“She fell at his feet and said: “‘My Lord, let the blame be on me alone. Please let your servant speak to you; hear what your servant has to say.”
~ 1 Samuel 25:24
Hi James and Ellen,
Nabal lived over 3000 years ago. Nabal was wealthy. Nabal owned 1000 goats and 3000 sheep. Nabal’s wife was beautiful and intelligent. Her name was Abigail. Nabal’s name means fool. Nabal was a surly, disagreeable guy. Nabal and Abigail lived in Carmel. Carmel was located about seven miles due south of Hebron. Carmel was located in the Judah tribal clan’s land area. Saul was the king at this time who was reigning over the Israelite people group’s guys and gals – God’s specially chosen guys and gals. Samuel was at this time God’s spokesman to His specially chosen guys and gals. Samuel had already anointed a young guy to be the next king to reign over God’s specially chosen guys and gals. The guy who Samuel anointed to succeed Saul when the time arrived for Saul to die had still not become the next king when Samuel died. David was the young guy who Samuel anointed to succeed Saul when the time arrived for Saul to die to reign over God’s specially chosen guys and gals as their king. Instead of becoming the next king to reign over God’s specially chosen guys and gals, David became the leader of a diverse, motley gang of about 400 rebels. One of David’s hangouts was near Carmel. David knew Nabal. Some of Nabal’s sheepshearers when they were not shearing sheep would spend their time with David. David more or less kept an eye on Nabal’s goats and sheep so that they would not be stolen from Nabal. Nabal had it made with David and his dissident cohorts doing free guard duty for him.
David decided one day during the shearing season that it was time for Nabal to reimburse him with some sheep or goat meat for keeping an eye on his sheep and goats. David sent ten of his followers to Nabal’s place in Carmel to courteously ask Nabal for whatever he could give them to take back to David and his raggedy band of renegades to eat. 1 Samuel 25 is about an arrogant, unappreciative guy who just did not get it. Instead of showing his thanks and appreciation for what David and his sundry group of renegades had been doing for him, Nabal demeans David and distains his ten buddies by facetiously and fractiously saying that he did not know a David. Nabal exemplified Saul. Saul acted a fool in the way that he reigned over God’s specially chosen guys and gals. Even when Saul was doing all he could to assassinate David, David was protecting God’s specially chosen guys and gals from an enemy people group of guys – the Philistine people group’s guys, who were doing all that they could to uproot God’s specially chosen guys and gals from the land that God told them that they were always to have to live in as their very own land. Nabal represented the attitude of God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were taking their Father God for granted – believing that their Father God would never do anything bad to them no matter how disobedient they were to Him. Nabal was totally clueless to the fact that what he told the ten guys who David sent to his place for some sheep and goat meat would perturb David as much as it did that David would head for his place with his renegade band of guys to . . . when Abigail was told what David was going to do, Abigail quickly packed up 200 loaves of bread, two skins full of wine, five sheep that had been skinned and gutted, five seahs or a little over eight dry gallons of roasted grain, 100 raisin cakes and 200 cakes of pressed figs and headed in the direction of where David and his gang of about 400 rebels were hiding. Abigail wanted to make everything right with David. As Abigail was riding into a mountain ravine on her donkey, she just happened to meet up with David as he and his guys were descending into the same mountain ravine. When his path crossed paths with Abigail, David was still grumbling about the way that Nabal had treated his ten loyalists. Abigail probably could see by just looking at David’s face that he was in a really, really dour mood. Verse 24 says what Abigail did immediately when she saw David, “She fell at his feet and said: “‘My Lord, let the blame be on me alone. Please let your servant speak to you; hear what your servant has to say.”’ Abigail was ready to take the fall for the words and actions of her arrogant, ill-mannered, foolish husband.
Abigail convinced David that it was not worth it for him to lower himself to kill her husband and their boys. David told Abigail to go back home – that he no longer wanted to kill her husband. When Abigail got back to her place in Carmel, she found her husband having a great time – getting drunk. When Nabal woke up the next morning, Abigail filled him on what David had been planning to do but had not done it after she crossed paths with him and convinced him that he should not do it. When Nabal realized the seriousness of his dim-witted reaction and flippant remarks to the ten guys who David had sent to him for some sheep and goat meat, Nabal had a serious heart attack. Nabal’s life until he died ten days later was like a cold, lifeless rock. When David heard that Nabal had died, David contacted Abigail to ask her to become one of his wives. Abigail went from being the wife of an obnoxious sheep and goat rancher to be the wife of the next king who would reign over God’s specially chosen guys and gals. Do you stand up for what is the right thing to do even though it might mean that you become ostracized or snubbed? Abigail was willing to do the right thing even though it meant her going against her husband’s way of doing things. To stand up for your convictions probably will not help you make many friends. To stand up for your convictions may though help you earn respect. Abigail’s reward for doing what was the right thing to do was to have her husband die. The life of Nabal and the life of Abigail are examples of what an outcome might be for you if you do what is wrong to do and what is right to do. Your grandmaa and grandpaa are praying that you will always choose to do the right thing.
1 Samuel 25 (500)