sa 25:42. The Partcp. has the Art., and so we render better: the five, etc., that went. Sept. omits the Art., which may be a repetition from the preceding ; but the Heb. gives a good sense. The Partcp. is not necessarily predicate, but may be subject along with Abigail.Tr.]
[34][Bib. Com. compares the death and burial of Moses, Deu 34:5-6; Deu 34:8.Tr.]
[35][So Mr. Hayman in Smiths Bib. Dict., Art. Paran, who suggests that the skirts of the great wilderness may have passed (without well-fixed dividing lines) under different names, Zin, Maon, etc.Tr.]
[36][On this construction see Text. and Gram., where a different view is taken.Tr.]
[37]Instead of Thenius proposes to read because several VSS. so render, Sept. , Sym. , Vulg. aversatus est eos; but this is unsafe, for 1) to the phrase: he was disgusted with them, we must then give the sense: he treated them with contempt (Then.), which the substituted verb does not permit, and 2) it is tolerably clear that these VSS. read wrongly from in the transitive sense: to turn one’s self=thrust out of the way, Job 24:4; comp. Amo 2:7, lead aside, 2Sa 3:27, repulse, Psa 27:9.
[38][So Abarbanel], Targ., Talmud Shab. 152, 2; Chag. 12, 2; Pirk. El. 34 (Philippson).Tr.]
[39] Inf. Const. Hiph. from is dependent on a verb of affirmation which is to be supplied from the connection. The repetition of the is occasioned by the parenthesis unless thou. The strange form , Impf. with termination of Perf., is either a clerical error for , perhaps arisen from the following word, in which the final is preceded by (Then.); comp. Olsh. Gr., pp. 452, 525; or, according to Ew. 191 c, a strengthened form of 2 fem. Impf. as , Deu 33:16 (Keil).
[40][Not necessarily. It seems not unlikely that fright had something to do with his seizure.Tr.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
This Chapter contains a great variety of contents, in its relation. Here is an account of the death of Samuel; the character and behaviour of Nabal towards David; the sin-preventing providence of God, in causing Nabal’s wife, by her prudence, to avert the intended destruction of Nabal and his house, by David; the death of Nabal, and the wife of Nabal becoming afterwards, the wife of David.
1Sa 25:1
(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.
It is not said how Samuel died. The Holy Ghost hath thought it enough to record his death, without subjoining anything more. No doubt, he died in faith. In another scripture, the Holy Ghost hath said so. See Heb 11:13 with Heb 11:32 . So died all the faithful! As they lived, so they died, waiting for the consolation of Israel. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the patriarchs, prophets, all looking with an eye of faith to Him, and speaking of him, to all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. Luk 2:38 . Precious faith! so may it be my portion to live, and so to die; clasping Jesus in my arms, and dropping this tabernacle, in the moment while his name is the last word quivering on my lips, and he himself in my heart. See, Reader! how the memory of the faithful is blessed, in the lamentation over his remains. Precious in the sight of the Lord, is the death of his saints: and precious in the sight of saints, is the death of each other. Psa 116:15 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
XIII
DAVID AND HIS INDEPENDENT ARMY; THE END
1Sa 23:1-26:25
This section is very thrilling, containing many stirring adventures and hairbreadth escapes, showing the play of the mighty passions of love and hate, and treachery and loyalty. It contains the farewell between David and Jonathan in their last interview; the farewell between David and Saul: the death of Samuel and the engaging story of David and Abigail. No novel that I have ever read has incidents so romantic in nature as this section.
The turn in the fortunes of David comes at the Cave of Adullam. He is no longer a solitary fugitive. His helpers were:
1. An armed corps, small indeed in number, but unequaled in history as a mobile fighting force, who had gathered around him. Never before nor since have more heroes and champions been found in a band of 400, rapidly recruited to 600. As is quite natural, some of them are both desperate and evil characters. They harbor in caves or sleep under rocks, and from the mountaintops, like eagles in their eyries, survey all the mountain passes, ready to swoop down on their Philistine prey or to make timely escape from Saul’s forces, which they will not fight through David’s loyalty.
2. The son of the high priest with Ephod, fleeing from Saul’s murderous slaughter of his brethren at Nob, has turned to David, supplying his greatest need, that is, a means of communication with Jehovah, now forever denied to Saul. Through this means he easily learns what no earthly wisdom or system of espionage could discover the very hearts and secret purposes of his enemies.
3. The school of the prophets, Jehovah’s mouthpieces, are for him, and Gad, their great representative, acts as his daily counselor Gad who shall become one of the historians of his life.
David at this time evinced the most exalted patriotism. Though pursued by Saul’s relentless hate, he never at any time, employs his fighting force against Israel, nor ever harms Saul’s person, though it is twice within his power, but ever watching, he protects defenseless cities of his people by smiting their Philistine invaders, preserves the exposed farms and folds of the villages from their marauding bands. Not all Saul’s army is such a defense of Israel as David’s immortal 600. And this he did continuously, though every blow he struck for his people only advertised his whereabouts to Saul, and brought on immediately a man-hunt by Saul and his army. There is no parallel to these facts in history. If, when the “swamp-fox,” Francis Marion, by creeping out of his secret places of retirement advertised his whereabouts by smiting a British or Tory force, Washington, Gates, Greene, or Morgan had detached a flying column to cut off Marion, then that would have been a parallel.
An example of this patriotism of David, and the ungrateful return to him is found in this section. From it we learn that when David, at a hazard so great that his own dauntless champions advised against it, under the guidance of Jehovah left the safer territory of Judah and braved with his 600 the whole Philistine army to rescue Keilah, Saul, informed of his presence there, summoned his whole army to besiege David in that city, and only through timely knowledge, communicated through the high priest’s Ephod, did David escape the enmity of Saul and the purposed treachery of the men of Keilah whom he had Just preserved.
A parallel in later days shows that information from Jehovah concerning the secret purposes of men eclipsed all knowledge to be derived from spies, and so saved the king of Israel. This parallel we find in 2Ki 6:8-12 . The king of Syria, at war with the king of Israel (by Israel in that place is meant the ten tribes that went off from Rehoboam), in private counsel with his officers, would designate a place where be would’ establish his camps in order to entrap the king of Israel. As soon as he had designated where these trap-camps would be placed, Elisha, God’s prophet, sent information to the king of Israel to beware of these places, and thus more than twice the king of Israel was saved. The king of Syria supposed that there was a traitor in his own camp, and wanted to know who it was that betrayed every movement that he made. One of his counselors replied that there was no traitor in his camp, but that Elisha, God’s prophet, knew every secret thought of the king’s bed-chamber.
I now call attention to the text difficulty in 1Sa 23:6 . The text here says that Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, had joined David at Keilah, but 1Sa 22:20-23 shows that Abiathar had previously joined David at the Cave of Adullam. The context just above 1Sa 23:6 shows that David had inquired of the high priest as to whether he should go to the rescue of Keilah. The word, “Keilah,” in 1Sa 23:6 ought therefore to be struck out, or else ought to follow the text of the Septuagint, which reads this way: “And it came to pass when Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, fled to David, that he went down with David to Keilah with the Ephod in his hand.” That makes complete sense and retains the word “Keilah.” David’s next refuge from Saul, the description of Saul’s pursuit, and Jehovah’s deliverance, are described in just two verses of the text, 1Sa 23:14-15 : “And David abode in the wilderness in strongholds and remained in the wilderness of Ziph, and Saul sought him every day, but God delivered him not into Saul’s hands. And David saw that Saul was come out to seek his life, and David was in the wilderness of Ziph in a wood.” That does not mean any big trees. It means thick brush scrubby brush as may be seen on West Texas mountains shin-oak thickets. I have seen them so thick it looked like one couldn’t stick a butcher knife in them, and woe to the man who tried to ride through them!
Just here comes Jonathan’s last interview with David, which is given in three verses, 1Sa 23:16-18 . While Saul is every day beating that brush to find David and can’t find him, Jonathan finds him and comes to show him that he has no part in this murderous pursuit of his friend; comes to tell him that both he and his father know that David will triumph and become king, and to make a covenant with him again that when he is king he will remember Jonathan’s house.
Let us now take up David’s first escape from the treachery of the Ziphites, and how that escape was commemorated. Saul couldn’t find David in the wood, but the Ziphites (for it was in the wood of Ziph) knew where be was, and they told Saul where he was, and so Saul, guided by these treacherous Ziphites, summoned an army, completely surrounded the whole country, and at last got David, as it were, in a cul-de-sac. That French phrase means) to follow a road where all egress is blocked, forward or sideways. So there was just a mountain between Saul and David, and Saul’s army was all around and closing in. The deliverance comes providentially. Word is brought to Saul that the Philistines are striking at some place in his territory, and he has to call his army off just before he closes up the trap around David and go and fight the Philistines; and your record says that place is renamed in commemoration this simple word, “Selahammahlekoth,” which means the rock of escape. If you were to visit the place the guide will show you today “Selahammahlekoth ” the rock of escape.
David’s next refuge from Saul was at the town of Engedi. The name is today preserved in the Aramaic form, “Ain Jidy.” It is thought to be the oldest town in the world. The Genesis record of the days of Abraham says that Chedorlaorner led his army by Engedi. It was a town whose inhabitants saw the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, lying right below in the valley. It has been passed by a thousand armies. It means the fountain of goats. Bursting out of the mountainside is a spring of considerable volume, and from that flows the stream, Engedi, which, with two others, makes a little oasis there just above the Dead Sea one of the most beautiful in the world; the finest vines, the most beautiful palm trees, and right up above the mountainside, are hundreds of caves, some of them so deep that they are as dark as the pit right at the mouth. A man standing in the light at the entrance cannot see anything within, but one hidden back a little distance can see distinctly anybody coming in. Nearly everybody that visits the Holy Land makes a pilgrimage to these famous caves, and if you are disposed to read the results of modern research with reference to the place you will find some very fine references in the following books: Thompson’s Land and the Book, from which we have had quotations; Robinson’s Researches in Bible Lands; Tristram’s Land of Israel; and one of the best is McGarvey’s Lands of the Bible. McGarvey is a Disciples theologian in Kentucky, and his is about the best book on the Holy Land extant. You will also find a very graphic account of these caves in Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine. The record tells us that Saul, in pursuit of David, while his army is scattered about searching for him, comes to one of these caves, and enters in, and David is in there at the time with some of his bravest men, and he, being in the dark, can see Saul plainly, and slips up and cuts off a piece of Saul’s cloak. One of his men wants him to kill Saul: “Now is your chance; this is the chance God has promised you; your enemy is in your power; smite him.” But David would not do so. When Saul goes out of the cave David slips to the front, and from a high rock holds up that piece of skirt and calls to Saul, your text telling better than I can the thrilling way he reproached Saul for his pursuit of him, that he has never done him any harm, and that Saul was pursuing him to death without any cause.
We now come to a strange but certainly true thing. I will read what David said and Saul’s reply. It is Saul’s reply that I want you particularly to notice. David said, “Wherefore hearest thou men’s words saying, Behold David seeketh thy hurt,” then closes up by saying, “The Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee, but my hand shall not be upon thee.” Listen at Saul’s reply: “Thou art more righteous than I” standing there weeping now and saying this “for that thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil; and thou hast showed this day how that thou hast dealt well with me, forasmuch as when the Lord had delivered me into thy hand thou killedst me not; for if a man findest his enemy, will he let him go well away; wherefore the Lord reward thee good for what thou hast done unto me this day. And now, behold I know well that thou shalt surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand; swear thou therefore, unto me by the Lord that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me, and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father’s house.” That sounded like penitence, but it was not. If it was, you would not see Saul pursuing him again, but it was temporary remorse, such as wicked men often evince. It is an Oriental custom that when a new king comes in he kills all the family of the one he succeeds, and that is what Saul fears, and David never did kill any of them after he became king.
It is evident from 1Sa 24:9-26:19 that some persistent, insidious slander, ever at Saul’s side, kept his wrath stirred up against David, and like a sinister Iago played upon Saul’s weakness, ever fanning by whisperings the flame of his jealousy. You would never know the name of this secret assassin of character from the history. But his name and character are pilloried in the immortal song of his would-be victim, and all the vileness of his demoniacal nature memorialized to the end of time. What is his name, and in what song commemorated? Just at this juncture Samuel, the great prophet the greatest man next to Moses since Abraham’s day, dies. Later we will have an analysis of his character.
An example of David’s protection of the villages and farms is seen in the case of the rich man named Nabal (“Nabal” means “fool”), about whom his wife says later, “His name is Nabal and he is Nabal.” There wouldn’t have been a sheep left in his flock nor a cow left to give him milk but for the protection extended by David’s band. The herdsmen say, “David’s band has been a wall about us.” David’s men never took any of his property. Hungry though they were, they never killed one of his sheep nor one of his cattle. Passing bands of marauders would have swept away every vestige of his property, but David’s men beat them off.
Now, on a festival, sheep-shearing day, David’s men, being weary and hungry, David sends ten men to Nabal, giving him an opportunity at least to feed one time the men that had protected him for the year, and Nabal’s reply is: “What is the son of Jesse to me that I should take my property and feed his straggling crowd?” There are such rich men now, and no wonder they are hated. There was a time in the early history of Texas when volunteer rangers protected all the exposed settlements with their flocks and herds. A man whose home and stock had been so preserved, who would deny hospitality to the unpaid rangers would have been held as infamous. Indeed, in all our West Texas history there never was one Nabal. These ten men went back and reported to David, and this time he didn’t consult either priest or prophet, but, boiling over in wrath, announced his purpose of not leaving a man alive in Nabal’s entire household, and goes to smite him with 400 of his picked men. One of the servants of Nabal had apprehended Just such a state of affairs and had told Abigail, the wife of Nabal, whereupon she, recognizing David as God’s anointed, as the champion of Israel, as the one about whom all true souls should be thinking, having faith in the promises of God concerning him, took a magnificent donation and hurried with it and met David coming blazing in wrath. The woman leaped down from the beast she was riding and made a speech that has never yet had an equal.
You remember how I called your attention to the famous speech in Scott’s Heart of Midlothian by Jeanie Deans, but this beats that. I haven’t time to analyze the speech; you have the record of it before you, but there never was more wisdom put into a few words. She shows David that the wrong done is inexcusable, but tells him to charge it to her, although she had nothing to do with it; tells him that so great a man as he is, God’s vicegerent) should not take vengeance in his own hands; that the day will come in his later life when he will look back with regret at the blood on his hands if he takes such a vengeance, and asks him to leave Nabal’s punishment to God. David was charmed with her and did everything she said. She went back home sad at heart, as many a good woman married to a bad man has to do. Nabal was on a spree. She didn’t tell him anything until the next morning, and as she told him what had transpired God smote him with apoplexy and a few days later about ten days smote him again so that he died, whereupon David sends for Abigail and marries her and at the same time marries another woman, plurality of wives prevailing in that day. Many preachers have preached sermons, some of them foolish and some of them really great, on “Nabal, the churl.”
The incidents of the last meeting of Saul and David are pathetic. The Ziphites conspire again against David, and tell Saul where to find him. David sends out his spies and learns of Saul’s approach and easily evades him; then, taking just one man with him, Abishai, the fiery son of his sister Zeruiah, his nephew (you will hear about him oftentimes later), goes into the camp of Saul with his 3,000 picked veterans. Saul is sleeping, and Abner, his great general, sleeping by him, and Abishai following his nature, says, “Now let me kill him.” David says, “No, you shall not strike him; he is the anointed king; leave him to God,” and simply took Saul’s spear and cruse his water vessel and when he had got out of the camp he cried out to Abner and mocked him: “What a guardian of your king, that you let somebody come right into your camp and come right up to the person of your king! Behold the spear and cruse of Saul! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” Saul hears David, and now comes that strange language again. I want you to notice it again: “And Saul knew David’s voice, and said, ‘is this thy voice, my son David?’ (as you know, David was his son-in-law). And David said, ‘it is my voice, my lord, O king.’ And he said, ‘Wherefore doth my lord pursue after his servant? for what have I done? or what evil is in mine hand? Now therefore, I pray thee, let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If Jehovah hath stirred thee up against me let him accept an offering: but if it be the children of men, cursed be they before Jehovah.’ “
Now comes a passage that we will have to explain in the next chapter: “For they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of Jehovah, saying, Go, serve other gods. Now therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth before the face of Jehovah, for the king of Israel is come to seek a flea, as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains.” This is a very undignified thing for a king to do to go out flea hunting; go to chasing a partridge. “Partridge” there is what we call a “blue quail.” They seldom fly, but they can run, and anyone who hunts them has to be very fast; hence the beauty of the illustration. Saul says, “I have sinned.” (You remember he said that to Samuel.) “Return, my son David, for I will no more do thee harm, because my soul was precious in thine eyes this day, and behold I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.” David didn’t trust him. Saul concludes, “Blessed be thou, my son, David; for thou shall both do great things and also shalt prevail.” So David went his own way, and Saul returned to his place. They never meet again. The pursuit is ended. We end this chapter with the end of the duel between Saul and David.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the interest of this section?
2. From what point and place comes the turn in the fortunes of David, and who were his helpers?
3. How does David at this time evince the most exalted patriotism?
4. What parallel in history of these facts?
5. Cite an example of this patriotism of David, and show the ungrateful return to him?
6. Cite a parallel in later days to show that information from Jehovah concerning the secret purposes of men eclipsed all knowledge to be derived from spies, and so saved the king of Israel.
7. Explain the text difficulty in 1Sa 23:6 .
8. Where was David’s next refuge from Saul, what the description of Saul’s pursuit, and what Jehovah’s deliverance?
9. Describe Jonathan’s last interview with David.
10. Describe David’s first escape from the treachery of the Ziphites, and how that escape was commemorated.
11. What was David’s next refuge from Saul, what the history of the place, and what has modern research to say about it?
12. What the events there, and what illustrations therefrom?
13. What man, greatest next to Moses since Abraham’s day, dies at this juncture?
14. Cite an example of David’s protection of the villages and farms, giving the main incidents in the thrilling story of David and Abigail, and illustrate by Texas free rangers.
16. Describe the incidents of the last meeting of Saul and David.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
1Sa 25:1 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.
Ver. 1. And Samuel died. ] After a long race run without cessation or cespitation: he was one of those few that lived and died with honour. Nabal did not; so: Contraria iuxta se posita, &c. “The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked doth rot.” Pro 10:7
And lamented him.
“ Virtutem incolumem odimus:
Sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi. ” – Horat.
And buried him in his house at Ramah. ] Where he had, likely, prepared himself a sepulchre; for so was the custom of that people, and others also. The Thebans had a law, that no man should make a house for himself to dwell in, but he should first make his grave.
And David arose.
a Jun.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
lamented. As for a second Moses. Compare Jer 15:1.
in = by, or near.
down. Topography here is most exact. It is a continuous descent to the Negeb for more than a day’s journey.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 25
Now Samuel died; and all of the Israelites were gathered together, and lamenting him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran. And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very wealthy, he had three thousand sheep, a thousand goats: and they were shearing his sheep there in Carmel ( 1Sa 25:1-2 ).
Now Carmel is the mountain range that goes from east to west. It starts at the port city of Haifa and goes east along the area. Actually, Megiddo is in a portion, a lower portion of this range of Carmel, just about the end of the range towards the east. So there Nabal, his servants were shearing his sheep.
Now the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife was Abigail: and she was a woman of good understanding, and a very beautiful face: but the man was churlish and evil in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb. And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. And so David sent out ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name: And thus shall you say to him who is living in such prosperity, Peace both to thee, and peace to your house, and peace to all that you have. Now I’ve heard that you have shearers: and now your shepherds which were with us, we did not hurt them, neither was there anything missing from them, all the while that they were in Carmel. Ask your young men, and they will shew thee. Wherefore let my young men find favour in thine eyes: for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to your hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David. And when David’s young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all of the words in the name of David, and they had finished. Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there are many servants now a days that break away from a man’s master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men, whom I know not from where they are? So David’s young men turned their way, and they went again, and they came and told David all those sayings. And David said to his men, All right men put on your swords. So every man put on his sword; and David also put on his sword: and they went up after David about four hundred men; two hundred men stayed by their stuff. And one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master; and he railed on them. But the men were very good to us, we were not hurt, neither did we miss anything, as long as we were conversant with them, in the fields: They were a wall unto us both by night and day, the whole while we were there keeping the sheep. Now therefore know and consider what you’re gonna do; for evil is determined against our master, and against his house: for he is such a man of Belial, that a man can’t speak to him ( 1Sa 25:3-17 ).
So they came to Nabal’s wife, and they said, “Hey, David sent these servants to talk to our master, and man, he really railed on them. It’s not good, because David’s men were indeed kind. They were a wall to us, they didn’t take anything from us, and now evil’s determined. We can’t talk to him, you know, no one can talk to him. He’s just such a character.”
And so Abigail, Nabal’s wife made haste, she took two hundred loaves, two bottles of wine, five sheep that were already dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred little cakes of dried figs, and she laid them on the donkeys. And she said to her servants, Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But she did not tell her husband Nabal. And it was so, as she rode on the donkey, that as she came down by the covert of the hill, and behold, David and his men were coming down against her; and she met them. Now David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed from all that pertained to him: and he has requited me evil for good. And so more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any man at all. And when Abigail saw David, she hurried, and got off of her donkey, and fell down before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground. And fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let your handmaid, I pray thee, speak in your audience, and hear the words. Don’t let my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he ( 1Sa 25:18-25 );
Now the word “Nabal” means foolish. She said, “Don’t regard this guy. He’s a fool like his name, so he is, his name is a fool. So you know he’s just, he is. They named him well.”
[Fool] is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom you did send. [“I didn’t see them.”] Now therefore, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, seeing the Lord has withheld thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with your own hand, now let your enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal. And now this blessing which your handmaid has brought unto my lord, let it be given unto the young men hath follow my lord. I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid: for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fights the battles of the Lord, and evil has not been found in thee in all thy days. 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 ( 1Sa 25:25-29 ).
So Abigail is there pleading with David. Beautiful woman, has brought all of these things, and she is making good sense. “You know why should you avenge yourself. God will avenge you David. He’s taken care of you, and so forgive the foolishness of this foolish man.”
It shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee the ruler over Israel; Then this will not be a grief to you, [“that you avenge yourself, this won’t be on your conscience that you came up and you wiped out this guy and his family just because he didn’t give the provisions that you were wanting for your men.”] but when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember your handmaid. So David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent you to meet me today: And blessed is the advice, and blessed are you, which have kept me today from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with my own hand ( 1Sa 25:30-33 ).
Now to me this shows the greatness of David. Some men are so dumb that they can’t take advice from women. You know they think, “I’m the man” and they’re not willing to listen to anybody much, and really oftentimes not a woman. But here it really shows the greatness of David. “Ah, blessed be thou of the Lord,” that’s good advice, blessed is your advice. You’re just a blessed person. “Thank you for coming and stopping me from avenging myself, shedding blood, avenging myself.” He saw that the advice was sound. He saw that it was good. He respected it, he admired her for it, and of course, many characteristics about Abigail, very, very sharp, good woman. She’ll be an interesting one to meet in heaven and to share with and all. She’s just a very outstanding person indeed.
For in very deed, as the Lord God of Israel lives, which has kept me back from hurting thee, except you had come to meet me, surely there had not been to Nabal any left in the family. So David received of her hand that which she had received of him, and said to her, Go up in peace to your house; I have hearkened to your voice, I’ve accepted what you’ve said. So 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 drunk: therefore she did not tell him any thing less, or more, until the morning. But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, [Sobering up] that his wife told him of these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone ( 1Sa 25:34-37 ).
He was so angry and so upset in what she did, he just froze. His heart died within him, and actually he probably had a heart attack.
And it came to pass ten days afterwards, [that he died,] the Lord smote Nabal, and he died. 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 has returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail, that she might become his wife. And when the servants of David were come to Abigail to Carmel, they spake unto her, saying, David sent us to thee, to take thee to him for a wife. 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. [Now here again showing really the greatness of this woman Abigail, she said, “Oh let me wash your feet, the feet of the servants of my lord”, so they were servants but yet a very gracious woman, and a marvelous woman indeed.] So Abigail hurried, and arose, and rode upon a donkey, with five of her damsels that went after her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife. Now David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they were also both of them his wives. But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Phalti the son the Laish, which was of Gallim ( 1Sa 25:38-43 ).
So the whole crazy mixed-up marriage situations that began, which of course with Solomon when he took over as king, took to the extremes, foolish extremes. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
We now have the account of Samuel’s death. Notwithstanding all Israel’s failure to realize his high ideals, it was impossible that they should not recognize his greatness, and it is easy to believe that their mourning for him was the evidence of genuine sorrow.
The story of Nabal, as here written, is intensely interesting. He was of a type which continues to this time. The whole fact is most forcibly expressed in the word “churlish.” David’s approach to him was characterized by fine courtesy, which was responded to, not only by refusal to grant the request, but by uncalled-for and unwarranted aspersions.
In the story Abigail stands out as a woman of fine tone and temper, and of keen insight. It is perfectly evident that her principal concern was for David. To save him from a bloody deed was her first intention. In this she was successful, and David recognized the h e service she had rendered him.
The chapter ends with the story of his marriage to Abigail, while already he had taken Ahinoam to wife. While it is perfectly true that we have no right to measure David by the standards of our own time, it is equally clear that at this point we have evidence of a weakness which presently was to lead him into the most terrible sin of his life and cause him the greatest difficulty and the acutest suffering.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Kindness Wakens a Better Spirit
1Sa 24:16-22; 1Sa 25:1
Davids noble self-restraint, followed as it was by no less noble words, awoke the best side of Sauls nature. Chords began to vibrate that had long been silent. The memory of happier days, before their intercourse had become clouded by jealousy and hatred, came trooping back, and Saul was himself again. Indeed, Davids appeal called forth from Saul a confession of his sin; and he went so far as to ask David to spare his house in the coming days, when David would assuredly be king. But, as the sequel proved, this better spirit was but temporary. It was a change of mood, not of will. Let us not form the habit of trusting in our emotional life. Nothing is permanent save the will that is energized by the will of God. Psa 142:1-7 throws a light on Davids state of heart at this period.
The death of a good man is a serious loss at any time, but to Israel, governed by a cruel, wayward king, Samuels death was cause for special lamentation. His holy life, his fearless denunciation of wrong, his self-sacrifice for the peoples welfare, and especially his power in intercessory prayer, made him one of the most important national assets. Let us so live that we may be missed when we go home!
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
CHAPTER 25
1. The death of Samuel (1Sa 25:1)
2. Nabal and his refusal (1Sa 25:2-13)
3. Abigails deed and her prayer (1Sa 25:14-31)
4. Davids answer to Abigail (1Sa 25:32-35)
5. Nabals death (1Sa 25:36-38)
6. Abigail becomes Davids wife (1Sa 25:39-44)
After the death of Samuel, briefly mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, David went still further south into the wilderness of Paran. An interesting story, the story of Nabal and Abigail, is told in this chapter. David had won a great victory over himself and over Saul. The next event records a great failure. He loses his self-control completely, and instead of manifesting the magnanimity he showed towards Saul, he breaks out in a rage and in the violence of his temper he was ready to kill Nabal and his entire household. God alone in His gracious intervention saved him from committing a crime as heinous as the one Saul committed when he slew Ahimelech, his fellow-priests and the inhabitants of Nob. How he failed! How different He was, whose rejection and suffering David foreshadowed, our Lord! What a contrast with His meekness! David was out of touch with the Lord and we read nothing here of David asking the Lord about sending the ten young men to Carmel, nor did he enquire of the Lord, when in the heat of his spirit he ordered the four hundred men to proceed on their dreadful errand.
It is true the provocation was great. He had sent the young men with a message of peace to Nabal, requesting the rich man for a little help. David had regarded the property of Nabal and his shepherds were not molested. The exiled king had a right to expect the little help he asked. And Nabal was an unbeliever. He did not believe in David as the Lords anointed King, but looked upon him as a slave who had left his master. He refused and insulted the Kings messengers. Nabal means fool. He is a type of natural man and especially those who reject the Lord and His message of peace. His words my bread–my water–my flesh–my shearers and the whole story reminds us of that other fool of whom our Lord spoke. He also spoke of my barns–my fruits–my goods (Luk 12:16-21).
David was restrained from his evil purpose by the intervention of beautiful Abigail, the wife of Nabal. When she heard what her husband had done she at once prepared a magnificent present for David and his men. It was a princely gift, including two skins filled with wine. All this she did without consulting her husband. And the place she takes before David, her supplications, her confession, her humble prayer for forgiveness, her delicate reference to the kings sinful haste to shed blood, her faith in Davids coming exaltation and her concluding request, then remember thine handmaid–all is so rich and beautiful. Abigail the woman with understanding and of a beautiful countenance typifies the true believer and may also be taken as a type of the church. Nabal to whom she is bound as wife is typical of the old nature, the flesh. But Nabal died and Abigail was married to David; even as the believer is dead to sin, dead to the law and is now married to another, even to Christ (Rom 7:4). We leave it to the reader to follow these hints in their application.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
am 2944, bc 1060, An, Ex, Is 431
Samuel: 1Sa 28:3
lamented: Gen 50:11, Num 20:29, Deu 34:8, Act 8:2
in his house: 1Sa 7:17, 1Ki 2:34, 2Ch 33:20, Isa 14:18
the wilderness: Gen 14:6, Gen 21:21, Num 10:12, Num 12:16, Num 13:3, Num 13:26, Psa 120:5
Reciprocal: Deu 1:1 – Paran Jdg 4:5 – between 1Sa 7:15 – judged 2Ch 32:33 – did him Hab 3:3 – Paran
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
MORE BROKEN PROMISES
DAVID AND ABIGAIL (1 Samuel 25)
The romance of this chapter has a setting like this: The Wilderness of Paran on the south was a common pasture like our prairies, and for this reason open to marauders from among the Arabs.
David and his men must have been a protection to their countrymen from such incursions, and in the habit of receiving practical acknowledgments of their service.
Nabal was a rich sheep owner who must have been indebted to them, and good business, to say nothing of gratitude, should have induced him to contribute to Davids need without asking, and his refusal to do so was a violation of established custom.
This does not justify Davids bloodthirsty action, but explains it.
The bottles of wine (1Sa 25:18) were goatskins holding a large quantity.
The bundle of life (1Sa 25:29) is a poetic expression alluding to the security of the person to whom it is applied.
The last phrase of verses 22 and 34 should be rendered any man child. When Nabals heart died (1Sa 25:37), it means that he fainted at the thought of his narrow escape, the shock ultimately ending his life (1Sa 25:38).
Davids taking Abigail to wife was in accordance with eastern custom. He was the head of a clan, Abigail seemed to recognize him as the successor of Saul (1Sa 25:30), and such an one fancying a woman for his wife had a right to command her submission to his will. Abigail seems to have been very willing, however.
Polygamy was wrong, (1Sa 25:44), but, because of the condition of the times, God seems to have permitted it (Mat 19:3-9).
DAVID AND ABNER (1 Samuel 26)
Why David returns to Hachilah (see 1Sa 23:19) is not clear, especially when he was near his old enemies, the Ziphites.
Within the trench (1Sa 26:7), means within the place of the wagons (see Revised Version). The encampment was a circle, the wagons and the men lining it, and the place of the leader being in the center. His bolster is the same as his head.
In explanation of verse 13 we are told that the air of Palestine enables the voice to be heard at a great distance. (Compare Jdg 9:7.) Davids heroic strategy gave good ground for his sarcastic inquiry of Abner (1Sa 26:14-16).
Saul repents again and makes more promises; but he has broken so many hitherto that Davids confidence is not restored (1Sa 26:25).
DAVID AND ACHISH (1 Samuel 27)
Davids resolution (1Sa 27:1) was probably wrong (see 1Sa 22:5), but God overruled it for good by making it contribute to the final destruction of Saul.
Achish seems to have been another than he named in the earlier chapter, and there is likelihood that he invited David into his territory. Perhaps it was good policy to do so in view of the feud between David and Saul, and his warlike purposes toward the latter.
Ziklag belonged originally to Canaan and was given to Israel, but never conquered or occupied by the latter. It was far in the south on the border of Philistia, just northeast of Beersheba.
Road (1Sa 27:10) should be rendered raid. David deceives Achish in what he says, for instead of destroying the kings enemies, he really did away with the kings allies and engaged in awful slaughter to conceal it (1Sa 27:11-12).
As in other cases we must not suppose God endorses this because it is in the record or because it was done by one of His servants.
Some of ourselves are in point. Though redeemed by the blood of Christ, and indwelt by Gods Sprit, what unsatisfactory instruments do we make in His service, and how often we bring dishonor on His name. Yet He loves and bears with us and, though He chastens, still uses us.
It is one of the proofs of the creditability of the Bible that it tells us the whole truth about a man. If it were false it would be covering over the defects of its heroes; but as it is, both the Old and New Testament never compromise the facts for the sake of a good appearance. And very grateful we should be therefore.
QUESTIONS
1. How may Nabal have become indebted to David?
2. How would you explain Davids polygamous relations with Abigail?
3. Do you know where Paran, Hachilah, Ziph and Ziklag are located?
4. What was the name of Sauls chief captain?
5. Name a strong, incidental proof of the Bible, suggested in this lesson.
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
1Sa 25:1. And Samuel died According to the best chronologers, he governed Israel after the death of Eli sixteen years or upward, and lived about forty years after in the reign of Saul; and all the Israelites lamented him It is no wonder that so wise and holy a man, so righteous a ruler, so just a judge, and so enlightened a prophet, should be uncommonly and universally lamented; especially when the wisdom and equity of his government, compared with Sauls tyranny and extravagance, made his memory more dear and his loss more regretted. Those have hard hearts, says Henry, that can bury their faithful ministers with dry eyes, and are not sensible of the loss of them who have prayed for them, and taught them the way of the Lord. And buried him in his house in Ramah Where, it is likely, there was a burying-place for his family in some part of his garden, or some field adjacent. For they had then no public places of interment. He was now attended by all Israel to his grave, and his remains, many centuries after, were removed with incredible pomp, and almost one continued train of attendants, from Ramah to Constantinople, by the Emperor Arcadius, A.D. 401.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Sa 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.
1Sa 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.
1Sa 25:8. We come in a good day. The christian can say the same of sacraments and of divine ordinances.
1Sa 25:18. Two bottles of wine. Bruce calls these gerbashes, strong hides sewed close, and thrown over the back of a beast.
1Sa 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 Sauls covenant, and with Davids 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 Gods peculiar right to punish sins of this nature, as the issue proved.
Nabals 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.
Abigails 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 Davids 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 Davids 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. Abigails 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 Nabals 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.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Sa 25:1 a. (to Ramah). Death and Burial of Samuel. (An editorial addition.)
1Sa 25:1. in his house: in the grounds belonging to it.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
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 (1Sa 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.” (Luk 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 Rom 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” (Rom 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 — Gen 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 (2Sa 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 (2Sa 6:20-23).
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
25:1 And Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his {a} house at Ramah. And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
(a) That is, among his own kindred.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The death of Samuel 25:1
Samuel’s years of being a blessing to all Israel ended at this time. David took his place as God’s major channel of blessing to the nation. It is appropriate that the notice of Samuel’s death occurs here since Saul had just admitted publicly that David would be Israel’s next king (1Sa 24:20). Samuel’s ministry of providing a transition to the monarchy had therefore ended. People all over Israel mourned Samuel’s death. Samuel was the last of the judges. David would probably have continued Samuel’s ministry and become Israel’s first king without the hiatus of Saul’s tragic reign if Israel had not insisted on having a king prematurely.
"Since the days of Moses and Joshua, no man had arisen to whom the covenant nation owed so much as to Samuel, who has been justly called the reformer and restorer of the theocracy." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, p. 238. Cf. Jeremiah 15:1.]
This chapter opens with one disappointment for David, the death of his mentor, and it closes with another, the departure of his mate (1Sa 25:44). This suggests that the events of chapter 25 took place when David was at a low point in his life emotionally. This may account for the fact that David did not conduct himself completely honorably at this time. He is not the hero of this chapter. Abigail is. God used a woman to avert a tragedy in Israel’s history, again (cf. Judges 4; 2Sa 14:2-20; 2Sa 20:16-22). The wilderness of Paran, to which David fled next, lay just southeast of Maon (1Sa 25:2).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER XXXII.
DAVID AND NABAL.
1Sa 25:1-44.
WE should be forming far too low an estimate of the character of the people of Israel if we did not believe that they were very profoundly moved by the death of Samuel. Even admitting that but a small proportion of them are likely to have been in warm sympathy with his ardent godliness, he was too remark- able a man, and he had been too conspicuous a figure in the history of the nation, not to be greatly missed, and much spoken of and thought of, when he passed away.
Cast in the same mould with their great leader and legislator Moses, he exerted an influence on the nation only second to that which stood connected with the prophet of the Exodus. He had not been associated with such stirring events in their history as Moses; neither had it been his function to reveal to them the will of God, either so systematically, or so comprehensively, or so supernaturally; but he was marked by the same great spirituality, the same intense reverence for the God of Israel, the same profound belief in the reality of the covenant between Israel and God, and the same conviction of the inseparable connection between a pure worship and flowing prosperity on the one hand, and idolatrous defection and national calamity on the other.
No man except Moses had ever done more to rivet this truth on the minds and hearts of the people. It was the lifelong aim and effort of Samuel to show that it made the greatest difference to them in every way how they acted toward God, in the way of worship, trust, and obedience. He made incessant war on that cold worldly spirit, so natural to us all that leaves God out of account as a force in our lives, and strives to advance our interests simply by making the most of the conditions of material prosperity.
No doubt with many minds the name of Samuel would be associated with a severity and a spirituality and a want of worldliness that were repulsive to them, as indicating one who carried the matter, to use a common phrase, too far. But at Samuel’s death even these men might be visited with a somewhat remorseful conviction that, if Samuel had gone too far, they had not gone half far enough. There might come from the retrospect of his career a wholesome rebuke to their worldliness and neglect of God; for surely, they would feel, if there be a God, we ought to worship Him, and it cannot be well for us to neglect Him altogether.
On the other hand, the career of Samuel would be recalled with intense admiration and gratitude by all the more earnest of the people. What an impressive witness for all that was good and holy had they not had among them! What a living temple, what a Divine epistle, written not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart! What glory and honour had not that man’s life been to the nation, – so uniform, so consistent, so high in tone! What a reproof it carried to low and selfish living, what a splendid example it afforded to old and young of the true way and end of life, and what a blessed impulse it was fitted to give them in the same direction, showing so clearly “what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”
By a remarkable connection, though perhaps not by design, two names are brought together in this chapter representing very opposite phases of human character – Samuel and Nabal. In Samuel we have the high-minded servant of God, trained from infancy to smother his own will and pay unbounded regard to the will of his Father in heaven; in Nabal we see the votary of the god of this world, enslaved to his worldly lusts, grumbling and growling when he is compelled to submit to the will of God. Samuel is the picture of the serene and holy believer, enjoying unseen fellowship with God, and finding in that fellowship a blessed balm for the griefs and trials of a wounded spirit; Nabal is the picture of the rich but wretched worldling who cannot even enjoy the bounties of his lot, and is thrown into such a panic by the mere dread of losing them that he actually sinks into the grave. Under the one picture we would place the words of the Apostle in the third chapter of Philippians – “Whose god is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things; “under the other the immediately following words, “Our conversation is in heaven.” Such were the two men to whom the summons to appear before God was sent about the same time; the one ripe for glory, the other meet for destruction; the one removed to Abraham’s bosom, the other to the pit of woe; each to the master whom he served, and each to the element in which he had lived. Look on this picture and on that, and say which you would be like. And as you look remember how true it is that as men sow so do they reap. The one sowed to the flesh, and of the flesh he reaped corruption; the other sowed to the Spirit, and of the Spirit he reaped life everlasting. The continuity of men’s lives in the world to come gives an awful solemnity to that portion of their lives which they spend on earth: – “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he that his filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.”
There is another lesson to be gathered from a matter of external order before we proceed to the particulars of the narrative. This chapter, recording David’s collision with Nabal, and showing us how David lost his temper, and became hot and impetuous and impatient in consequence of Nabal’s treatment, comes in between the narrative of his two great victories over the spirit of revenge and impatience. It gives us a very emphatic lesson – how the servant of God may conquer in a great fight and yet be beaten in a small. The history of all spiritual warfare is full of such cases. In the presence of a great enemy, the utmost vigilance is maintained; every effort is strained, every stimulus is applied. In the presence of a small foe, the spirit of confidence, the sense of security, is liable to leave every avenue unguarded, and to pave the way for signal defeat. When I am confronted with a great trial, I rally all my resources to bear it, I realize the presence of God, I say, “Thou God seest me”; but when it is a little trial, I am apt to meet it unarmed and unguarded, and I experience a humiliating fall. Thus it is that men who have in them the spirit of martyrs, and who would brave a dungeon or death itself rather than renounce a testimony or falter in a duty, often suffer defeat under the most ordinary temptations of everyday life, – they lose their temper on the most trifling provocations; almost without a figure, they are ”crushed before the moth.”
Whether the death of Samuel brought such a truce to David as to allow him to join in the great national gathering at his funeral we do not know with certainty; but immediately after we find him in a region called “the wilderness of Paran,” in the neighbourhood of the Judean Carmel. It was here that Nabal dwelt. This Carmel is not to be confounded with the famous promontory of that name in the tribe of Asher, where Elijah and the priests of Baal afterwards had their celebrated contest; it was a hill in the tribe of Judah, in the neighbourhood of the place where David had his encampment. A descendant of the lion-hearted Judah and of the courageous Caleb, this Nabal came of a noble stock; but cursed with a narrow heart, a senseless head, and a groveling nature, he fell as far below average humanity as his great ancestors had risen above it. With all his wealth and family connection, he appears to us now as poor a creature as ever lived, – a sort of “golden beast,” as was said of the Emperor Caligula; and we cannot think of him without reflecting how little true glory or greatness mere wealth or worldly position confers, – how infinitely more worthy of honour are the sterling qualities of a generous Christian heart. It is plain that in an equitable point of view Nabal owed much to David; but what he owed could not be enforced by an action at law, and Nabal was one of those poor creatures that acknowledge no other obligation.
The studied courtesy and modesty with which David preferred his claim is interesting; it could not but be against the grain to say anything on the subject: if Nabal had not had his “understanding blinded” he would have spared him this pain; the generous heart is ever thinking of the services that others are rendering, and will never subject modesty to the pain of urging its own. “Ye shall greet him in my name” said David to his messengers; -and thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be both to thee and peace to thy house, and peace be to all that thou hast.” No envying of his prosperity – no grudging to him his abundance; but only the Christian wish that he might have God’s blessing with it, and that it might all turn to good. It was the time of sheep-shearing when the flocks were probably counted and the increase over last year ascertained; and by a fine old custom It was commonly the season of liberality and kindness A time of increase should always be so; it is the time for helping poor relations (a duty often strangely over-looked), for acknowledging ancient kindnesses, for relieving distress, and for devising liberal things for the Church of Christ. David gently reminded Nabal that he had come at this good time; then he hinted at the services which he and his followers had done him; but to show that he did not wish to press hard on him, he merely asked him to give what might come to his hand; though, as the anointed king of Israel, he might have assumed a more commanding title he asked him to give it to “thy son, David.” So modest, gentle, and affectionate an application, savouring so little of the persecuted, distracted outlaw, savouring so much of the mild self-possessed Christian gentleman – deserved treatment very different from what it received. The detestable niggardliness of Nabal’s heart would not suffer him to part with anything which he could find an excuse for retaining. But greed so excessive, even in its own eyes, must find some cloak to cover it; and one of the most common and most congenial to flinty hearts is – the unworthiness of the applicant. The miser is not content in simply refusing an application for the poor, he must add some abusive charge to conceal his covetousness – they are lazy, improvident, intemperate; or if it be a Christian object he is asked to support, – these unreasonable people are always asking. Any excuse rather than tell the naked truth, “We worship our money; and when we spend it, we spend it on ourselves.” Such was Nabal. “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. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, that I know not whence they be?”
As often happens, excessive selfishness overreached itself. Insult added to injury was more than David chose to bear; for once, he lost self-command, and was borne along by impetuous passion. Meek men, when once their temper is roused, usually go to great extremes. And if David’s purpose had not been providentially arrested, Nabal and all that belonged to him would have been swept before morning to destruction.
With the quickness and instinctive certainty of a clever woman’s judgment, Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saw at once how things were going. With more than the calmness and self-possession of many a clever woman, she arranged and dispatched the remedy almost instantaneously after the infliction of the wrong. How so superior a woman could have got yoked to so worthless a man we can scarcely conjecture, unless on the vulgar and too common supposition that the churl’s wealth and family had something to do with the match. No doubt she had had her punishment. But luxury had not impaired the energy of her spirit, and wealth had not destroyed the regularity of her habits. Her promptness and her prudence all must admire, her commissariat skill was wonderful in its way; and the exquisite tact and cleverness with which she showed and checked the intended crime of David – all the while seeming to pay him a compliment – could not have been surpassed. “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 avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies and they that seek evil to my lord be as Nabal.” But the most remarkable of all her qualities is her faith; it reminds us of the faith of Rahab of Jericho, or of the faith of Jonathan; she had the firm persuasion that David was owned of God, that he was to be the king of Israel, and that all the devices men might use against him would fail; and she addressed him – poor outlaw though he was – as one of whose elevation to sovereign power, after what God had spoken, there could not be the shadow of a doubt. Her liberality, too, was very great. And there was a truthful, honest tone about her. Perhaps she spoke even too plainly of her husband, but the occasion admitted of no sort of apology for him; there was no deceit about her, and as little flattery. Her words had a wholesome honest air, and some of her expressions were singularly happy. When she spoke of the soul of my lord as “bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God,” she seemed to anticipate the very language in which the New Testament describes the union of Christ and His people, “Your life is hid with Christ in God.” She had a clear conception of the “sure mercies of David,” certainly in the literal, and we may hope also in the spiritual sense.
The revengeful purpose and rash vow of David were not the result of deliberate consideration; they were formed under the influence of excitement, – most unlike the solemn and prayerful manner in which the expedition at Keilah had been undertaken. God unacknowledged had left David to misdirected paths. But if we blame David, as we must, for his heedless passion, we must not less admire the readiness with which he listens to the reasonable and pious counsel of Abigail. With the ready instinct of a gracious heart he recognises the hand of God in Abigail’s coming, – this mercy had a heavenly origin; and cordially praises Him for His restraining providence and restraining grace. He candidly admits that he had formed a very sinful purpose; but he frankly abandons it, accepts her offering, and sends her away in peace. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to me; 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.” It is a mark of sincere and genuine godliness to be not less thankful for being kept from sinning than from being rescued from suffering.
And it was not long before David had convincing proof that it is best to leave vengeance in the hands of God. “It came to pass, about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal that he died.” Having abandoned himself at his feast to the beastliest sensuality, his nervous system underwent a depression corresponding to the excitement that had accompanied the debauch. In this miserable state of collapse and weakness, the news of what had happened gave him a fright from which he never recovered. A few days of misery, and this wretched man went to his own place, there to join the great crowd of selfish and godless men who said to God, “Depart from us,” and to whom God will but echo their own wish – “Depart from Me!”
When David heard of his death, his satisfaction at the manifest interposition of God on his behalf, and his thankfulness for having been enabled to conquer his impetuosity, overcame for the time every other consideration. Full of this view, he blessed God for Nabal’s death, rejoicing over his untimely end more perhaps than was altogether becoming. We, at least, should have liked to see David dropping a tear over the grave of one who had lived without grace and who died without comfort. Perhaps, however, we are unable to sympathize with the earnestness of the feeling produced by God’s visible vindication of him; a feeling that would be all the more fervent, because what had happened to Nabal must have been viewed as a type of what was sure to happen to Saul. In the death of Nabal, David by faith saw the destruction of all his enemies – no wonder though his spirit was lifted up at the sight.
If it were not for a single expression, we should, without hesitation, set down the thirty-seventh Psalm as written at this period. The twenty-fifth verse seems to connect it with a later period; even then it seems quite certain that, when David wrote it, the case of Nabal (among other cases perhaps) was full in his view. The great fact in providence on which the psalm turns is the sure and speedy destruction of the wicked; and the great lesson of the psalm to God’s servants is not to fret because of their prosperity, but to rest patiently on the Lord, who will cause the meek to inherit the earth. Many of the minor expressions and remarks, too, are quite in harmony with this occasion: “Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” ”Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.” “The meek shall inherit the earth.” “The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom,” – unlike Nabal, a fool by name and a fool by nature. The great duty enforced is that of waiting on the Lord; not merely because it is right in itself to do so, but because “He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday.”
The chapter ends with Abigail’s marriage to David. We are told, at the same time, that he had another wife, Ahinoam the Jezreelite, and that Michal, Saul’s daughter, had been taken from him, and given to another. These statements cannot but grate upon our ear, indicating a laxity in matrimonial relations very far removed from our modern standard alike of duty and of delicacy. We cannot acquit David of a want of patience and self-restraint in these matters; undoubtedly it is a blot in his character, and it is a blot that led to very serious results. It was an element of coarseness in a nature that in most things was highly refined. David missed the true ideal of family life, the true ideal of love, the true ideal of purity. His polygamy was not indeed imputed to him as a crime; it was tolerated in him, as it had been tolerated in Jacob and in others; but its natural and indeed almost necessary effects were not obviated. In his family it bred strife, animosity, division; it bred fearful crimes among brothers and sisters; while, in his own case, his unsubdued animalism stained his conscience with the deepest sins, and rent his heart with terrible sorrows. How dangerous is even one vulnerable spot – one un- subdued lust of evil! The fable represented that the heel of Achilles, the only vulnerable part of his body, because his mother held him by it when she dipped him in the Styx, was the spot on which he received his fatal wound. It was through an unmortified lust of the flesh that nearly all David’s sorrows came. How emphatic in this view the prayer of the Apostle – “I pray God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord.” And how necessary and appropriate the exhortation, “Put on the whole armour of God” – girdle, breast-plate, sandals, helmet, sword – all; leave no part un- protected, “that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand.”
Thus, then, it appears, that for all that was beautiful in David he was not a perfect character, and not without stains that seriously affected the integrity and consistency of his life. In that most important part of a young man’s duty – to obtain full command of himself, yield to no unlawful bodily indulgence, and do nothing that, directly or indirectly, can tend to lower the character or impair the delicacy of women, – David, instead of an example, is a beacon. Greatly though his early trials were blessed in most things, they were not blessed in all things. We must not, for this reason, turn from him as some do, with scorn. We are to admire and imitate the qualities that were so fine, especially in early life. Would that many of us were like him in his tenderness, his godliness, and his attachment to his people! His name is one of the embalmed names of Holy Writ, – all the more that when he did become conscious of his sin, no man ever repented more bitterly; and no man’s spirit, when bruised and broken, ever sent more of the fragrance as “of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces.”