1 Samuel 25:8

8 Ask your servants and they will tell you! Let the young men find favor in your eyes because we have come on a feast day. Please give {whatever you have on hand} for your servants and for your son David."

1 Samuel 25:8 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 25:8

Ask thy young men, and they will show thee
The shepherds before mentioned, who kept their flocks hard by them:

wherefore let the young men find favour in thine eyes;
the ten young men David sent to Nabal:

for we are come in a good day;
a day in which Nabal made a feast for his shearers, as was usual then, and still is, see ( 2 Samuel 13:23-28 ) ; and at such times as persons are generally cheerful and merry, so free and liberal, and as there were plenty of provisions, not only enough for the guests and shearers, but to spare, and there was no need for an increase of expense, it might upon the whole be concluded it was a proper time for David to apply for accommodations for himself and his men:

give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants,
and to thy son David;
he did not request anything extraordinary of him, or to put him to any expense, but what was at hand, and he could spare, he prayed him to deliver to the young men he sent, for their use, and the use of other his servants, and particularly David, who styled himself his son, being of the same tribe with Nabal, and Nabal his senior.

1 Samuel 25:8 In-Context

6 Then you must say to him, '[Long] life [to you], and {may it go well with you, with your house, and with all that is yours}.
7 Now I have heard that {you have shearers}. Now while your shepherds [were] with us, we did not mistreat them, and nothing of theirs [was] missing, all the days they were in Carmel.
8 Ask your servants and they will tell you! Let the young men find favor in your eyes because we have come on a feast day. Please give {whatever you have on hand} for your servants and for your son David."
9 So David's young men came and they spoke all these words to Nabal in the name of David. Then they waited.
10 But Nabal answered David's servants and said, "Who [is] David? And who [is] the son of Jesse? Today, [there] are many servants breaking away from the presence of their masters.

Footnotes 3

  • [a]. Or "young men"
  • [b]. Or "the servants"; "young men" is used here to connect with v. 5
  • [c]. Literally "what your hand finds"
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