1 Samuel 25:14-24

14 Meanwhile, one of the young shepherds told Abigail, Nabal's wife, what had happened: "David sent messengers from the backcountry to salute our master, but he tore into them with insults.

15 Yet these men treated us very well. They took nothing from us and didn't take advantage of us all the time we were in the fields.

16 They formed a wall around us, protecting us day and night all the time we were out tending the sheep.

17 Do something quickly because big trouble is ahead for our master and all of us. Nobody can talk to him. He's impossible - a real brute!"

18 Abigail flew into action. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep dressed out and ready for cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, and she had it all loaded on some donkeys.

19 Then she said to her young servants, "Go ahead and pave the way for me. I'm right behind you." But she said nothing to her husband Nabal.

20 As she was riding her donkey, descending into a ravine, David and his men were descending from the other end, so they met there on the road.

21 David had just said, "That sure was a waste, guarding everything this man had out in the wild so that nothing he had was lost - and now he rewards me with insults. A real slap in the face!

22 May God do his worst to me if Nabal and every cur in his misbegotten brood isn't dead meat by morning!"

23 As soon as Abigail saw David, she got off her donkey and fell on her knees at his feet, her face to the ground in homage,

24 saying, "My master, let me take the blame! Let me speak to you. Listen to what I have to say.

1 Samuel 25:14-24 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.