1 Samuel 25:23-24
King James Version
23 And when Abigail saw David,
she hasted,
and lighted off the ass,
and fell before David on her face,
and bowed herself to the ground,
24 And fell at his feet,
and said,
Upon me, my lord,
upon me let this iniquity be:
and let thine handmaid,
I pray thee,
speak in thine audience,
and hear the words of thine handmaid.
A great catastrophe on the kingship of David was avoided, when the hand of God came into the picture, through several people in this lovely story.
David, destined to become king, had become enraged with Nabal, Abigail's husband.
1 Samuel 25:3 (KJV)
3 Now the name of the man was Nabal;
and the name of his wife Abigail:
and she was a woman of good understanding,
and of a beautiful countenance:
but the man was churlish and evil in his doings;
and he was of the house of Caleb.
Nabal was a selfish and ungrateful man, and would not give David and his men any bread, water, or meat, despite maintaining their good relations with Nabal's shearers, even to the point of keeping both sheep, and shearers, secure.
His messengers and himself having been insulted, David took 400 of his men, to polish off Nabal's household.
Informed by one of the young men, Abigail proceeded to save the situation with great haste, for she had to get ahead of David, before he got to her household (again, the hand of God was in this situation).
1 Samuel 25:18-20 (KJV)
18 Then Abigail made haste,
and took two hundred loaves,
and two bottles of wine,
and five sheep ready dressed,
and five measures of parched corn,
and an hundred clusters of raisins,
and two hundred cakes of figs,
and laid them on asses.
19 And she said unto her servants,
Go on before me;
behold, I come after you.
But she told not her husband Nabal.
20 And it was so,
as she rode on the ass,
that she came down by the covert on the hill,
and, behold,
David and his men came down against her;
and she met them.
Upon being met at the covert on the hill, she pleaded to David:
1 Samuel 25:28-31 (KJV)
28 I pray thee,
forgive the trespass of thine handmaid:
for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house;
because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord,
and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days.
29 Yet a man is risen to pursue thee,
and to seek thy soul:
but the soul of my lord shall be bound
in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God;
and the souls of thine enemies,
them shall he sling out,
as out of the middle of a sling.
30 And it shall come to pass,
when the Lord shall have done to my lord
according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee,
and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel;
31 That this shall be no grief unto thee,
nor offence of heart unto my lord,
either that thou hast shed blood causeless,
or that my lord hath avenged himself:
but when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord,
then remember thine handmaid.
To which, David responded:
1 Samuel 25:32-35 (KJV)
32 And David said to Abigail,
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
which sent thee this day to meet me:
33 And blessed be thy advice,
and blessed be thou,
which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood,
and from avenging myself with mine own hand.
34 For in very deed,
as the Lord God of Israel liveth,
which hath kept me back from hurting thee,
except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me,
surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light
any that pisseth against the wall.
35 So David received of her hand that which she had brought him,
and said unto her,
Go up in peace to thine house;
see, I have hearkened to thy voice,
and have accepted thy person.
As peace prevailed, the hand of God pressed on to another matter.
1 Samuel 25:36-38 (KJV)
36 And Abigail came to Nabal;
and, behold,
he held a feast in his house,
like the feast of a king;
and Nabal's heart was merry within him,
for he was very drunken:
wherefore she told him nothing,
less or more,
until the morning light.
37 But it came to pass in the morning,
when the wine was gone out of Nabal,
and his wife had told him these things,
that his heart died within him,
and he became as a stone.
38 And it came to pass about ten days after,
that the Lord smote Nabal,
that he died.
Again, the hand of God was in what transpired next.
1 Samuel 25:39 (KJV)
39 And when David heard that Nabal was dead,
he said,
Blessed be the Lord,
that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach
from the hand of Nabal,
and hath kept his servant from evil:
for the Lord hath returned the wickedness of Nabal
upon his own head.
And David sent and communed with Abigail,
to take her to him to wife.
This amazing story shows how God restrains us from committing sin, and how He punishes those who do.
(Image source: Clipart Library)
Updated 25 January 2022
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