1 Samuel 25:16

16 Night and day they protected us. They were like a wall around us while we were with them caring for the sheep.

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 One of Nabal's servants said to Abigail, Nabal's wife, "David sent messengers from the desert to greet our master, but Nabal insulted them.

15 These men were very good to us. They did not harm us. They stole nothing from us during all the time we were out in the field with them.

16 Night and day they protected us. They were like a wall around us while we were with them caring for the sheep.

17 Now think about it, and decide what you can do. Terrible trouble is coming to our master and all his family. Nabal is such a wicked man that no one can even talk to him."

18 Abigail hurried. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two leather bags full of wine, five cooked sheep, a bushel of cooked grain, a hundred cakes of raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs and put all these on donkeys.