Abigail - 1st Samuel 25

It just so happens that Abigail took the exact route to run into David before he gets to her house with his 400 men and the kill everyone, and when she gets to him, she gets off her donkey and falls on to her face on the ground and tells him that this whole misunderstanding is her fault. We all know that this is not true, this is Nabal’s fault and everyone knows this, but she says put the blame on her. This is a Christlike action because he also wasn’t guilty but took our blame. It’s interesting to consider that at some point, we are all Nabal, stubborn, mean, prideful, at least I know that I have been and still am in a lot of ways. We are Nabal, and Abigail is Christ, who takes the blame on herself to save us from ourselves. David is surprised by he actions because like we talked about yesterday, this is a wealthy, aristocratic woman who is now face down in the dirt, humiliating herself, begging him to reconsider. That’s probably why he listened, because she was addressing him, which was unusual, she was intervening in men’s business, and she was humiliating herself, he was surprised and he listened.

This is where the prophetess stuff starts because she immediately invokes God as “withholden thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand.” She is saying that David’s actions would be bloodshed and revenge, which the Torah can allow but not in the instance of simple disrespect. She also says “the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house.” The word “house” is cross-referenced with 1st Samuel 2:35 in which God tells Eli that his line will be cut off and God will raise up “a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind: and I will build him a sure house.” The similarity in phrasing is specific to be sure but the question is if Abigail knew that and was referencing it or if it was just a general way that people spoke back then. Additionally, we know that David is anointing to be the next king of Israel which includes a legacy of lineage, which could be referenced to here as well, and how did Abigail know about that? Was that just a phrase that people said back then, was she referencing the anointing, or was the Spirit working through her to speak to the prophecy that David was becoming aware of. Was the Spirit working through her to remind David how close he is to losing the God-anointing that he was given by shedding blood that is not authorized?

She continues “my lord (David) fighteth the battles of the Lord, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days.” David had been always given victory in battle because of the favor of God, and that favor could just as easily be lost if he engaged in egregious sin that he had never participated in before. Maybe because David was so accustomed to violence through his military victories that he had become desensitized to it so violence against Nabal’s household would have been not unusual, especially after being pursued and almost killed by Saul so many times. There’s a whole dynamic that goes into feeling powerless for so long and now being able to feel like you regained some of that power by exerted violence over others, especially if you feel previously disrespected. It’s a warped projection. But she’s reminding him that all his victories in violence has come from God alone, not from his own skill or strength, and that he’ll lose that if he engages in this wickedness. TB comments, “Yehoveh is the Avenger of Wickedness and wrong doing; David should not try to be his own avenger seeking out a solution to his own justice.”

The phrasing in the next statement is interesting, and she’s talking about David being pursued by a man who’s trying to destroy him, which David is very familiar with as Saul’s been trying to kill him for the last several months, so it might hit a little but close to home. She’s reminding him that even if a man is trying to destroy him body and soul, he’ll be preserved in the “bundle of life with the Lord thy God.” The “bundle of life” is an ancient Hebrew metaphor similar to the “book of life,” where one is placed for salvation with God because of their good life. She also says, “the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling.” David is famous for his use of a sling and I don’t think it’s a coincidence she uses a sling analogy here, David can probably picture his enemies being slung away from him.

I can’t imagine that at this point, it is common knowledge among the people that David is anointed to be king of Israel, but here Abigail tells him that God “shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel.” There’s no way that she could have known this. Maybe being a wealthy woman, she had heard about Saul’s dispute with David, but I think even saying the words that David was going to be ruler of Israel would have been considered treason by Saul and presumably Jonathan and she would have been punished severely. This is the prophetic nature here, she almost certainly wouldn’t have known God’s will for Israel’s king and even if she did, saying it was incredibly dangerous. It must have been the Spirit working through her to confirm what David was coming to suspect and to remind him of the requirement that came with that position for his personal behavior. She doesn’t say all that, but it is implied. She’s asking him to look beyond this moment’s circumstances and remember that when he gets where he’s going, this instance will not matter at all. Interestingly, she asks that when God has done all the good things for him that He’s promised, “then remember thine handmaid.” As we see later, David does remember her, but I wonder if she knew in what context that would be applied here shortly.

The reaction that David has to her is exactly what we would hope for from someone after God’s own heart, but it was very unusual for the ancient standards of the day. Surely when Abigail set out, she knew that this might end badly for her. Women weren’t supposed to approach men they weren’t married to, they weren’t supposed to get involved in men’s business, they certainly weren’t supposed to rebuke the leader of a military group. Even though she did it in a very diplomatic way, most women could tell you, it doesn’t matter what you say or how you say it, sometimes powerful just don’t take your words kindly and she’s completely alone out there, anything could have happened to her, she was completely at David’s mercy. David acknowledges that it was indeed God who intervened by sending Abigail to him and that it was God who kept him from killing her entire family. He takes her gifts and tells her that she can go home in peace.

When Abigail got home, Nabal was drunk so she didn’t tell him anything about what happened, but in the morning when he wasn’t drunk anymore, she told Nabal just how close he had come to having his entire clan exterminated, and “his heart died within him, and he became as stone,” and ten days later “the Lord smote Nabal, that he died.” Nabal was so shocked that he came so close to the massacre that he had a heart attack or a stroke or something and soon after, he died. When David heard what happened to Nabal, he praises God for avenging David on Nabal Himself, I’m not convinced that it was that, maybe it was, I don’t know. Maybe it was God’s way of showing David that He was still on his side and that he could trust revenge to be taken for his disrespects, that David didn’t have to take it on himself to do that. I struggle with that reason because God didn’t go out of His way to punish my enemies, to punish those who hurt me deeply, even as a child. Not only did I get no revenge, I didn’t even get delivered from that horror, so I struggle with “David got his feelings hurt so God killed the guy who said it.” In fact, David wasn’t even disrespected, he straight up had his extortion attempt called out, and that’s what I’m supposed to think God killed Nabal for? Now if God killed Nabal so that David could marry Abigail and David interpreted this as God avenging his disrespect, then God is not responsible for our misinterpretations. But yeah, I could be convinced that this was God avenging David, but as of where it stands now, probably not.

In fact, when David heard that Nabal had died, he sent his messengers to go get Abigail so that he could marry her, and she went and married him. Again, I struggle with this because if she really wanted to marry David and was happy to do it, then fine good for her. But I struggle to go from the power dynamic of “I was just begging you not to murder my family and now we’re married.” I don’t care for that, especially because Abigail was married to a terrible man just before. I just want her to be free of terrible men and to be happy in marriage, that’s all I’m asking for, for her to be treated well, that’s it, and I’m not convinced that David would have treated her well. Probably better than Nabal did, but that’s not the standard I think we should be holding ourselves to. It’s like the queen of the Lamanites, who was forced to marry Amalakiah after he killed her husband for the safety of her people and then after he died she had to marry his brother Ammoron. I’m confident that those men, at least the last two, didn’t treat her well, and I just feel so bad for her. Back to Abigail, especially because the last two verses of the chapter are that David took another woman as wife as well, so he was just collecting trophies at this point. TB says that he was making alliances, which is probably the case, but I just feel so bad for these women, like I just want them to be happy, that’s all. The last line is that Saul gave David’s first wife Michal to another man for a wife. Just these women passed around as bargaining chips, it just makes me sad. This is one of those instances where I have to choose to believe that Jesus is the champion of women and that the law of compensation is in full effect. I’m choosing to believe that right now instead of being sad about this.