1 Samuel 25:16

16 They were a wall around us, both day and night, the whole time we were herding our sheep near them.

1 Samuel 25:16 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 25:16

They were a wall unto us both by night and day
Protecting and defending them against the Philistines, who, as they robbed the threshing floors of Keilah, would have plundered the flocks of Nabal; or it may be rather against the incursions of the Arabs in the wilderness of Paran, the posterity of Ishmael, who lived by plunder, and against the wild beasts of the desert, who otherwise would have carried off many of their sheep and lambs, by night or by day:

all the while we were with them keeping the sheep;
all which showed how reasonable it was that Nabal should have used them well, and given them a portion of his entertainment at his sheep shearing; for had it not been for them, he would not have had so many sheep to shear as he had.

1 Samuel 25:16 In-Context

14 Meanwhile, one of Nabal’s young men informed Nabal’s wife Abigail, “Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed at them.

15 Yet these men were very good to us. When we were in the field, we were not harassed, and nothing of ours went missing the whole time we lived among them.

16 They were a wall around us, both day and night, the whole time we were herding our sheep near them.

17 Now consider carefully what you must do, because disaster looms over our master and all his household. For he is such a scoundrel that nobody can speak to him!”

18 Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys