Episode 114: God kills Nabal and David takes his wife

1 Samuel 25

David threatens Nabal

25 ¹ Samuel died, and all the Israelites gathered together and buried him in his house at Ramah.

David went into the wilderness of Paran.

² Nabal was a wealthy man who was married to a beautiful and intelligent woman named Abigail.

⁴ David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep, so he sent ten young men to Carmel. ⁵ He told them to deliver this message to Nabal:

⁷ I hear you have shearers and shepherds.

⁸ We haven't hurt them or taken anything from them.

Give us and David whatever you have.

¹⁰ Nabal said,

Who is David? I've never heard of him.

¹¹ Do you expect me to take the food that I need to provide for my workers and give it to total strangers?

¹² So David's young men returned to David and told him what Nabal had said.

¹³ When David heard this, he and 400 of his men girded their swords and went to visit him.

Abigail meets David

¹⁴ A young man who worked for Nabal told Abigail about the encounter between David's men and her husband, Nabal. He said,

¹⁵ They were nice to us and didn't steal anything.

¹⁶ They even protected us while we watched the sheep.

¹⁷ You need to decide what to do; otherwise there's going to be trouble for us.

Our master, Nabal, is such a son of Belial that no one can talk to him.

¹⁸ So Abigail gathered 200 loaves of bread, two bottles of wine, five sheep ready to cook, five measures of grain, 100 clusters of raisins, and 200 fig cakes, and loaded it all on donkeys.

¹⁹ She told her servants to go ahead of her. She would come later. But she didn't tell her husband, Nabal.

²⁰ On her way she met David, who said,

²¹ I've been protecting your husband and didn't take anything from him.

But he has paid my kindness to him with evil.

²² Before morning, I'll kill every one of his men who pisses against a wall.

²³ Abigail got off her donkey, fell on her face, and said to him:

²⁵ Don't let that stupid man-of-Belial husband of mine bother you.

²⁶ You have every right to kill him and all of his people for his ingratitude, but God has somehow graciously restrained you.

²⁹ You are the greatest person ever.

God will soon kill all of your enemies and make you king.

³¹ When you've dealt with my stupid husband, remember me.

³² Then David said to Abigail:

³³ Blessed be God who sent you to me; blessed be your advice to me; and blessed be you, for keeping me from killing a bunch of people today.

³⁴ Because if you hadn't come to me, I would have killed everyone in Nabal's household who pisses against the wall.

³⁵ David accepted Abigail's gift, and said,

Go in peace to your house. I'll do what you asked of me.

God kills Nabal

³⁶ When Abigail got home, Nabal was having a feast. He was very drunk, so Abigail didn't tell him about her meeting with David until he sobered up.

³⁷ The next morning when she told him, Nabal's heart died within him, and he became as quiet as a stone.

³⁸ About ten days later, God killed him.

David takes Abigail (and Ahinoam) for a wife

³⁹ When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Blessed be God." And he sent for Abigail.

⁴¹ Abigail bowed her face to the ground, and said,

Let me be David's handmaid who will wash the feet of the servants of David.

⁴² Then she got on her donkey, collected five of her damsels, and rode off to become David's wife.

⁴³ Meanwhile, David also took another wife, Ahinoam of Jezreel. ⁴⁴ And Saul gave his first wife, Michal, to a man named Phalti.