1 Samuel 25:41

41 She got up and bowed down [with] her face to the ground and said, "Here is your female servant, as a slave to wash the feet of my lord's servants."

1 Samuel 25:41 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 25:41

And she arose, and bowed herself on [her] face to the earth,
&c.] As she did before David, ( 1 Samuel 25:23 ) ; and did as she would have done had he been present, considering his messengers as representing him and therefore showed the same respect and reverence and did the same honour, as if he had been there in person: and said;
expressed herself in such language as if David had been before her: behold, [let] thine handmaid [be] a servant to wash the feet of the
servants of my lord;
which she said through her great humility, this being one of the meanest services she could be put to; intimating, that she was so far from being worthy to be the wife of such a man that she was only fit and it would be honour enough to her to perform the meanest services to those that waited upon him; or her sense is that it would be enough for her to be the wife of one of David's servants, and not his; it being the business of a wife, as Ben Gersom observes to wash the feet of her husband.

1 Samuel 25:41 In-Context

39 When David heard that Nabal had died, he said, "Blessed be Yahweh who has vindicated the case of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and he has kept back his servant from evil; but Yahweh has returned the evil of Nabal on his [own] head." Then David sent and spoke with Abigail to take her for his wife.

40 So the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, and they spoke to her, saying, "David has sent us to you to take you for his wife."

41 She got up and bowed down [with] her face to the ground and said, "Here is your female servant, as a slave to wash the feet of my lord's servants."

42 Then Abigail {quickly got up} and rode on the donkey, [along with] five of her maidservants who {attended her}, and she went after the messengers of David and became his wife.

43 David had also taken Ahinoam from Jezreel, and both of them became his wives.