1 Samuel Lesson 42

Deliverance through Abigail – 25:1-31

Before we continue our study in 1 Samuel I’d like to answer a question: Was David taking the Lord’s name in verse 6 of chapter 24? How does this apply to the one whose vocabulary continuously includes God damn? If he is not personally and consciously thinking about God when he says this, is he actually taking the name of God in vain? Yet further, if a man insincerely says all the time, so and so, is this taking the Lord’s name in vain? In other words, is taking the Lord’s name in vain relative to the individual’s attitude? In 24:6 we translated it the way it should be translated, and that is “may God damn me.” And David is saying this to Jehovah and he means it; it’s an oath that he’s saying here, and this is the proper context of this kind of thing, and you will find this in Scripture. So the problem here is what is taking the Lord’s name in vain. Taking the Lord’s name in vain is attaching God’s name to something that is not worth His name. For example one application of the principle that “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” is saying that something is a Christian organization when that organization does not function by Biblical principles. You have placed the name Christian upon something that is sub-Biblical. That is taking the Lord’s name in vain. Liberal theology is taking the Lord’s name in vain because it is putting God’s name on something that does not properly belong to it, and so the rule is, are you or are you not taking God’s name in a context which is beneath His dignity. And that’s the point, David is not, in verse 6, taking the Lord’s name in vain. He’s using it as an oath; is he swearing? You bet he is. That’s the whole point of the passage.

Tonight we come to chapter 25 and we are going to meet one of the most outstanding women in all of God’s Word, Abigail. This woman, you very rarely hear anything of, yet she was one of David’s first wives; she was a woman that demonstrated a tremendous amount of wisdom. But to properly set the story which we will be studying we have to go back to the context. Chapters 21-27 deal with David’s rise to power during the persecution phase. We’re still on the persecution phase. Chapters 21-22 dealt with David’s humbling before the Lord by the lesson of hastiness. David learned the lessons of hastiness and why it would always get a believer in trouble to just on the whim, the spur of the moment, to decide, oh I’m going to do something, without checking out carefully and checking it out over a long enough period of time so that you can honestly say this correct by the facts at my disposal. So chapters 21-22 was David’s first lesson, the lesson of hastiness. Then in chapters 23-24 David experiences the delivering power of God from human treachery and he learned a second lesson; the lesson that people who pretend to be your friends will knife you in the back. And every leader has to learn this; David learned it.

Tonight we come to chapter 25 and here he’s going to have another experience. All these experiences fit together into a pattern that the Holy Spirit has preserved for us in the book of Samuel; the ultimate author of this book is not the prophetic school that wrote it but the Holy Spirit. And therefore it’s organized along these lines and you can’t just simply take a story out of its context. The story of Abigail is a story about a woman who met David during the time of the persecution phase of his life. And she was able to minister to him in a real fantastic way. She was in a situation where, had this woman not been there, with the proper doctrine, with the proper maturity, at the right moment, David probably would have been ruined as a king. So once again we find this is a deliverance by God, even though you read the story and you get involved in all the details, before we get to the details, just think of the big principle; this is another deliverance by God of David. All these deliverances back here, all these deliverances here, this is just another deliverance under God’s sovereignty, working in and through these various situations. And the Holy Spirit has placed in the text certain notes that we should watch for carefully because these notes tell us that God the Holy Spirit wants us to see that this didn’t happen by chance; all this was prearranged in the councils of Almighty God.

Now we begin in verse 1 by the reference that “Samuel died.” Now this sets sup the whole situation for the chapter. Let’s go back; we have Saul, Saul is on the decline spiritually. Saul is just about ready to commit the sin unto death. Saul, in chapter 24, has been cut off from Samuel the prophet; Saul is falling from power, David is rising to power. And during this time there is tremendous instability in the nation. The average citizen does not know which form of government he wants; is he going to go with David’s party or shall he go with Saul’s party. There’s indecision, there’s chaos, there’s people that are involved in all sorts of activities that we would consider treason. In the middle of all this, the kingpin drops out. And that’s Samuel. So this note is in here to show us that right now the situation has become more unstable than ever. The pot is boiling, and if the whole society isn’t to collapse back into the old situation of the times of the Judges, something has to happen.

Now we know why Saul is in trouble. Saul is a perfect example of a believer in extreme carnality. And just to review these symptoms in verses 16-21 of the previous chapter, look at these characteristics again; there are five characteristics that will suck you in every time unless you know the Word of God and what it has to say about pseudo-repentance, that is, a believer who appears, and I say appears to confess his sin and be restored to fellowship and do an about face, and doesn’t. This is also the same set of symptoms that occur when a non-Christian appears to accept Christ and appears to have a conversion experience.

Notice the symptoms; verse 16, “…Saul lifted up his voice, and wept.” In the middle of this situation Saul has an emotional response. That emotional response is probably greater than the average response to confession. Saul’s weeping was probably more overt, more clearly seen by an external observer, than any of David’s reactions when he confessed his sin. Saul put on a big show. And it was done sincerely; he wasn’t trying to put on a show but he was; he wasn’t trying to but in effect he was. And so the first thing is emotional response; Saul had an emotional response but that doesn’t mean that he was converted, in the sense of being restored to fellowship. Nor does it mean on the part of the non-Christian when they’re in an evangelistic context because they have an emotional response that they are converted. This is not the necessary sign of conversion, an emotional response. Yet in the average evangelistic situation that’s what goes; that’s the thing that really persuades people, because somebody breaks down and cries, because someone has an emotional experience, that is supposed to demonstrate conversion has occurred. Nonsense!

Second characteristic, verses 17-18, he admits to his wrong doing; he makes an apparent confession, an apparent confession. Now why is not this a sign of bona fide confession, or at the point of evangelism bona fide conversion.

The third characteristic, verse 19, is that he verbally agrees that God’s way is right. Look at all these things; in the average evangelistic situation this would certainly demonstrate conversion has occurred; certainly you could look upon, oh this was a turning point in Saul’s life—an emotional response, an apparent confession, verbally agreeing that God’s way is the correct way.

Verse 20, another symptom, he says “now, behold, I know well that you shall surely be king,” and in this verse Saul says I understand God’s will, surely that could not be done by an unregenerate person; surely that is a sign that conversion has occurred, or in the case of the believer being restored to fellowship, surely that must show that he is restored.

Then in verse 21, a fifth characteristic, and that is that he assumes certain responsibilities which he didn’t before. He’s concerned for his family, and so he assumes responsibilities that are in accord with the Word.

So look at these five characteristics: an emotional response, an apparent confession, a verbal agreement that God’s way is correct, understanding God’s will, he takes certain overt corrective activities, and yet we have that nagging last verse of chapter 24, David would have nothing to do with him; nothing, he got as far away from Saul as he possibly could because David wasn’t taken by false evidence. To David this was not evidence that conversion had occurred, it was just a surface set of emotions; it was just a set of surface symptoms. David did not trust this sort of evidence, nor should we.

I’m going to quote a section from one of the great Puritan writers, Joseph Alleine, and he’s writing to a group in this point in his ministry who claim they have been converted to Jesus Christ. And he says this, and he’s getting the same point that the Holy Spirit is in 1 Samuel 24, namely that you have a set of outside, externally, what we would say must be signs of conversion, yet there has been no conversion. “Commune then with your own heart, attend to the general current of your affections, whether they be toward God in Christ above or other concerns. Indeed, sudden,” and watch how this man had the perception, you see Saul wept, now here’s a Puritan, watch how he handles emotions, “Indeed, sudden and strong emotions of the affections,” that’s their word for emotions, “are often found in hypocrites, especially where the natural temperament is warm.” In other words, he says there are certain kinds of people that naturally emote. And you’re going to expect them to emote under certain situations so don’t be confused and think because somebody has had an emotional experience that that is conversion.

He continues, “and contrary wise the sanctified themselves are often without conscious stirring of the affections where the temperament is more slow, dry and dull,” and his point is, you will often find a person who is genuinely a believer in Jesus Christ and he will not have any great emotional response at all. And it has nothing to do with the working of the Holy Spirit, it has to do with his own natural temperament. So Alleine warns the people of his day, three centuries ago, to beware of confusing human personality with the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. “The great inquiry is whether the judgment and will are steadily determined for God above all, good, real or apparent.” Here’s the evidence that the Puritans uses: “The great inquiry is whether the judgment and the will,” that is what we would say the intellect and the volition, “are steadily determined,” notice “steadily determined,” that means consistently determined over some period of time, “whether the judgment and the will are steadily for God above all other good, real or apparent. If so and if the affections do sincerely follow their choice and conduct, though it be not so strongly and freely as is to be desired, there is no doubt but that the change is saving.”

Do you see what he’s saying? He’s saying that the emotions are nice but that is not the issue. See that’s what made the Puritans great; they discarded all the emphasis on the emotions. They allowed for them but they did not permit the emotions to be a criterion of truth. Then he says, of the mark of the person who has truly changed, he has this very interesting analogy or illustration, he says: “The one in whom there has been genuine conversion takes not holiness, as the stomach does loathe medicine, which a man will take rather than die, but as a hungry man does his beloved food.” In other words, another attitude that shows the working of the Holy Spirit in the personality is a desire for God’s holiness, not as a means to escape psychological difficulties, not as a means to get over your immediate problem, but just desiring holiness for holiness’ sake. That is the sign of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Saul was a person who showed all these pseudo signs, the emotional response was just an emotional response, it carries no truth value. The second one is apparent confession, if you look at it carefully in verses 17-18 do you notice any point where he confesses before God his wrong, or is it just merely a confession before men? He would have passed certain forms of evangelism, they would have had him get up and tell how he had sinned and how he’d been such a great sinner, he would have confessed to the congregation just like Saul confesses to David, and that’s what’s wrong. That is an apparent confession; the confession should have been to God, not to David. Notice again, as he points out in verse 20, he knows God’s will, be he’s like the Puritan writer said, he’s just kind of swallowing it hard, he’s not gung-ho for God’s will. There’s none of that attitude here. So again we face evidence that Saul is still in his carnality.

Now on top of all this Samuel dies. Now it happens; now the country is thrown into a great and worse dilemma, and out of this the right woman comes on the scene at the right time. Let’s see how it all starts in verse 1. “And Samuel died. And all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah.” Now Samuel’s death is set up also for what’s going to come again, this robbed Saul of every single prophet. The prophet Gad is with David, Samuel is an old man and he didn’t move geographically so Saul is now robbed of every link with the line of the prophets. Saul has become an autonomous king; he is divorced from all revelation; he has no, as it were, hot line to God. He has no source of communication because he’s lost his priests, there’s no high priest and now there’s no prophet left. Saul, the man who wanted to be autonomous, now is granted that permission to be autonomous, to be free from the priesthood that he never paid attention to; to be free of the prophets that he never listened to. Now Saul is free.

Now David, verse 25, “… And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran.” The set up for this story is the south end of the Promised Land. There’s a big desert down here and this is where the Jews wandered around; Paran is located just to the southwest of that corner of the Dead Sea. The significance of this location is that there are bands of raiding Arabs all through this area; they will wait, just as the Philistines wait for the farmers to grow their crops and harvest them, then the Philistines would come in and steal the harvest, so the Arabs, they weren’t particularly gung ho about harvesting, but they would wait until the sheep ranchers had their flocks deployed in the field and then they would go get them. In other words, when they wanted some veal cutlet for the evening they went and got some. And this was the way they operated. So the average businessman who ran a sheep ranch down in this area had tremendous losses, fantastic losses. And actually, unless he had military protection he would not make any profit in his business.

Now the significance of the story is that with the death of Samuel we have Saul not functioning properly as king, remember what is the king’s job? The king’s job is to save the nation. Now king’s job to save the nation is not being done by Saul. Saul is in compound carnality and he isn’t providing the protection for the sheep ranchers in the southern area. Saul is not performing his role as a believer. He’s emphasizing all the trivia and he’s not filling the office to which he was called.

There’s another little thing to remember about the set up for the story that’s about to occur. Not only is Paran on the south end of the land, it’s quite a ways from Ramah. Ramah is way up to the north. What did Samuel do at Ramah? He had a seminary, in which he taught the Word of God. Samuel in his latter days had a tremendous Bible ministry, a tremendous teaching ministry and we are going to see that though Samuel dies a woman who studied under Samuel’s ministry, who learned her doctrine at the feet of Samuel or apparently from one of Samuel’s disciples, is now going to keep the influence of Samuel upon the nation. See, here’s the point. Samuel is the chief prophet. Samuel drops out of the picture but Samuel has taught the Word of God and his effect does not drop out of the picture. Samuel dies but his ministry goes on. And this story of Abigail is the story of a woman who had a tremendous change in her life by studying under Samuel. Samuel’s dead, her teacher is gone, but this woman was introduced to the Word of God, she stuck in the Word of God and now it all pays off. So Abigail is a testimony to the postmortem ministry of Samuel.

Verse 2 gives us background on one of the stars of the story, one of the characters and he is a character. “And there was a man in Maon,” that’s a place near Carmel, 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.” Now this man was extremely wealthy, notice it says he “was very great,” so therefore, if Abigail is his wife what do you immediately know about this woman’s economic status? She is a wealthy woman, she is a woman of great wealth. She is used to living in wealthy surroundings. This is going to come out in the story so get the background. She is a woman who is not a poor peasant woman; she is a woman who is very wealthy. She is used to wealth. And this is emphasized in the text by listing all the assets of her husband.

It’s interesting to compare, these assets are about 50% of Job’s assets, and if verse 2 says that this man was very wealthy, then we must infer from Job 1 that Job was a multimillionaire. The suffering upon Job was suffering upon a man who was in great prosperity, which makes the suffering that much more, but that’s just a comparative note on verse 2.

Notice in the last part of verse 2 the shearing of the sheep; the shearing of the sheep was at the time of celebration and three things had to occur at this point. First, the flocks were called in to a central point and they were evaluated by head, numbers, to find out whether a profit was possible. So you first have a numbering of the flocks; the numbering is to gauge how much has been the loss to the Arabs. The Arabs down through history have been specialists in the sin of theft. There’s probably no greater people on the face of the earth that have a worse reputation in the area of property than the Arabs. The Arabs don’t respect their own property and they’re always stealing somebody else’s property, and it goes all the way back to their origin in history, they were born stealing. And down through history they have tried to steal and steal from everybody around them. Now here the Arabs were stealing the sheep.

So the first thing that had to happen was there had to be a numbering, an accounting. The second thing, if they got by the first step and could see they were going to have a profit, they’d have a party. And so it was the time of a great party. We’ll see that also in this chapter. The party was a celebration that he had made a profit. He gave an office party for all his workers and this was a party that was, as we’re going to see, quite a party. And the third thing that happened was that they paid off their outstanding debts. Obviously they couldn’t pay the debts until the sheep had been shorn so now the debts are paid. So those three things are happening, all with the phrase, the “shearing of the sheep in Carmel.” “The shearing of the sheep” alerts you to certain other things that are occurring besides the shearing of the sheep.

Verse 3, this is again the commentator; all verse 1, 2 and 3 are background of the story. “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.” Now let’s go through this because there’s a pun in here involved in the Hebrew and you won’t see it unless we go through the word itself. The word “Nabal,” is Nabal, it’s transliterated, it’s not a translation, that’s just the way the Hebrew is pronounced. Nabal comes from a verb, and it means to be calloused in the conscience. It doesn’t mean to be stupid, a person can be crafty, but Nabal means that he is calloused. And so the verb itself tells you that he probably got nicknamed this because of the way he acted; he acted like he had a shorted out conscience and so people said Nabal you’re a Nabal, and so they named him Nabal, that was his nickname.

But his wife was altogether different; she has two of the greatest assets that a woman can ever have. She had a spiritual maturity combined with beauty; beauty on the inside and beauty on the outside, it’s a rare combination. You often see women with beautiful countenance and they’re absolutely stupid when it comes to spiritual things, idiots. And some of you young ladies pay attention to Abigail; she should be your model. She got burned in her life but she married the wrong man. And when she married this man she was beautiful in countenance but apparently, the way we can deduce from the text, she was not of good understanding; that came after she got married and was saddled with this clod that she had married. But when she married him she was a knockout and Nabal saw her and he married her, gave her a big pitch, Hon, I’ve got all this ranch land and so forth, and she fell for the line because after all, this would be financial security, and this is the mark of a beautiful and stupid girl who falls for the economic line, and Abigail fell for it. In fact she makes a reference later on in the text, what may be a reference to her stupidity, she recognized later on she’d made the wrong decision. But at the time she obviously lacked the good understanding.

The “good understanding” is the same word for Hebrew skill, she was a very skilled person in divine viewpoint, very skilled woman, and the Bible adds she was a very beautiful woman. But notice the order of the text; God’s Word recognizes her beauty on the inside with the Word of God first and then incidentally she does have a good cover. But the chief point of the Word of God is that she’s beautiful on the inside; this woman was tremendous, and she had to deal with two very strong men. And the beautiful thing about this story is that this woman deals and actually changes the course of history by influencing very strong men and she does it without losing her femininity. She doesn’t nag, she doesn’t turn into a man and start dictating to these guys what they should do. She is smooth and she attains her goal. So this is a testimony to a model woman in God’s Word, a woman who as a woman had fantastic strength and character and effect in history. She didn’t lose her female-ness when she was influencing.

It also shows us something else about David. David was the man, at this point, who was so open to God’s will that he’d even listen to a woman telling him God’s will. And that is an extremely open testimony on the male side to being very open to God’s will, when you want to sit down and listen to God’s Word coming out of the mouth of a female. But David did, so here again it shows David’s maturity, that he was willing to take the Word, even if it did come from the mouth of a woman.

Let’s look further at the description of Nabal. The man was “churlish,” now that’s a sweet word in the King James, but both of these words, “churlish” and “evil in his doings” mean insensitive. It’s not that he’s stealing people blind in a very overt sense, he just steals them blind in a very skillful sense. And so the word means insensitive, that’s what churlish means, insensitive. And “evil in his doings” means he had a bad business reputation, it means he was evil in his business dealings. And notice again the Word of God puts the emphasis upon the inner attitude, the insensitivity and then the outward results; just as in describing Abigail the Word of God places the emphasis on this woman’s tremendous understanding and then the external beauty that she had.

And then the narrator makes a little pun, the man “was from the house of Caleb.” Remember Caleb and Joshua, this was of the family, but it just happens that the Hebrew word for “dog” is keleb, and with tongue in cheek the narrator says this is the son of a dog and I leave the imagination to you, but… this is another one of those dear texts of 1 Samuel. And it’s a pun on the Hebrew word “Caleb.”

Now we have the story begin in verse 4, “And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep,” this is a participle, meaning he is now in the process of shearing his sheep. So David’s intelligence reports in, look, Nabal has got all his sheep… the reason they knew this is because he pulled his flock in, and because he pulled his flock in they knew, all right, now he’s numbering them, that’s the first step before his party, and the third step is he’s going to pay debts. Now Nabal owes David some money. So verse 5, “David sent out ten young men,” that gives you an idea of how they paid off their debts, they paid them off in goods, and it took ten men to carry all the things that he expected Nabal to give him. “…and David said unto the young men, Get up to Carmel, and got to Nabal, and greet him in my name.” Literally the word means ask him in my name for the payment, to collect, this is a collection squad. And there’s nothing coercive about this collection squad; I point this out to you, it’s not that he’s sending ten men to threaten Nabal, that’s not the point at all. He’s simply taking ten men out to carry the results of what he expected to be paid.

Now at the end of the verse, notice the phrase, “ask him in my name,” this is just a little footnote. You know, when we pray we say so and so, “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Has it ever dawned on you to ask what do we mean when we say we pray in Christ’s name? Here’s what it means. The messengers go and they ask for the bill in David’s name. Now what would be another contemporary way of expressing the thought? Wouldn’t it be they were on David’s business, that they had come to Nabal, not because of something personal to them but they had come to Nabal on the business of David. And so when David says “ask in my name,” it means conduct my business, you are on my business. And therefore when the believer comes to God the Father in the Trinity, and he says Father, give me such and such, in the name of Your Son, what we are asking the Father is we are in the business of your Son, we are identifying ourselves with the Son’s business. And so when we pray in Christ’s name we pray in and through His business. This is why you do not pray to Christ, you pray always to the Father, never to Jesus; praying to Jesus (I’m sure God hears the prayers so don’t worry about it), but the point about praying to Jesus involves a theological heresy which we haven’t time to get involved in, on the doctrine of intercession and advocacy, which historically led to the elevation of Mary as the mediatrix between Jesus and men. But not only does it involve a theological heresy but it also involves a lack of insight in what it means to come to the Father in Jesus’ name. If you come to Jesus, then is whose name do you come? But if you come t the Father then it’s in Jesus business; but if you come just to Jesus, then in whose business do you come? Your own, and that’s not right; you come to the Father in Jesus name.

So the then men come to Nabal in David’s name. Verse 6, “And thus shall you say to him who lives in prosperity, Peace both to thee, and peace to thing house, and peace unto all that you have.” Shalom, shalom, shalom, it’s a greeting. And the reason that the Holy Spirit spends all this time with the instructions to the man is because he’s building you up for what’s going to happen. David, the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us, is as courteous as he can be. He is polite, he is not any way coercing the payment or the collection of this debt. He’s going to the extreme to be gracious to this man who owes him money. And so the triple blessing: shalom, shalom, shalom.

Verse 7, “And now I have heard that you have shearers. Now thy shepherds who were with us, we hurt them not, neither was there anything missing unto them, all the while that they were in Carmel.” Now this tells us why Nabal owed David money. Down here in the southern portion of Palestine you have the Arabs; they’re a bunch of crooks. And they like to steal the flock. Where had David camped with the six hundred men? Down in the south. What had David been doing? He had been functioning as the king, while Saul was sitting in his carnality David was saving the nation. Remember he saved Keilah from the siege of the Philistines and what did he get for it? People turned traitor to him. Now he saves a man’s flock, and again this man spits in his face.

So this shows you David; he functions in God’s will, constantly saving these ungrateful people, and that’s the story of David’s life, the story of any leader. David labors and labors and labors that the people that are blessed by his ministry are never going to appreciate it. They always will turn against him, they will always resist him, they will always fight him. And so David experiences this again, he is saving as the king, he is functioning as a king should function. Saul should be the one who establishes a border patrol; Saul is the one who should take… after all, we saw last week he had three thousand men, he had enough men, he had enough resources; why didn’t Saul take care of the people that God charged him with. Why didn’t he take about a thousand of those men and establish a border patrol to keep the Arabs away. He didn’t, because like all believers in compound carnality, they’re busy buried in trivia when the thing that God wants them to do just sits there undone.

Now David, with only six hundred men, since he is operating in this part of the country, functions almost automatically as a savior. He saves the investment of these businessmen by a military. So another principle of application; here you see a strong military protecting private property. So when people knock the military and when people want to disarm the nation, they are opening up the invasion of private property. The only reason why we have the right to have and enjoy our property is because of armed police and because of a strong military. That’s the only language sinful men respect, so don’t ever knock these on that basis. David has done his job, he has protected the investment, and so he makes his claim in verse 7. He says nothing was “missing unto them” in other words, not only were the sheep not missing but my soldiers didn’t steal anything from them; my soldiers were disciplined men.

Verse 7 tells us something else about David’s army. At a very early stage David had total command over his men; they did not rape, they did not mutilate, they did not destroy property, they were disciplined. And the mark of a bad army always is one that involved incidents with civilians. Now in the course of warfare sometimes these are unavoidable. But there is no excuse for soldiers of any military organization bullying innocent civilians. So David had tremendous control over his men and it’s the exact opposite of an army. Most armies would have stolen the flock faster than the Arabs would, but David’s men were highly disciplined.

Verse 8, he’s actually saying you owe me something; I gave you military protection, the only reason you made a profit this year is because I was out there day and night guarding your flocks. If I hadn’t guarded your flocks you wouldn’t have made any money. David needs money, he’s got to feed his soldiers, his army needs money and this is the way they earned their money. Notice this; David’s army did not get handouts. David’s army had no federal subsidy program. David’s army earned their way by usefulness to the civilian population.

So then he asks, again to show you that he’s being very polite, very courteous, verse 8, “Ask thy young men, and they will show you. Wherefore, let the young men find favor in thine eyes; for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son, David.” What David is saying, I make my claim, I make my claim honestly in the face of all men; this is a legitimate business claim, and he said I have witnesses. If you doubt my claim or the claim of my ten men, go to your employees, the Nabal Sheep Ranch Company, go to Maon, ask them if they did not receive protection; ask your foreman that was out there, ask him if my men didn’t protect your investment Nabal.

Verse 9 the men do this and they wait. “And when David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all those words in the name of David, and ceased.” Now usually it’s translated they just stopped, but that’s not the point, this is where Nabal is being rude. The word “ceased” means to wait in the Hebrew, it means these men made their claim and they sat and they waited and they waited and waited and waited. Nabal is being very rude. So here’s where this insensitive men, the son of a keleb, here he shows his nature. And so he is rude, he makes the men wait.

Verse 10, “And Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse?” Ever get tossed that one some time. I owe you money? Who are you, I don’t know you, where did we meet? It’s the same old story, I just can’t remember, son of Jesse, did we ever have any business dealings with the son of Jesse. No, we don’t have any business dealings with him. It’s amazing how convenient memory is and how the loss of it suddenly appears at times. So he doesn’t know David. That’s the second insult, he doesn’t know David. Who was the national hero a few years ago; who was the one they had parades for in every city. Oh, I don’t know David. What do you mean you don’t know David; David is well known. The Philistines know David. Go down to Gath and ask them, they had a recent encounter. The Arabs know David, the people up north know David. [tape turns, 10b, :There are many servants nowadays who break away, every man from his master.”] … Samuel has died, society is in upheaval, there’s no order, I can’t be paying all these idiots that come around mooching for money. So that’s the third insult.

And then fourth in verse 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 from where they are?” In other words, that’s the party I was telling you about earlier. Look, he says, I’ve got all this stuff out here, I’ve got my meat, I’ve got my food, you guys want this, are you crazy? This is my party, I earned this stuff and I eat it, we don’t know who you are. So that’s the way David got treated. Verse 12, “So David’s young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings.

Now verse 13, David has had it at this point and at this point David blows his stack. And so without consulting the Lord, without applying the lesson of chapters 23-24, where he got double-crossed and came out smelling like a rose, simply because he trusted in the Lord, he’s going to take action. So we’re right back to hastiness again. “Get ye on every man his sword.” And you needn’t read any further to decide what is on David’s mind is that Nabal is just about to learn who the son of Jesse is. In fact, all of his employees will find out who the son of Jesse is. David will make a lasting impression. “And they girded on every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword.” Notice that little text, “and David also girded on his sword.” Do you know what that means? That means that David had personal vengeance on his mind; it wasn’t that he was going to send… these hit men could have gone up there and cleaned the place but David wasn’t just interested in cleaning it, he was going to put on his sword and help clean them. And then he adds, “And there went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the stuff [baggage].” What’s the stuff? It involves a few things but the stuff involved some of his weapons, involved the wives of the soldiers, they were part of the stuff, and involved his food, his supplies.

Now this shows you how David has grown. In other Words, Saul blew his stack during that battle where he wouldn’t let the people eat, he forgot military tactics. David blows his stack but he doesn’t forget military tactics. If he really blew his stack he would have had all six hundred men running up there, leaving these people unguarded. So that little notice tells you that David’s still cool, in one sense, he’s got enough chokmah to take him through times of carnality. Application: when we are mature believers and you have a residue of chokmah you can rely upon that in times of carnality. Sometimes, although it isn’t to your credit, but the chokmah that we have can get us through times when we’re out of fellowship and cut off from a direct communion of the Holy Spirit. It’s just the habit patterns that we’ve built into our soul in past times when we were in fellowship. So this verse emphasizes David was acting skillfully and wisely.

But now we have the first piece of evidence that God is going to do a wonderful work, because if David does what he’s going to do in verse 13 he’s going to be guilty of bloodshed. And this was a crime that did not warrant capital punishment. David is out of line, he’s out of fellowship, and all the testimony to the office of messiah would be ruined, the picture of how this man, politics by grace, there was a crisis here that you’ve got to see. David must be stopped, for David’s sake, for the Lord’s sake. If David gets to his throne by one work of his own, then God’s grace is defamed. God must protect His nature and His character and His testimony of grace, I will get you to the throne David. Not one work will David have to do to gain the throne; this is all of God. So we have a crisis. And now God begins to work. It doesn’t say God is working, but we can deduce it; it’s a fair assumption, the sovereignty of God working the situation.

Verse 14, “But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute [greet] our master, and he railed on them.” And the word “railed” means to scream at. So that tells you how, or in what manner this man spoke to David’s men. David’s men said sir, yes sir, and they were polite and courteous and this guy just chewed them up; he kept them waiting, he was rude, and here he screamed at them.

Verse 15, “But the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything as long as we went with them, when we were in the fields.” Now this is what they were telling Abigail, they realize that Nabal is out of it and they know what’s going to happen too, it doesn’t take them too much imagination to realize that you don’t treat the son of Jesse that way or we’re going to be in trouble. So the men were very good, they tell Abigail.

Verse 16 “They were a wall unto us both by night and day,” notice the testimony to David’s saving ministry; “they were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were them keeping the sheep. [17] Now, therefore, know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household; for hi is such a son of Belial [worthless fellow], that a man cannot speak to him.” Now this puts Abigail in a very bad position. She must be submissive to her husband, but this submissiveness has been taken in some areas to the wrong conclusion. And here is where she is not submissive to her husband and because she rejects the principle of submission to her husband, she saves the day. Now be careful, I can see the ladies, aha, an excuse. No, we’re not giving you an excuse. Abigail is submissive to the Word of God, that’s her standard, the Word of God, and as he husband is in the will of God in a general sense, he was never it in fully, but in the general sense of operating reasonably well as a husband she obeyed him and she later on continues to submit to him in this passage. But when it comes to a crisis, a sharp point where the Word of God itself is at stake, she is authorized not to submit to her husband at this point. And Abigail begins to take action independently of her husband.

Verse 18, “Then Abigail made haste,” now she doesn’t make haste in the bad sense of the word, the word “made haste” here means that she makes haste with skill, she is a very skillful woman and she knows how to manage her situation; “Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two skins of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched grain, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses.” See, David had these ten men and it shows you the bulk of the payment. It wasn’t going to be in coinage, it was going to be in goods that they had to use in the field.

Verse 19, “And she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold I come after you. But she told not her husband, Nabal.” That idiot would have screwed everything up. So she decides at this point to take an independent track. Now the word “son of Belial” in verse 17 means stupid one; it is the strongest Hebrew word for an idiot. And what they say is look lady, your husband is such a jerk that we can’t even speak to him. And later on she’s going to agree, yes, my husband is a jerk. And we’ll have to deal with that passage. But she tells David, yeah, my husband’s a clod, I know it and I got stuck with him but I’m moving on. And she’s going to use that argument to turn David’s heart, very skillful. She’s not maligning her husband, she’s just simply telling the truth, he’s a clod.

Verse 20, “And it was so, as she rode on the ass, that she came down by the covert of the hill [top of the mountain,]” here’s another one of those neat little notes by the Holy Spirit in Scripture because the covert is going to tell us something, how tremendously God in His sovereignty works. God, being sovereign, knows He’s got to stop David. Now watch God’s dilemma. God has promised that David is going to be a model of Jesus Christ. That’s the way God has got it all planned out, that’s a sovereign decree, that David is going to be a model in history of the coming Messiah. Now we’ve got a crisis, David is out of fellowship, he’s separated from a prophet, Samuel is dead, so God can’t use any prophet to communicate to David because there aren’t any prophets. Nobody knows where Gad is at this point, but Samuel is dead, so God doesn’t have any means there. We don’t know what happened to the priests, so God can’t use the priests to communicate to David, but God has got to stop David somehow. And who does He pick? This woman, and as we go through the passage we’ll see why God picked Abigail.

The first thing about it, notice, is “as she rode on the ass,” “as she rode” is a participle and the picture is movement, as she is riding down through this covert, in other words the point is exactly the right time the roads cross, she arrives at David at just the point of the crossroads. And this is a sign of the providential leading of Abigail to David, and the providential leading of David to Abigail. This is not a chance meeting; fate doesn’t rule the universe nor does chance. God’s sovereign decrees do. So God works it out so that Abigail and David meet at exactly the right time. If Abigail crossed this point and went through the covert when David’s men were going past they’d never have seen her and she’d never have seen David, and the whole mission would have been missed because by that time David would have taken his men and he would have slaughtered Nabal and all of his fellow idiots up at the ranch. So the sovereignty of God, look at how it works.

“…and, behold, David and his men came down toward her; and she met them.” That’s the timing.

Now verses 21-22 are a parenthesis to amplify the need to understand the need of the nature of the crisis. These two verses are to show you the depth of David’s vengeance. Now you ask, how can a believer who is so mature in chapter 24 blow it in chapter 25. The same way you do all the time. He’s out of fellowship, and he is really out, and he has expressed his negative volition strongly.

Verse 21, “Now David had said,” “had said” is a perfect which refers back to the time before the meeting; verses 21-22 chronologically precede the whole thing. It’s not talking about what happened as he saw this girl coming toward him. This had happened hours before he had said this to himself, “Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him; and he has requited me evil for good.” So David is vowing at this point that I have wasted my time. That shows you he’s out of fellowship right there. That’s not Romans 8:28; did that saving as to what? As to the Lord? He probably didn’t even know Nabal was the owner of those sheep. He was just simply functioning as the king of Israel should have functioned, to protect the property of his people. And so he should never have come to this conclusion because he had done it in the first place as unto the Lord and if he worked for the Lord, the Lord is going to pay him off. And he doesn’t have to worry about not getting paid by the people.

Verse 22, “So, and more also, do God unto the enemies of David,” second point, the word “enemies of David” that they’re not enemies of the Lord. Now that’s one of the first times we’ve seen that phrase in Samuel. All the other times, what does David do when he meets Goliath, that uncircumcised Philistine, he blasphemed Yahweh, the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of Armies. David’s concerned up to this point, always, with not himself and his personal enemies but upon the Lord’s enemies. And so again we see a defamation in his soul, something has changed. This just isn’t David. “So God, do more unto me,” that’s an oath. “…if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light anyone that pisses against the wall.” Now that is a bona fide expression in Scripture for a male. And if you look it up in a concordance you’ll see it’s a male; the reason is only men can piss against walls. And this was an idiom that was used in God’s Word. So if you don’t like it, take it up with the author. Now that was the oath, that he vowed to go in there and kill every male. And he probably said it good and loud so all the soldiers could hear it.

Now verse 23 picks it up, verses 21-22 refer to the parenthesis. So actually in time you should skip from verse 20 down to verse 23, “And when Abigail, she hastened, and alighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed to the ground.” Number one, what does this tell you about the nature of Abigail? Abigail is a fantastic woman, she is wealthy but she hasn’t let her wealth go to head. She operates with humility and so the first thing we notice about the way she approaches David is she approaches him as just a normal woman. She doesn’t come expecting David to kiss her engagement ring or something because she has so much wealth. She doesn’t approach David on that standpoint. She is gracious and she is humble. The other reason why she acts this way, as we’re going to find out, she knows a lot about David that David doesn’t know.

Verse 24, “And she fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be; and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thy hearing, and hear the words of thine handmaid.” Now why do you suppose she said “upon me, my lord, let this iniquity be? She knew it was wrong for David to be coming up the road with murderous intent in his mind. Why was that wrong? Certainly the sin of theft was not a capital punishment. In other words, David was wrong because the punishment didn’t fit the crime. It was not an authorized punishment in God’s Word. Abigail knows that, so using all her smarts, what does she say, David… though she doesn’t say this explicitly this is her thought, David, your punishment doesn’t fit the crime of my husband; I’m going to dramatize the fact that you’re way out of it, you punish me like you would punish my husband. Go ahead. And she stands in front of him, daring him to plunge the sword in to her, a very clever thing because David is not going, particularly, she’s a very nice looking woman, he’s not going to take the sword and plunge it into her until he finds out a little bit more what’s under the cover.

So he is going to pause for a few moments and check this one out, now where did she come from. But she’s very smart, she knows that he isn’t going to hit her, and she uses that to slowly work on him to develop in David an attitude, David, you might just be wrong, because if you’re not going to punish me for the crimes, and I’m the wife, I’m the who is the total inheritor of this wealth, if that’s the case I’m equally responsible David, why don’t you punish me. You see here the reasoning; very cleverly thought out. And notice while she’s doing it, is she losing her femininity while she’s doing it? Nope! She’s using her femininity, not losing it. See what a wise use of it she’s making? This woman is a brilliant believer, she should have Abigail classes on mature Christian ladies. “…let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thy hearing,” now what has she done before she said David, I would like to tell you something. She’s gotten his attention so he’ll listen to her.

That’s the first rule of dealing with men that you ladies never understand. You don’t walk up to a guy and start blabbing in his ear and expect that he’s going to listen to you, and women make that mistake all the time. They think automatically because the mouth is going that the ear is open. That’s not true ladies; just because your mouth is going in high gear doesn’t mean a thing about your man’s ear; it can be closed, all the time, probably because of past incidents. So Abigail gets the attention of David first, very dramatically, without losing her femininity, she gets his attention, and now she says David, I have something to tell you, please listen to me. All of it polite, all of it courteous.

Verse 25, “Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial [worthless fellow], Nabal; for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and Nabal [folly] is with him,” the word “folly” is the word Nabal again, “…but I, thine handmaid, saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou did send.” And here’s she’s saying I know, David, I’m married to a clod, he’s called an idiot and he is an idiot. This is not maligning her husband at this point. She’s just stating a fact, the guy is a flat idiot. And the whole neighborhood knows it because they call him Nabal; where do you think he got his name Nabal? Because everybody that works with him knows he’s an idiot, not in the sense that he’s stupid, but in the sense that he’s got a shorted out conscience. This guy would knife you in the back any time he got a chance. And she says I know my husband has a nickname and that fits him perfectly, that’s exactly the way he is. And she says “and folly is with him,” now this is interesting, and we just throw this out as a possibility, but Nabala could be, and I can’t be dogmatic, I studied this and I can’t be dogmatic about this, but Nabal is feminine, and if this is acting not as a noun but as an adjective, she is saying of herself, Nabal is my husband and I’m the Nabala, I am the foolish woman who married the idiot. And if this is an adjective, an admission to the fact that she was out of it when she married this creep, and she’s sorry.

Verse 26, “Now, therefore, my lord, as Jehovah lives, and as thy soul lives,” now this is an interesting part because this shows you how much doctrine this woman must have learned under Samuel’s ministry. She had thought this out carefully. This wasn’t just an off the cuff thing, going out and laying down in the path in front of David. That wasn’t it at all. This was carefully, I mean carefully, thought out. You talk about a scheming woman, Abigail was a scheming woman for the Lord; she schemed, you bet she schemed, she used every ounce of Bible doctrine she had at her disposal to scheme to head this thing off, because she too was going to suffer if this was to come to pass.

Now before we go any further I want you to notice another thing about verse 25, she’s arguing here, even if you don’t accept the fact that this Nabala is a feminine adjective and you take it in its normal sense as a noun, her argument in verse 25 goes like this: now David, you think you’ve got troubles with Nabal, Nabal has done you evil, I know that, but David, I ask you, treat Nabal in the same way I’ve had to treat him all the years I’ve been married to him. That’s what she’s saying, I’ve lived with this guy for year after year after year. Don’t you think I haven’t been hurt by him and I haven’t lost my cool, I’ve sweat it out before the Lord. Now David, I ask that in this one case, you sweat it out before the Lord, you’re a man, you have the promises of God, now use them David. This is all bound up in her approach here. She’s asking that David not sympathize with her, she’s not asking for self-pity, she’s simply saying David, if I can do it with Nabal, you can do it with Nabal.

And then the reasons why she thinks the way she does, “Now, therefore, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as thy soul lives, seeing the LORD has withheld thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil against my lord, be as Nabal. [27] And now this blessing which thine handmaid has brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young men who follow my Lord.”

Now the last part of verse 26, where she says “let them be as Nabal,” means that she senses Nabal is going to be taken home to be with the Lord. Nabal is about to commit the sin unto death. And she knows that, and this suggests how this woman was able to hang on. All the while she went to the Lord about Nabal, Nabal, Nabal, how did I ever get married to this guy. And she tried everything under the sun and she decided, apparently at some time in her marriage to just trust the Lord and leave her clod husband in the hands of the Lord. These principles reciprocate, men could be doing the same thing to clod wife. But the point is that they relax and turn the whole thing over to the Lord, and the Lord had, apparently by this time, given her assurance, Abigail, I’ll take care of Nabal, don’t worry about it, I’m going to take care of it. And it was that assurance she then builds on in this argument when she says David, all your enemies are going to be in the same way Nabal is going to be when the Lord gets through with him. I’ve got that assurance David, I’ve sweat it out too many years living with this clod to know that God isn’t going to get me out of it, but he’s going to get me out in an honorable way and I’ll be able to hold my head high as a woman. I won’t have to hold my head down in shame; I have trusted the Lord to work with the situation. And so she uses that argument on David.

And then in verse 27 to more or less put the point across she shows her brilliance. After she has begun to talk to David she suddenly sees these men. By this time David’s men are marching in and we’ve got a column of men, so while this conversation is going on, the column of men is piling up, and so she’s down here looking up to David and she looks by him, and she sees all these men coming up, and these men don’t look too pleased with what’s going on, because they know that if they don’t get Nabal they don’t get paid. They know that everything hangs on them getting those wages. And they’re not too pleased with David getting this sweet young thing in his view and getting talked out of their wages. So the looks on their face aren’t the kind that say oh, we rejoice in your company Abigail. And she sense this, so immediately she exercises her mind again, she is a shrewd woman. She sees what’s happening and she sees shortly, even though she can convince David, he has got to convince those men not to do it. So what is she going to do, she’s going to pull out all her goods and say go ahead, give it to them, right now. So that’s why in verse 27, “And now this blessing which thine handmaid has brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young men who follow my Lord,” those that are coming up behind you David, give it to them. See how wise she is. Does she lose her femininity here? No, she talks to him like a woman and she gets the proper response. Now isn’t that a breakthrough. David reacts just the way Abigail wants him to. Do you know why? Because Abigail is reacting to him just the way a woman should.

Verse 28, “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 all thy days. [29] And yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the LORD thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling. [30] And it shall come to pass, when the LORD shall have done for my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler of Israel, [31] That this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offense of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood without cause, or that my lord has avenged himself; but when the LORD shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid.”

David is going to do more than remember the handmaid, he can’t get this woman out of his mind, she’s fantastic. And David is going to do a lot more than just remember Abigail. But that comes next week. What I want you to see in verse 30-31, notice the logic of Abigail’s argument. Where did she learn this kind of stuff; there’s only one place at this time in history that Abigail could have learned this doctrine from and that was Samuel, Samuel and his seminary. Now it’s a mystery and it’s tantalizing to hypothesize, how do you suppose Abigail ever got to Bible class with Nabal? It’s amazing but she was somehow able to get off the ranch long enough to go to Samuel’s Bible class and learn, and oh did she learn.

For example, verse 28, “…for the LORD will certainly make my lord” the word “certain” is a double verb in the Hebrew, and it’s always used when God’s sovereign plan is going to pass, so that tells us immediately she has a sense of God’s sovereign plan for the nation. Then she says, “the LORD will certainly make my Lord a sure house,” that exact phrase, “a sure house,” is used in 2 Samuel 7:16; 2 Samuel 7:16 is in the Davidic Covenant and what it is saying is, she is prophesying here of the Davidic Covenant; not only is David going to be king, but David’s dynasty is going to be established. Now that’s the first time this has occurred. Isn’t it interesting, the Bible puts woman in what appears to be an inferior position, but ladies, don’t get upset by this, because haven’t you noticed in 1 Samuel, out of whose lips came the first two great prophecies; the great prophecy of mashach came from the lips of Hannah, the great prophecy of the Davidic Covenant comes out the lips of Abigail. God uses godly women. “… because my lord fights the battles of the LORD,” that’s another double dig, in other words, she’s saying David, you belong fighting the Lord’s battles, not your own. Nabal is your battle, not the Lords, let him take care of the problem. He fights the battles of the Lord, “and evil has not been found in thee all thy days.” In other words, David you’ve conducted yourself fine up to this point in your political career; don’t blow it now.

In verse 29 she reviews her confidence that the Lord will take care of David, and then verse 30, And it shall come to pass, when the LORD shall have done for my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning thee,” now look at that phrase again, “all the good that he has spoken concerning thee,” now where would Abigail know all the good which the Lord has spoken about David if she hadn’t have gotten doctrine from some place. Don’t you see. What made Abigail a great woman? She knew the Word, and she knew how to apply it. “… and shall have appointed thee ruler of Israel,” how did she know that it was God’s will that David be appointed ruler over Israel? She had doctrine that she learned from Samuel.

And then she adds, as a homing touch on David, [31] “That this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offense of heart unto my lord,” she says David, you want to live with a clean conscience, so here as only a woman can do, she approaches the man in the light of his own calling. You see, marriage is like the model of Adam and Eve; Adam was given the plan by God, Eve was the ‘ezer, God made Eve so that Adam could accomplish the plan. Adam was helpless without his ‘ezer, he needed Eve to compliment him in doing his will. Now watch what Abigail is doing, don’t you see the force of her thrust here. David, you’re calling is this, don’t blow your calling. See what she’s doing, she encouraging this man. This man isn’t even her husband but she has the maturity to see that as a woman her role is to encourage him in the way and in the motion in which God is leading that man. This is the mark of a great woman; she functions the way Eve was made to function, as an ‘ezer, Abigail was David’s ‘ezer right here. And oh is David going to recognize this one because he recognizes Abigail as a woman who understands him, who understands what God is going to do in his life, and who understands the fact that this woman has a place in God’s plan and that place is to help David with His plan.

And then she says, “thou hast shed blood without cause,” in other words, let this not be a sin, “or that my lord has avenged himself; but when the LORD shall have dealt well with my lord,” the word LORD is Yahweh, “when Yahweh shall have dealt with well with my lord,” and that’s the confidence that she has, that the Lord is going to take care of David, “then remember thine handmaid.”

Next week we’ll see how he remembers her.