1 Samuel 25:10 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Samuel 25:10

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As you read that 10^th verse you need to be well aware that this man was the big businessman of the area, and the rich man, and of course he knew who David was. He knew all about the fact – as did other Israelites – that David was anointed to be king, and that Saul had been rejected by the prophet Samuel who they had now buried, and he knows all about the situation. And so when he asks: ‘Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse?’, it is intended to be a withering insult. As far as Nabal is concerned, he is not going to provide for him; he is on the side of Saul; he hopes Saul will destroy him. He has no faith in the words of the prophet Samuel, or any of that at all. So what he is doing here is not stating that he has no knowledge of David and who he is, but it is a deliberate affront.‘There be many servants’ – David is just a slave – ‘now a days that break away every man from his master.’ He should be punished; he should be dealt with. ‘Shall I then take my bread, and my water,’ – he would even deny him water – ‘and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?’ He knew perfectly well that the men who had grouped around David were the dispossessed and the indebted and so on. So David's men return and report back to him. David reacts with tremendous anger. Verse 13:. ‘Gird ye on every man his sword’, and David would lead them in this; he would go himself also. Four hundred men to destroy Nabal, and his household, and his servants: the lot. What tremendous anger! The first thing to note is you don't read about this in David previously. He has held himself together for a long time under great provocation. He has never behaved like this; this is new for David. But now he really loses his temper. He is not a man given to losing his temper. He controls it; he is so careful. It has repeatedly been said, in the previous narrative about David, that he behaved himself wisely. But now he seems to lose self-control, and fly into a passion, and decide on the massacre and murder of these people. Of course, you might say that his anger was justified; not his remedy, but his anger. He had been insulted in his cause, and been lied about, and spat upon, as it were. But it is an angry reaction.

Application

How do you explain it: that David should become the opposite of his usual self, unable to control himself, a tremendous outburst of anger and rage, and determined to kill not only Nabal, but all his people, all who were with him, and take and destroy everything that he has? What happened to David? There is a lesson in this for us, because David will at length repent. And the lesson is here: you see, David had been very good under God, and by his help – with only the one big slip – he had been very good at dealing with this situation he lived with every day: putting up with Saul and his hostility, having to wait patiently for the time when he would be king, facing all the dishonesty directed against him. He had learned by the help of God to cope with that, keep his temper, behave properly, obey the law of God. But as soon as a different situation comes along – it is not the one he is used to dealing with – it catches out him completely, and it brings him down. It seems to hit him at a sensitive spot. He makes no prayer; he doesn't seek the guidance of the Lord, which he has done previously for any major mission, and the fire of revenge just seems to take hold in him. So he acts promptly with the intention, as subsequent verses tell us, of killing everybody.

Let us be careful. That is how the devil works. We cope with one situation, perhaps another one, and then he finds a weak point, and launches some offence upon us. Somebody insults you. Somebody does something unreasonable, unfair. Something happens, somehow, somewhere, you are struck by an unexpected illness. Perhaps it is very serious. This is a novel situation for you. You have not coped with this before. How much we need the help of the Lord, to make sure that we don't say totally untoward and wrong things, and do and think and desire wrong things, because we are taken by surprise.

It happens even to believers who, ninety percent of the time, are calm and self-controlled, and patient, and returning good for evil; sometimes even a believer will just blow up and there will be great anger. In this case David's anger is ready to go to war against his own side. The one who is anointed and appointed by God to be the defender of Israel, and the champion of Israel, is going to carry out a massacre of Israelites, because of something that one man did, or said. So it is irrational and unreasonable, and it is terrible, but he is about to do it, and anger is like that. It leads to a completely irrational reaction that lashes out, that exaggerates the provocation, that is entirely disproportionate in what it metes out; it is a terrible, terrible thing anger. If the devil can make us angry, then he makes us irrational and unreasonable and sinful.

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1 Samuel 25:10 Commentary and Bible Study