1 Samuel 25:17-35

17 Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our master and his whole household. He is such a wicked man that no one can talk to him.”
18 Abigail acted quickly. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs[a] of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.
19 Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
20 As she came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, there were David and his men descending toward her, and she met them.
21 David had just said, “It’s been useless—all my watching over this fellow’s property in the wilderness so that nothing of his was missing. He has paid me back evil for good.
22 May God deal with David,[b] be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to him!”
23 When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground.
24 She fell at his feet and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord, and let me speak to you; hear what your servant has to say.
25 Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool, and folly goes with him. And as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my lord sent.
26 And now, my lord, as surely as the LORD your God lives and as you live, since the LORD has kept you from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands, may your enemies and all who are intent on harming my lord be like Nabal.
27 And let this gift, which your servant has brought to my lord, be given to the men who follow you.
28 “Please forgive your servant’s presumption. The LORD your God will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my lord, because you fight the LORD’s battles, and no wrongdoing will be found in you as long as you live.
29 Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the LORD your God, but the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling.
30 When the LORD has fulfilled for my lord every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him ruler over Israel,
31 my lord will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself. And when the LORD your God has brought my lord success, remember your servant.”
32 David said to Abigail, “Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me.
33 May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands.
34 Otherwise, as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.”
35 Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him and said, “Go home in peace. I have heard your words and granted your request.”

1 Samuel 25:17-35 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 33

  • 1. S Deuteronomy 13:13; S 1 Samuel 20:7
  • 2. S Leviticus 23:14; S 1 Samuel 17:17
  • 3. 1 Chronicles 12:40
  • 4. S Genesis 42:26; 2 Samuel 16:1; Isaiah 30:6
  • 5. Genesis 32:20
  • 6. ver 36
  • 7. ver 15
  • 8. Psalms 109:5
  • 9. S 1 Samuel 19:4
  • 10. S Ruth 1:17; 1 Samuel 3:17; 1 Samuel 20:13
  • 11. 1 Kings 14:10; 1 Kings 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8
  • 12. S Genesis 19:1; S 1 Samuel 20:41
  • 13. 2 Samuel 14:9
  • 14. Proverbs 17:12
  • 15. Proverbs 12:16; Proverbs 14:16; Proverbs 20:3; Isaiah 32:5
  • 16. ver 33
  • 17. Hebrews 10:30
  • 18. ver 34; 2 Samuel 18:32
  • 19. S Genesis 33:11; 1 Samuel 30:26
  • 20. ver 24; 2 Samuel 14:9
  • 21. 2 Samuel 7:11,26
  • 22. 1 Samuel 18:17
  • 23. 1 Samuel 24:11
  • 24. S 1 Samuel 20:1
  • 25. Jeremiah 10:18; Jeremiah 22:26
  • 26. 1 Samuel 17:50; 2 Samuel 4:8
  • 27. S 1 Samuel 12:12; S 1 Samuel 13:14
  • 28. S Genesis 40:14
  • 29. 2 Samuel 3:10
  • 30. S Genesis 24:27; Exodus 18:10; Luke 1:68
  • 31. ver 26
  • 32. S ver 26
  • 33. S Genesis 19:21; 1 Samuel 20:42; 2 Kings 5:19

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. That is, probably about 60 pounds or about 27 kilograms
  • [b]. Some Septuagint manuscripts; Hebrew "with David’s enemies"
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