Nabal - 1st Samuel 25

Here we start to see the first cracks in David’s spiritual armor. First thing in chapter 25 is that Samuel dies, but David doesn’t go to the burial. TB notes that with Samuel’s death, the rift between David and Saul became permanent, saying, “Samuel was a transformational character who also bridged the divide of loyalties among the various tribal coalitions. There was no other single man since Joshua’s death who help the respect of all 12 tribes and whose authority was honored by all Israel. Even Saul feared him.” One thought I had when I heard TB say this was that Samuel was the “transformational character” that took the entirety of Hebrew society, with all their tribes and clans and divided loyalties, and united them under a single king, Saul and then started with David. Even though we read about it in hindsight 3,000 years later, that task must have been enormous, and I think about Samuel’s life and his relationship with his mother and how sad that must have been for them to not be able to have the growing up, deep relationship that would have come with them living together, and it doesn’t mention Samuel having any children so maybe he didn’t get married, and I think about how lonely and stressful that life must have been, but then I look at the task he was meant to perform and how all that preparation and loneliness might have been required in order to be prepared and capable of handling that task.

Looking at what was the circumstances were and what the outcomes were, it's easier to understand why Samuel had to probably suffer the way that he did, and even though it probably sucked for him and his mother at the time, I’m grateful that they were willing to go through that so that the outcome could be what was needed for the rest of us. It’s like when I consider that the Jews were waiting for their military Messiah and I can understand why they wanted that, but if that’s who Jesus was when he showed up, it only would have saved those people in that place and at specific time, but I’m so grateful that it wasn’t like that and that Jesus saved all of us. It’s like with Joseph Smith. He probably expected God’s favor to bring him at least some worldly wealth or at least financial stability, but no, he was pretty much destitute except for the last few years in Nauvoo, and even then it wasn’t much. But if God had made him rich, then so much of the restored gospel could have been compromised. So even though it sucked for him, I’m glad that it did because of how much it worked out for the rest of us. Likewise, sometimes I can sit back and think about my own circumstances that have been less than ideal, and think that they had to happen for whatever reason, and that maybe one day I can look back and be grateful that they did happen like that because of the outcomes that they produced.

The people took Samuel to his hometown of Ramah, but David and his men went and lived out in some plains for a while, and this chapter isn’t going to go linear like usual, I’m going to bring up some other parts from the end first for some context. Apparently while camping out on the plains, David and his substantial group of men helped guard some of the 3,000 sheep owned by a very wealthy man named Nabal. That name is derogatory and means, as TB explains, “fool, disgraceful, a person without godly wisdom. Obviously no parent would give their child such a name, and no man would allow himself to be addressed as such. Thus like so many other names we’ll find in the Bible this was more an epithet given to that person well after the fact than the person’s actual given name. The purpose was to describe this man’s character, which of course also identifies his role in the story.” Nabal has 3,000 sheep that are grazing in the fields were David and his men were staying, and Nabal’s shepherds were assisted in their duties by David’s men while they were out there, even though it appears Nabal never asked them to. David’s men did so well guarding the sheep that Nabal’s shepherds were safe, welcomed, and cared for my David’s men, and none of those sheep went missing during that time which apparently was unheard of. So in essence, David and his men were helping to secure Nabal’s wealth in terms of his sheep and the protection of his men.

When sheep shearing season came around, David assumed that his help entitled him to some supplies from Nabal. David sends 10 of his men down to Nabal’s house to be overly polite and ask for some supplies. TB likened this act as being in the Godfather movie, “It may have sounded like a request for a favor or a blessing, but in reality it was a demand and all parties understood that. It was something that could not be refused without dire consequences.” He also notes that Nabal is a very wealthy and powerful man, I mean he has servants and 3,000 sheep, and he is not used to someone strongarming him like that and he doesn’t like it, everyone knew that this was a shakedown, and Nabal refused to go along with it. When the servants show up and make their “request” and tell Nabal what they did for his men out in the fields, Nabal answered basically saying, “who does this David think he is?” and insults him, calling him a slave who had escaped his master, I don’t know why that’s an insult but apparently it was. He refuses to give David was he asked for and sent the servants away.

The servants go back to David and tell of Nabal’s refusal and we see David’s disproportionate reaction. Reading what David decides to do to Nabal because of this disrespect is shocking to me and hopefully all of us today, and TB also discusses the severity of it, but I think it’s important to start this conversation from the point that David’s reaction was socially acceptable at the time for one powerful man. David is infuriated by Nabal’s disrespect and tells 2/3s of his men to put on their swords, they are going to go down to Nabal’s camp and kill every male there, essentially they will wipe out Nabal’s entire clan.

We can tell that David’s desire to kill all of Nabal’s camp was socially acceptable because when Nabal’s wife Abigail hears about what happened, she knows that David is going to come and kill them all, or at least kill all the men and do who knows what to the women and children. Because Abigail knows that this is what will happen, we can deduce that this is what the social norm was for the time, this reaction wasn’t unique to David, it was what the reaction expected to come from any powerful man who felt disrespected. TB’s analysis of the situation is long, but I think is powerful, saying, “this is a story about David being saved form himself. David is about to commit a ruinous act that had it been allowed might have altered history. The truth is that Nabal had committed ho violation of Torah Laws unless we counted it as not loving his neighbor as himself. Nothing more had happened than David figured he was owed something and Nabal disagreed… But for this David was ready, in his violent anger, to commit murder… David was in an out of control rage and ready to kill anyone in his path for no other reason than a man had insulted him. So now we’re going to see how the all-merciful God stopped this atrocity not so much for the sake of those who might die as for David’s sake and the sake of God’s redemptive plan… David was on his way to commit blood guilt. It would. Have been a terrible thing that could have easily destroyed his reputation and his witness. But even more it probably would have disqualified him from being God’s anointed king.”

We know what happens with David’s story later with Uriah and all that, and I can’t help but think that it started here, with this rage, with this casual disregard for life. We’ll cover it when we get there, but even in the instance with Uriah, David did exactly what other kings did, exactly what was his right in the social context of the time. No other king acted better than he did or would have felt that David was wrong for taking a woman he wanted and killing her husband. That act was socially acceptable for a king at that time when he did it, but it was still murder and still wrong according to Israel’s God. But I think the foundation for that act was laid right here when he came charging down the hill with murder in his heart already. And it doesn’t say it but maybe David was already justifying this to himself that he was well within his social right to act this way, and even though he eventually is turned away from those thoughts in this instance, he doesn’t correct them enough to prevent himself from committing that same evil act later and surely justifying it by saying he’s the king and it’s within his right to take this woman and kill her husband. The seeds were planted here, all the way back probably decades before he actually went through with it. We have to constantly police what’s in our hearts, we have to constantly reject what is socially acceptable and keep to what God’s commands us to do.

I’m quoting a lot of TB today but his words on this matter were so powerful to me that I think they are needed here. We have to keep our hearts aligned with God’s will and not man’s will, we have to take on God’s higher law and embody it, instead of sinking to man’s level and justifying our actions there. TB says, “What a lesson there is for every man, especially for followers of Yeshua. Lest we think to highly of ourselves, no matter how godly our intends might be to us, our wicked natures lurk ready to pounce. How often our evil inclinations get in the way of our relationship with our God and our service to Him. Sometimes it’s not as blatant as doing wrong; it's as subtle as choosing a way that is not the way that God’s perfect will has for us. It may not be that we don’t prosper from it; rather that the kingdom of God was meant to prosper from it and didn’t. Without our even knowing it were are constantly invisibly guided; unaware the Lord intervenes in circumstances and deed. If He did not, we all would lose our way and destroy the very purpose for which we were born.”

None of us are special, we are all susceptible to self-justification for sin, we are all able to fall to the lowest standard we can get away with for behavior. I’d like to think that if I was in David’s position, if I was angry and socially justified in wreaking havoc on my perceived enemies, that I would be able to refrain from taking those actions, and maybe I could, but maybe I couldn’t. Perhaps I would justify my actions for murder and theft and mayhem. I’ve justified acting in horrible ways before even though I knew they were wrong, why couldn’t I do it again. It’s easy to look at this scenario and think “I would never,” but that’s not true for any of us. Any one of us could be led astray by Satan, step by step, into the decision for murder or grievous sin. I’ve seen better people than me commit greater sin than me, and I think “how? They were so strong.” And this is how, this is the answer. The anger, the greed, the lust came into their hearts and God delivered them from it, but they themselves never took the necessary steps to root out the whole desire and so slowly over time, it kept creeping in and took foothold there. It takes constant vigilance to keep our inherent evil natures at bay.

As Christ changes our hearts, changes who we are, we have to keep working at it everyday to maintain that because the slide back is not only possible but probable if we become complacent. It’s heavy, it’s really deep, and it can feel overwhelming, but I think the point is that Jesus I there to help us keep our hearts clean as we strive to manage our thoughts, emotions, and actions. We’ll see tomorrow how David’s thoughts fed into this disastrous decision making. We aren’t responsible for our initial thoughts or feelings, but we are responsible for the second one, we are responsible for letting those thoughts and feelings sit there in our minds and hearts, we are responsible for letting them take us on a downward spiral into frenzy and chaos. We have to stop them where they start. There’s the logical mind that knows what we are supposed to do and act and feel, and then there’s the emotional portion that is just as powerful, but often misguided and must be policed.