1 Samuel 25:14 Commentary and Bible Study

Nabal’s household who have witnessed their master’s response to David’s men, fear the worst. ‘For evil is determined against our master, and agai’nst all his household.’ How did they know that? They didn't, of course, but they assumed it. David is bound to react, to wreak vengeance upon us after such insulting and unreasonable behaviour.’ He had never done so before, but this is their fear. and they have got it right. That is exactly what David was now about to do. But you notice they look to Abigail for a solution. Her spiritual approach and her reasonableness in strong contrast to her husband’s churlishness was well known. If anyone could help in this crisis, it would be her. They have witnessed how she has dealt with Nabal, and seen her godly patience with him, and how she has managed his outbursts. Christian women are the people you can turn to sometimes to solve a problem. ‘What are we going to do? We are all going to be destroyed. Nabal has torn it now. He has gone for David, of all people, the anointed one.’ They turn to Abigail, but she is just a woman who has to conduct herself humbly in society, and particularly at that time. How will she deal with this?One of them tells her, ‘Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he railed on them. ¹⁵ But the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we any thing’ – and yet there would have been those marauders and those bandits about. He tells the story of what happened. He says, these men were very good to us. and they were protectors to us as long as we were in touch with them. Verse 16 is very strong: ‘They were a wall unto us both by day and night.’ Whatever did they do? David's men felt sorry for these people, but they also knew that David was set to be a defender of Israel, so when criminal gangs or perhaps marauding Philistines came into the fringes of Carmel looking for spoil and to get those sheep, David's men were staying up at night to protect them – night and day – and they didn't receive any pay from Nabal. David really was asking for some gift, some token, for a service rendered.By treating them so unjustly, our master has surely provoked an act of extreme vengeance against himself. ‘For he [Nabal] is such a son of Belial, an unworthy creature, that a man cannot speak to him’, or, as one modern version says, he is such a son of Belial that nobody can talk to him about anything. These things are out in the open, so that this young man does not hesitate to call their master ‘a son of Belial’ to his wife’s face. This is not slander; it is reality, and his behaviour has brought the entire household in danger of being slaughtered. This is not a time to mince words.