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35. David wants to
murder Nabal.
For a long time David
protected the flocks of a rich man named Nabal in the Maon region and
lived in peace with his shepherds. Nabal had three thousand sheep and a
thousand goats in his pasture, yet he was an incomprehensible and wicked
man. Wealth and understanding are two different things.
God, give me an understanding heart!
Once Nabal had his three thousand sheep sheared and gave his men a great
feast, for that was a rich and glorious feast among the shepherds of the
east. David sent ten of his young men to him, who wished him good luck
for the shearing on his behalf and greeted him with kind and sincere
words, saying that he wanted to thank their master, David, for his rich
meal and his blessing. “Your shepherds,” they said, ”have been with us,
and we have never harmed them. They have never lost anything in the
number of their sheep.” But Nabal replied to the young men with a simple
speech: “Who is David? There are now many servants running around in the
land who have run away from their masters. Shall I take what I have
slaughtered for my people and give it to people I don't know where they
come from?” - Thus said the foolish man. - When David heard this answer,
he angrily ordered his men to gird their swords at their sides and go
with him. He himself girded his sword and went out with them, and in his
first rage he wanted nothing more than to attack Nabal and all his
people and beat them up. It is into such dangers that foolishness and
its sister, coarseness, throw themselves. Coarseness is the sister of
foolishness.
But when David was on his way to commit the great sin he was about to
commit, God sent an angel to warn him, so to speak, namely Abigail,
Nabal's prudent housewife. Abigail was not present when David's
messengers spoke to Nabal and he to them. But when she heard from the
shepherds what Nabal had said, she immediately prepared a gift for
David, two hundred loaves of bread, five boiled sheep, flour and wine,
raisins and figs, and hurried to meet the angry David. Abigail spoke
kind and understanding words to David: “Consider it a favor from God
that I am coming to you, that your hand may not shed blood. You will
fight the Lord's wars. Let no one be able to accuse you of evil. Let
your heart be free from reproach! Bring no bloodguiltiness to the throne
of Israel!” - A good mind is easily guided by reasonable ideas. It does
not resist the admonitions that God sends it through good people.
David turned inward and said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD, who has
sent you to meet me, and blessed be you and your words; you have kept me
from procuring justice for myself with blood.” David received from her
hand what she had brought him and said to her, “Go up to your house in
peace. Behold, I have obeyed your voice.”
Thus the prudence of a woman disarmed the anger of an offended war hero
and returned six hundred swords to their sheaths. A good word finds a
good place. Meanwhile Nabal lived at home in glory and joy, not knowing
that his life hung by a single thread. But when Abigail, his wife, told
him the next morning that he had been in mortal danger, his heart froze
in his body with terror. After ten days he was a corpse. Then David
offered her his hand in marriage. Abigail, who had been wise, became the
wife of David, whom God had chosen to be king over Israel.
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