1 Samuel 25

The death of Samuel

¹Samuel died, and all Israel gathered and mourned for him. They buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David got up and went down to the wilderness of Paran.^a

Nabal refuses David, and Abigail intervenes

²There was a man in Maon whose property was at Carmel. He was very rich: he owned 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats. And he was shearing his sheep at Carmel. ³The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was a woman of good sense and beautiful in appearance, but her husband was harsh and his dealings were evil. He was a descendant of Caleb.^{b 4}In the wilderness David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵So David sent ten young men, and he said to them, “Go up to Carmel, go to Nabal and greet him in my name. ⁶Say this to him: ‘Long life to you! Peace to you, peace to your household, and peace to all that you have.^{c 7}I have heard that you are shearing. Your shepherds have been with us, and we did not mistreat them. Nothing of theirs went missing the whole time they were at Carmel. ⁸Ask your own young men and they will tell you. So let these young men find favor with you, for we have come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have on hand to your servants and to your son David.’” ⁹When David’s young men arrived, they gave Nabal this whole message in David’s name. Then they waited. ¹⁰But Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? There are many slaves these days who run away from their masters. ¹¹Am I to take my bread and my water, and the meat I slaughtered for my shearers, and hand it over to men from who knows where?” ¹²So David’s young men turned around and went back. When they arrived, they reported all these words to him. ¹³David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” So each of them strapped on his sword, and David strapped on his own as well. About 400 men went up with David, while 200 stayed behind with the supplies. ¹⁴Meanwhile one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, but he flew at them with insults. ¹⁵Yet the men were very good to us. We were not mistreated, and nothing of ours went missing the whole time we were out in the fields with them. ¹⁶They were a wall of protection around us night and day, the whole time we were with them looking after the sheep. ¹⁷Now think it over and decide what you should do, because disaster has been decided against our master and against his whole household. He is such a worthless man that no one can speak to him.” ¹⁸Abigail acted quickly. She took 200 loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep ready to cook, about a bushel of roasted grain, 100 clusters of raisins and 200 cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. ¹⁹She said to her servants, “Go on ahead of me; I will follow you.” But she said nothing to her husband Nabal. ²⁰As she rode her donkey down into a hidden part of the hill, there were David and his men, coming down in her direction, and she came upon them. ²¹David had just been saying, “It was all for nothing that I protected everything this man had in the wilderness, so that nothing of his went missing. He has paid me back evil for good. ²²May God deal with David’s enemies ever so severely if by morning I leave alive a single male of all who belong to him!”^{d 23}When Abigail saw David, she quickly got down from her donkey, fell on her face before David and bowed to the ground. ²⁴She fell at his feet and said, “Let the blame be on me alone, my lord! Please let your servant speak to you, and listen to what your servant has to say. ²⁵Please, my lord, pay no attention to this worthless man, Nabal. He is just what his name says. His name is Nabal, Fool, and folly goes with him. But I, your servant, did not see the young men my lord sent. ²⁶Now, my lord, as surely as the LORD lives and as surely as you live, it is the LORD who has kept you from shedding blood and from taking revenge with your own hand. So now, may your enemies and all who want to harm my lord be like Nabal. ²⁷Now let the young men who follow my lord be given this gift that your servant has brought to him. ²⁸Please forgive your servant’s offense. The LORD will certainly make my lord a house that lasts, because my lord fights the battles of the LORD, and no wrong will be found in you as long as you live. ²⁹If anyone rises up to pursue you and to take your life, the life of my lord will be bound safe in the bundle of the living in the care of the LORD your God. But the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling.^{e 30}When the LORD has done for my lord every good thing he has promised you, and has made you ruler over Israel, ³¹my lord will not have this on his mind, no troubled conscience for having shed blood without cause or for having taken revenge himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, remember your servant.”

Abigail becomes David’s wife

³²David answered Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who has sent you out to meet me today. ³³Blessed be your good judgment, and blessed be you, for keeping me today from shedding blood and from taking revenge with my own hand. ³⁴But as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who held me back from doing you harm, if you had not hurried out to meet me, not a single male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.” ³⁵Then David accepted what she had brought him from her hand, and told her, “Go back home in peace. I have listened to what you said, and I grant your request.” ³⁶When Abigail came back to Nabal, he was holding a feast in his house, a feast fit for a king. Nabal was in high spirits and very drunk, so she told him nothing at all until daybreak. ³⁷In the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him all this. His heart failed him, and he became like a stone. ³⁸About ten days later the LORD struck Nabal, and he died. ³⁹When David heard that Nabal had died, he said, “Blessed be the LORD, who has taken up my case against Nabal for the insult he gave me, and has kept his servant from doing evil. The LORD has brought Nabal’s evil back on his own head.” Then David sent word to Abigail, asking her to become his wife. ⁴⁰David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel and said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to be his wife.” ⁴¹She got up and bowed down with her face to the ground, and said, “Your servant is ready to be a maid who washes the feet of my lord’s servants.” ⁴²Abigail quickly got up and mounted her donkey, with her five maids attending her. She followed David’s messengers and became his wife. ⁴³David had also married Ahinoam of Jezreel, so both of them became his wives.

⁴⁴Saul, for his part, had given David’s wife Michal, his own daughter, to Palti son of Laish, who was from Gallim.