She had brains too, but he didn’t notice. Instead, he needed to show off her beauty to his friends at his social occasions – and he needed her to coordinate the servants to help pull off those events. After all, he was rich, so he had an obligation to those in his social class. The time to shear sheep was approaching and he was planning the greatest party yet. The servants had been cooking for days, and Abigail was beginning to grow weary. She could see the servants were too, but it was better to meet Nabal’s demands that everything be served in luxury good enough for a king. Even they knew that. The consequences of not meeting his demands were not pleasant.
She didn’t mind working with the servants. They were good people. She enjoyed their company and she knew they appreciated her. They came to her when something didn’t run smoothly, and together, with their help, whatever the problem was, they fixed it. Abigail was a good wife to Nabal, even if he failed to acknowledge it. She loved God and before God, she determined to do right, even if her husband didn’t. And he did not do things as well as he could have for those around him. Even though they were rich, he was increasingly selfish. But Abigail made sure the needs of those in their household were met. So the day one of their most trusted shepherds came running to the kitchen, she knew there was again a problem that Nabal had not dealt with.
“Mistress, Mistress. Please – a minute – I beg of you.” His dark eyes in his brown weathered face, even though he was young, searched hers as some emotion she had never seen before flickered within them. His hand shook as he reached to wipe the perspiration from his brow, almost, as if he were afraid. That grabbed her attention, even though he had it anyway.
“David sent messengers out of the wilderness to speak to Nabal; and he railed on them. But the men did not deserve such treatment. They were very good to us, and we were not hurt, neither did we miss any thing, as long as we have talked with them, when we were in the fields. They provided protection to us both night and day; all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.’
“What are you talking about? Can you be clearer?” Abigail asked. “Here, sit, take a drink and be calm.” Abigail reached for some water.
The man took a quick swallow, but he did not sit, and then he started again. “David’s men came to ask for some food. It is customary to give to them now at the feast time. They have helped tend the sheep in the outer pastures all year, and all they protected us and never took anything for themselves. And now, tonight, they can not attend the feast, for if they did, King Saul’s soldiers would surely capture them, yet they deserve to have some of the food. But Nabal, who certainly knows that David is the next anointed king of Israel, said, ‘Who is David? Why should I give to him?’ And David grew angry at the insult, and now he is marching toward us with 400 of his followers to slaughter all the men in our household. You need to do something, Mistress. David determines to do evil against our master, and against all of us in his household, but Nabal is such a son of Belial that no man can reason with him.”
Abigail ignored that he had called Nabal a name in front of her. In her heart, she agreed. Nabal did act like the son of Satan. He was mean, selfish and self-centered, and this was no time to quibble over a servant’s disrespect. Anyway, Nabal was the one who had brought dishonor to his household by refusing a meal to those who had worked without pay all year. And now his hard-heartedness was bringing danger to everyone. Waves of heat rolled over her face as she felt the shame, but she did not stop to think of it.
“Quick! Bring as many asses as you can behind the kitchen here,” she said. She turned, not even waiting to see if the shepherd would obey. She knew he would. The kitchen maids stood behind her and the frozen looks on their faces told her they had heard. “Make haste. Take from the food we have prepared for tonight and prepare two hundred loaves in baskets, and two kegs of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of grapes, and two hundred cakes of figs, and lay them on the asses that the shepherd will bring to you.”
Abigail joined in, working as feverishly and silently as her servants until one asked, “But what if there is not enough food for tonight, Mistress?”
Abigail did not look up as she finished filling the baskets. “Don’t worry. We already have enough to feed two kings twice over, and there is not one king attending, but there is still enough to treat Nabal as a king before his guests. However, if we do not avert David and his men, there will only be a mourner’s feast here tonight.”
Just before the last item was packed, she ran off to change her clothing and then, emerging from her tent, she said to her servants, “Go on before me; I will come after you.” And she mounted her ass, but she did not tell Nabal. And just as she rode over the hill, David and his men met them.
David’s jaw was hard and tense when he saw her. Abigail knew she should let him speak first. She did not have to wait long. The veins worked in his neck as he spoke. “In vain I kept Nabal’s herds in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing of all that belonged to him, and he has repaid me evil for good.”
Abigail nodded in agreement, and David continued. “May God do even more to me, if I leave any men from Nabal’s household by morning.”
Abigail slid from her ass, and she fell before David on her face, bowed to the ground, and she said, “My Lord, blame me for this sin, and let your handmaid, I pray you, speak, and listen to what I have to say. Don’t pay any attention to this man of Belial, Nabal, who is my husband. He is foolish, but I, your handmaid, did not see the young men whom you sent.”
“Now as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, seeing the Lord has kept you from shedding blood and from avenging yourself, let your enemies, and they that seek tto do evil to you be as Nabal. Accept this food which I have brought, you and the young men that follow you. I beg you, forgive my sin, for the Lord will make a safe house for you one day because you fight His battles, and evil has never been found in you.
“Saul chases you, but your soul will be preserved by the Lord your God; and God will cast off your enemies as if he were flinging them from a slingshot.
“When the Lord appoints you ruler over Israel, this event will not cause you grief because you won’t shed blood without cause. The Lord will avenge Himself: and when the Lord deals with you, then remember me.”
David said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent you to meet me: And blessed is your advice, and blessed are you for keeping me from bloodshed and from avenging myself.”
So David took what she brought him, and said, “Go in peace to your house; I have listened to you, and have accepted what you have said.”
Abigail returned to Nabal to find him already feasting, and since Nabal was drunk, she told him nothing. But in the morning, when Nabal was sober, Abigail told him what had happened the night before and the Bible records that “his heart died within him, and he became as a stone . . . and after ten days, he died.”
When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the Lord, who kept me from killing Nabal; for the Lord has returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head.”
And David remembered Abigail and sent his servants to ask her to be his wife. Abigail had a choice. In those days, the custom was that a widow would be given in marriage to her husband’s brothers or the nearest kinsman. The Bible doesn’t say whether Nabal had any close relatives, but if he did, they may have been as mean and selfish as Nabal was. For Abigail, the answer was clear. Life in exile with David and God was better than life in comfort with those who did not love God. She gathered five of her servants and, without hesitation, she followed David’s men into the wilderness.
II Samuel 25
Art: David and Abigail by Antonio Molinari.
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