Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-july-27-2023
I Samuel 25:23-42
23 When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground.24 She fell at his feet and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord, and let me speak to you; hear what your servant has to say.25 Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool, and folly goes with him. And as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my lord sent. 26 And now, my lord, as surely as the Lord your God lives and as you live, since the Lord has kept you from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands, may your enemies and all who are intent on harming my lord be like Nabal. 27 And let this gift, which your servant has brought to my lord, be given to the men who follow you.
28 “Please forgive your servant’s presumption. The Lord your God will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my lord, because you fight the Lord’s battles, and no wrongdoing will be found in you as long as you live. 29 Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God, but the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling. 30 When the Lord has fulfilled for my lord every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him ruler over Israel, 31 my lord will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself. And when the Lord your God has brought my lord success, remember your servant.”
32 David said to Abigail, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me. 33 May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands.34 Otherwise, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.”
35 Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him and said, “Go home in peace. I have heard your words and granted your request.”
36 When Abigail went to Nabal, he was in the house holding a banquet like that of a king. He was in high spirits and very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until daybreak. 37 Then in the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him all these things, and his heart failed him and he became like a stone. 38 About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died.
39 When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Praise be to the Lord, who has upheld my cause against Nabal for treating me with contempt. He has kept his servant from doing wrong and has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing down on his own head.”
Then David sent word to Abigail, asking her to become his wife. 40 His servants went to Carmel and said to Abigail, “David has sent us to you to take you to become his wife.”
41 She bowed down with her face to the ground and said, “I am your servant and am ready to serve you and wash the feet of my lord’s servants.” 42 Abigail quickly got on a donkey and, attended by her five female servants, went with David’s messengers and became his wife.
One of the great blessings of my life is to have been surrounded with really smart women – many of them a lot smarter than I am. Generally speaking, I’ve been much better off when I’ve listened to them. In fact, I can’t imagine being happy in a part of the church that excludes women from leadership – it seems like such a waste of brain-power.
But anyway, benefitting from the advice of smart women might be the only thing I have in common with King David. Today’s reading is a story in which he had the good sense to listen to a woman named Abigail.
It isn’t one of the best-known stories from his life, but it’s one that has a couple of worthwhile lessons for those of us who read it 3,000 years after the fact.
The story takes place during the armed conflict between King Saul’s government and David and his followers. David and his men had been encamped in an area where some shepherd girls were watching over their sheep. And David’s men had apparently made a point of making sure nobody bothered the girls or the flock. Then later, they had asked the owner of the sheep (a man named Nabal) for some provisions – whatever he could spare.
But Nabal had refused the request, and he’d been abusive to David’s messengers. That made David so angry that he ordered his men to strap on their swords to take vengeance against Nabal. That part of the story was the Old Testament reading for yesterday.
Now, in today’s reading, word of this brewing conflict reaches Nabal’s wife Abigail, who is said to be both beautiful and intelligent. Abigail gathers up a bunch of provisions and goes to intercept David and his men. She says the situation is all her fault, and begs mercy for Nabal’s household. She asks David to ignore the rudeness of Nabal, saying that the name means ‘fool’ and that’s just what Nabal is.
But the most interesting part of this story, it seems to me, is the argument Abigail makes to persuade David not to take vengeance on the household. She points out that David has been anointed by God as the future leader of the covenant people, and as the founder of a great dynasty. But she says that David is about to commit an act of vengeance that will stain his hands with blood and cause him to have a guilty conscience later. So she advises him that he will thank himself later if he turns aside from this vengeance against Nabal and his household.
David is persuaded by Abigail’s argument, and he praises her “good judgment.” (But it’s hard not to suspect that her great beauty might also have been a factor in calming his rage). David and his men accept the provisions Abigail has offered and go on their way. Days later, when the foolish Nabal learns about the close call, he keels over and dies. David then sends messengers to Abigail proposing that she become his wife, a proposal she seems to enthusiastically accept.
But the heart of the story seems to be the truth that Abigail expresses to David in begging for mercy for her household – that the anointed servant of the Lord should not feel justified in taking brutal vengeance on someone who offended him. As we might express it today, not even the anointed future king was ‘above the law.’ In fact, when David was at his best, he seemed to believe that being the Lord’s anointed called him to a higher morality.
The story has a happy ending for everyone but Nabal. But I can’t help wondering if this story is meant to foreshadow David’s future sin with Bathsheba. In that case, the things Abigail warned him against actually happened: In addition to committing adultery, David did wind up with blood on his hands and a onscience with – as Abigail puts it – “the staggering burden of needless bloodshed.”
It seems that one of the messages in the life of David is that sometimes having trusted people of good judgment around yourself can make the difference between committing an act of monstrous evil or turning away from that evil to return to God’s ways.
As we said a couple of days ago, David is such a complicated, three-dimensional character that the stories of his life have surprising relevance even today, 3,000 years later.
Let’s pray. Lord, send people into our lives who can speak to us out of your gracious love and your justice. And move us to listen to those people when they speak to us, so that we are guided to keep our feet in your way. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 97 and 98; Acts 15:1-11, and Mark 5:1-20. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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