Scripture Daily

Context No. 795 of 4322 · 1 Samuel

Context · Reflection

1 Samuel 25:32-39: in context

32David said to Abigail, “Blessed is the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you today to meet me! 33Blessed is your discretion, and blessed are you, who have kept me today from blood guiltiness, and from avenging myself with my own hand. 34For indeed, as the LORD the God of Israel lives, who has withheld me from harming you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, surely there wouldn’t have been left to Nabal by the morning light so much as one who urinates on a wall.” 35So David received from her hand that which she had brought him. Then he said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. Behold, I have listened to your voice and have granted your request.” 36Abigail came to Nabal; and behold, he held a feast in his house like the feast of a king. Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. Therefore she told him nothing until the morning light. 37In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things; and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 38About ten days later, the LORD struck Nabal, so that he died. 39When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed is the LORD, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from evil. The LORD has returned the evildoing of Nabal on his own head.” David sent and spoke concerning Abigail, to take her to himself as wife.

David is on his way to commit a massacre. A wealthy fool named Nabal has insulted him and refused his men food, and David, enraged, has strapped on his sword and set out with four hundred men to kill Nabal and every male in his household by morning. What stops him is Nabal's wife, Abigail, who rides out to meet him with provisions and a wise, disarming appeal, urging him not to stain his hands with needless blood. And David's response, when he sees what she has done, is not annoyance at being talked out of his revenge. It is gratitude, poured out three times over. Blessed be the LORD who sent you to meet me, he says, and blessed be your discretion, and blessed are you, who have kept me this day from bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand.

That is a rare and mature thing: to thank the person who stopped you in the middle of a hot-blooded act you were sure was justified. David can already see that being restrained was a mercy, that if he had gone through with it he would have carried the guilt of it forever. He receives her gift, sends her home in peace, and leaves the matter of Nabal where it belongs. Ten days later God strikes Nabal down, and David, hearing of it, blesses God again, this time for pleading his cause and keeping his servant from doing evil. The vengeance he had been about to take with his own hand, he had not needed to take at all. Someone had loved him enough to get in his way, and he was wise enough to be thankful for it.

David thanked the woman who blocked him from the revenge he was certain he was owed. When someone gets in the way of a rash act I feel entitled to, am I grateful to them, or furious, and can I leave the settling of scores to God?

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