1 Samuel 25:13-23

13 David said to his men, “Each of you strap on your sword!” So they did, and David strapped his on as well. About four hundred men went up with David, while two hundred stayed with the supplies.
14 One of the servants told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David sent messengers from the wilderness to give our master his greetings, but he hurled insults at them.
15 Yet these men were very good to us. They did not mistreat us, and the whole time we were out in the fields near them nothing was missing.
16 Night and day they were a wall around us the whole time we were herding our sheep near them.
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.

1 Samuel 25:13-23 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 19

  • 1. S 1 Samuel 22:2
  • 2. S 1 Samuel 21:10; 1 Samuel 23:13
  • 3. S Numbers 31:27; 1 Samuel 30:24
  • 4. 1 Samuel 13:10
  • 5. ver 7
  • 6. ver 21
  • 7. Exodus 14:22; Job 1:10; Psalms 139:5
  • 8. S Deuteronomy 13:13; S 1 Samuel 20:7
  • 9. S Leviticus 23:14; S 1 Samuel 17:17
  • 10. 1 Chronicles 12:40
  • 11. S Genesis 42:26; 2 Samuel 16:1; Isaiah 30:6
  • 12. Genesis 32:20
  • 13. ver 36
  • 14. ver 15
  • 15. Psalms 109:5
  • 16. S 1 Samuel 19:4
  • 17. S Ruth 1:17; 1 Samuel 3:17; 1 Samuel 20:13
  • 18. 1 Kings 14:10; 1 Kings 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8
  • 19. S Genesis 19:1; S 1 Samuel 20:41

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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