1 Samuel 25:9-19

9 When David's young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in David's name; then they waited.
10 But Nabal answered David's servants and said, "1Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are each breaking away from his master.
11 "Shall I then 2take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men whose origin * * I do not know?"
12 So David's young men retraced their way and went back; and they came and told him according to all these words.
13 David said to his men, "Each of you gird on his sword." So each man girded on his sword. And David also girded on his sword, and about 3four hundred men went up behind David while two hundred 4stayed with the baggage.
14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, "Behold, David sent messengers from the wilderness to 5greet our master, and he scorned them.
15 "Yet the men were very good to us, and we were not 6insulted, nor did we miss anything as long * as we went about with them, while we were in the fields.
16 "7They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the time we were with them tending the sheep.
17 "Now therefore, know and consider what you should do, for evil is plotted against our master and against all his household; and he is such a worthless man that no one can speak to him."

Abigail Intercedes

18 Then Abigail hurried and 8took two hundred loaves of bread and two jugs of wine and five sheep already prepared and five measures of roasted grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys.
19 She said to her young men, "9Go on before me; behold, I am coming after you." But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

1 Samuel 25:9-19 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 25

This chapter gives an account of the death of Samuel, and of the ill treatment David met with from Nabal; it begins with the death of Samuel, which was greatly lamented in Israel, 1Sa 25:1; it draws the character of Nabal, and his wife, 1Sa 25:2,3; records a message of David to him, by his young men, desiring he would send him some of his provisions made for his sheep shearers, 1Sa 25:4-9; and Nabal's ill-natured answer to him reported by the young men, which provoked David to arm against him, 1Sa 25:10-13,21,22; and this being told Abigail, the wife of Nabal, and a good character given of David and his men, and of the advantage Nabal's shepherds had received from them, and the danger his family was in through his ingratitude, 1Sa 25:14-17; she prepared a present to pacify David, went with it herself, and addressed him in a very handsome, affectionate, and prudent manner, 1Sa 25:18-31; and met with a kind reception, 1Sa 25:32-35; and the chapter is closed with an account of the death of Nabal, and of the marriage of Abigail to David, 1Sa 25:32-44.

Cross References 9

  • 1. Judges 9:28
  • 2. Judges 8:6, 15
  • 3. 1 Samuel 23:13
  • 4. 1 Samuel 30:24
  • 5. 1 Samuel 13:10; 1 Samuel 15:13
  • 6. 1 Samuel 25:7, 21
  • 7. Exodus 14:22; Job 1:10
  • 8. 2 Samuel 16:1; 1 Chronicles 12:40
  • 9. Genesis 32:16, 20

Footnotes 5

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