1 Samuel 25:23 Commentary and Bible Study

She comes with great humility and grace. She falls before David on her face. She begins to plead for her husband, and for herself and her family such as it was, and all the servants and workers that they had with them. What she says to him is, step after step, the perfect kind of thing to say in order to tackle anger: our own anger, or the anger of another. She was shortly to be widowed; no wonder David subsequently fell for her. She successfully corrected him, stemmed his activities, but in her words you see the perfect character and godliness of a spiritual woman. Certainly, she was going to address one who she knew was anointed to be king of Israel upon the removal of Saul. She knew that; that's quite clear from her subsequent words. But nevertheless we pause and note her humility. These are the graces that believing husbands and wives look for in each other. She is going to reprove him. That is a very courageous thing to do. She is going to attempt to stop him in his tracks, and bring him to his senses, and enable him to see what he is about to do and the nature of it, but she begins with this great the demonstration of her very genuine humility before him. ‘Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience.’ We must not overlook these words: ‘upon me’. The punishment for Nabal’s conduct and the insults he has given, and his failure to give a gift for the provision of David's men, when they, after all, had protected his herdsman and his shepherds, and voluntarily; it deserved anger and punishment, obviously. But she says, ‘Upon me let this iniquity fall; punish me instead of my husband. Strike me for the insult which has been paid to you.’ As far as she knew David might well have done that, or one of his servants may well have done that. This is courage indeed, and a readiness for self-sacrifice.‘Don't wipe them all out. Kill me; let your anger be against me’. Well we have got a real taste of atonement here, haven’t we? This is remarkable. And David would immediately be thinking, ‘I can't do that. I can't kill this gracious, beautiful, understanding lady on behalf of all them.’ And that makes him start to think about the reasonableness of what he is setting out to do. ‘Kill me’, she says, ‘Instead of them.’ ‘Oh no’, David thinks, ‘that is not possible. That would be utterly wrong and unreasonable.’ He is on the back foot now, by such an approach to him, and she meant it. This woman is so sweet; she is so wonderful. She is prepared to put herself forward on behalf of another's evil. ‘Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial,’ – this worthless man – ‘even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him.’ Now we may think that this is not such a good thing, surely: that Abigail is willing to be very critical of her husband Nabal in front of another person, a third party. She very explicitly declares Nabal’s foolishness. ‘He is a man,’ she says in so many words, ‘who is so unstable that he will just lash out verbally and insult anybody, even if it's not in his interest, even if it is the future king of Israel. What a fool!’ Well, is that a good thing? In looking for a spiritual life, are we going to say you are looking for somebody who is ready to be very critical of you to a third party? No, because this is an exceptional case. She is saving his life. She is saying to David, ‘This man is not worthy of you. Don't be angry, or bring about deaths and do anything terrible on account of him, because he is always like this. He is not a settled determined rebel who is going to take up arms against you or anything of that kind. This is just the way he is: he is such a fool. He will shoot from the lip and say these things; just think nothing of him.’ She is saving his life with that type of reasoning, and she succeeds – at least for however long it was before God smote him. So this is an exceptional case. By all means criticise your wife or your husband to a third party, if by so doing you save his or her life. So the first argument is that what is in your heart, David, with this great force, is entirely disproportionate. This is one man and you come with an army. She doesn't say that, but she focuses her defence entirely upon Nabal. An even stronger argument is built into it: he is not worthy of your anger. He is a fool of an Israelite, just speaking angrily and superficially and madly; that is his nature. He is not worthy of the anger of the one who is the defender of Israel. ‘But I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send.’ She makes it clear that she did not know that David had come – she is not apologizing for something she has done and now regrets; she is not owning up to a failure to restrain Nabal.