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A lesson learned, or David and Abigail - in 1 Samuel 23 - 27

In our studies in the books of Samuel we have discovered that after assuring us of the wonder and certainty of our salvation through the achievements of our King and God’s Faithful Priest, Jesus the Christ, the books confront us with the challenges of living in a world in conflict with God. We saw in study 3 that God is more concerned with what He will do in us than with what we might do for Him, and God will even fight against us in order to bring us to the point that He can really bless us.

We then considered in the tragic story of King Saul, a picture of mankind in independence from God and how this leads to complete futility, and we noted how we could trace the root of Saul’s problem to his failure to learn habits of dependence on God when he was young and successful. By contrast, David in the confrontation with the giant Goliath pictured how our King and Saviour conquered the enemies of sin and death by going to Calvary with his eyes on God alone, and would not be diverted by anything. Then in the lovely presentation of Jonathan in this book we saw how we ourselves might live, putting our trust in God even if we cannot see how God will bring His purposes to fruition, and we found that like Jonathan, because we acknowledge the King in this life, He will acknowledge us and bring us to His table, in glory.

Finally, in our last study we also discovered that the reason why we do not need to worry about the ups and downs of life is that probably the most mysterious and one of the most wonderful achievements of Calvary is that one day not only sin itself, but all the damage that sin has wrought will be removed from God’s creation. When God pledged - DT 32:35

`Vengeance is Mine, and retribution'

He was making, not a threat, but a glorious promise that He will undertake both the judgement on sin and the restoration of all that sin has damaged and hurt.

We might think that armed with all this information we would find that living the Christian life becomes easy. And then from our experience we discover that it is not so. We may know that God has given us – in Christ – a glorious hope and the wonderful reality of the forgiveness of sin. We may understand that the habit of dependence on God is the only way to live. We may accept that one day God will get rid of sin and all the evidence of sin from creation, but yet we fall and get ourselves into the deepest morasses that it is possible to imagine.

Thus in this study we will consider what in practice is one of the hardest lessons to learn, and is also the root cause of much failure, and in our next study we will learn how vast and how horribly sad are the consequences of forgetting this lesson.

David and Saul

The study begins with a story of David rescuing a town from a Philistine raid.

^{1SA 23:1} Then they told David, saying, "Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and are plundering the threshing floors." ² So David inquired of the LORD, saying, "Shall I go and attack these Philistines?" And the LORD said to David, "Go and attack the Philistines, and deliver Keilah." ³ But David's men said to him, "Behold, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more then if we go to Keilah against the ranks of the Philistines?" ⁴ Then David inquired of the LORD once more. And the LORD answered him and said, "Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand." ⁵ So David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines; and he led away their livestock and struck them with a great slaughter. Thus David delivered the inhabitants of Keilah.

David in contrast with the behaviour of Saul in a similar situation (chapter11) first takes it to the Lord for guidance, and follows the Lord’s directions. Of course he is successful, but then another danger looms. When Saul heard that David had gone to Keilah, he was delighted because he thought that he could trap David in the town. How ironic that Saul had no thought of going to relieve the town from the Philistine attack, but sought to besiege David in it. However David with six hundred men slipped out of Keilah before Saul got there and there began a hunt that led to a very strange incident.

^{1SA 24:2} Then Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel, and went to seek David and his men in front of the Rocks of the Wild Goats. ³ And he came to the sheepfolds on the way, where there was a cave; and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were sitting in the inner recesses of the cave. ⁴ And the men of David said to him, "Behold, this is the day of which the LORD said to you, `Behold; I am about to give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it seems good to you.'" Then David arose and cut off the edge of Saul's robe secretly. ⁵ And it came about afterward that David's conscience bothered him because he had cut off the edge of Saul's robe. ⁶ So he said to his men, "Far be it from me because of the LORD that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD'S anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, since he is the LORD'S anointed." ⁷ And David persuaded his men with these words and did not allow them to rise up against Saul. And Saul arose, left the cave, and went on his way.

After chasing David up hill and down gully Saul eventually gets close to David, so close in fact that David by ‘accident’ has Saul at his mercy. His men urge him to kill Saul. The text seems to hint that David thought about it before rejecting the deed because Saul was ‘the Lord’s anointed’. The text however presents a picture of a somewhat perplexed David. He would have liked to have avenged himself, but was prevented by the privileged status of his enemy.

There are two issues raised in this initial unit of our study.

1. David had no time to seek God’s guidance, as he did earlier against the Philistines at Keilah. The opportunity for revenge came so quickly and unexpectedly that David had to react immediately. Often in life we are faced with situations in which we have to respond spontaneously. We do not have time to think, or pray. We respond by instinct. Consider then, in a crisis will your instincts help you, or lead you into error?

Our instincts are honed by the habits we develop and the company we keep. If we keep company with God; that is if we keep in daily and lively fellowship with God then we are much more likely to react in harmony with God’s heart. If we do not learn the habit of daily fellowship with God, then our instinctive reaction in a crisis may display our ungodly nature.

2. David spared Saul, because instinctively he would not strike ‘the Lord’s anointed’. It is clear from the narrative that David was under some pressure to strike Saul, both from his men and his own instinct, but he refused to kill him because Saul was still ‘the Lord’s anointed’. It was a close call, but the fact that Saul was the Lord’s anointed saved him.

We might well ask what would David have done if Saul had not been the Lord’s anointed? Would he have killed him in those circumstances; would it have been permissible (in God’s eyes) to have killed him if he had not been the Lord’s anointed?

However David refused to kill Saul and then disclosed himself to Saul, showing how close Saul came to being killed. He was thus able to convince Saul that he had no ill intent towards him, and Saul ceased his hunt. But soon after this Samuel died (1 Samuel 25:1), and David again fled to the hills. We suspect that Saul will not be slow to pursue. There is however inserted into the story at this point another incident not involving Saul. This is the tale of David and Abigail.

David and Abigail

^{1SA 25:2} Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel; and the man was very rich, and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. And it came about while he was shearing his sheep in Carmel ³ (now the man's name was Nabal, and his wife's name was Abigail. And the woman was intelligent and beautiful in appearance, but the man was harsh and evil in his dealings, and he was a Calebite), ⁴ that David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵ So David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, "Go up to Carmel, visit Nabal and greet him in my name; ⁶ and thus you shall say, `Have a long life, peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. <sup>7</sup> `And now I have heard that you have shearers; now your shepherds have been with us and we have not insulted them, nor have they missed anything all the days they were in Carmel. ⁸ `Ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we have come on a festive day. Please give whatever you find at hand to your servants and to your son David.'"

^{1SA 25:9} When David's young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in David's name; then they waited. ¹⁰ But Nabal answered David's servants, and said, "Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are each breaking away from his master. ¹¹ "Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men whose origin I do not know?" ¹² So David's young men retraced their way and went back; and they came and told him according to all these words. ¹³ And David said to his men, "Each of you gird on his sword." So each man girded on his sword. And David also girded on his sword, and about four hundred men went up behind David while two hundred stayed with the baggage.

We live in a society that loudly proclaims ‘don’t get mad, get even’. David had protected the shepherds of Nabal, while they were out on the hills and now he sought some return for his care. Instead Nabal was uncompromisingly hard-fisted, unfair and rude. David was incensed and this time there was no need for restraint, was there? Nabel was not the Lord’s anointed.

In this story David, although the Lord’s anointed true king, behaves very much like the rest of us. He has been badly wronged, and he is determined to get even. Now we can see that it was only the anointing on Saul that saved his life in the previous incident. If Saul had not been the Lord’s anointed when he blundered into the cave, David would have killed him.

So now we can consider the issue without any extra complications. How does God view the taking of revenge? We can have high ideals and principles, but when someone hits us we have an immediate urge to hit back. There is that rampant need within us to seek for what we perceive as ‘justice’ when we suffer at the hands of another. But how should we react to those who cause our suffering?

In our story before David got very far there was a dramatic intervention.

^{1SA 25:14} But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, "Behold, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, and he scorned them. ¹⁵ "Yet the men were very good to us, and we were not insulted, nor did we miss anything as long as we went about with them, while we were in the fields. ¹⁶ "They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the time we were with them tending the sheep. ¹⁷ "Now therefore, know and consider what you should do, for evil is plotted against our master and against all his household; and he is such a worthless man that no one can speak to him."

^{1SA 25:18} Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread and two jugs of wine and five sheep already prepared and five measures of roasted grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys. ¹⁹ And she said to her young men, "Go on before me; behold, I am coming after you." But she did not tell her husband Nabal. ²⁰ And it came about as she was riding on her donkey and coming down by the hidden part of the mountain, that behold, David and his men were coming down toward her; so she met them. ²¹ Now David had said, "Surely in vain I have guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; and he has returned me evil for good. ²² "May God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, if by morning I leave as much as one male of any who belong to him."

^{1SA 25:23} When Abigail saw David, she hurried and dismounted from her donkey, and fell on her face before David, and bowed herself to the ground. ²⁴ And she fell at his feet and said, "On me alone, my lord, be the blame. And please let your maidservant speak to you, and listen to the words of your maidservant. ²⁵ "Please do not let my lord pay attention to this worthless man, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name and folly is with him; but I your maidservant did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent. ²⁶ "Now therefore, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as your soul lives, since the LORD has restrained you from shedding blood, and from avenging yourself by your own hand, now then let your enemies, and those who seek evil against my lord, be as Nabal. ²⁷ "And now let this gift which your maidservant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who accompany my lord. ²⁸ "Please forgive the transgression of your maidservant; for the LORD will certainly make for my lord an enduring house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil shall not be found in you all your days. ²⁹ "And should anyone rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, then the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with the LORD your God; but the lives of your enemies He will sling out as from the hollow of a sling. ³⁰ "And it shall come about when the LORD shall do for my lord according to all the good that He has spoken concerning you, and shall appoint you ruler over Israel, ³¹ that this will not cause grief or a troubled heart to my lord, both by having shed blood without cause and by my lord having avenged himself. When the LORD shall deal well with my lord, then remember your maidservant."

Abigail was a very remarkable woman, one with a deep appreciation of the character of God and the reality of salvation. On hearing of David’s intention she intercepted him with a gift and a plea. However this was not a plea for mercy either for herself or her husband. She was concerned that in seeking his own vengeance David would bring defilement upon himself.

Abigail confronts us, as she confronted David. Vengeance or reacting in anger is folly, and vengeance is wrong. If we insist on vengeance have we understood anything about our sin, or about why Jesus had to die at Calvary?

Vengeance as folly

Taking our own revenge may make us feel better, for the moment, but it is foolish. Yet we might ask, how can it be wrong or foolish to exact retribution for wrongs done to us? Surely it is only right to look for justice. But hold on a minute, do we really want to argue with God that we want justice, that there is no place for forgiveness. The heart seeking vengeance says – ‘this wrong cannot be propitiated, it must be atoned for, paid for by punishing the guilty party’.

If that is our attitude we need to remember that we are not without sin. In fact we are far from being sinless. Thus for us to argue before God that we reject forgiveness and to demand justice is more foolish than turkeys voting for Christmas. If there is no room for any forgiveness, then we would be doomed, because justice would demand our damnation. We need, not justice, but grace and mercy.

Seeking vengeance or nurturing anger is also a refusal to trust God. We have already discovered in these studies the message that God declared that all vengeance and retribution belong to Him, because He has undertaken to restore all loss, Himself. If we refuse to allow God to mete out vengeance for the hurts inflicted on us, it is tantamount to saying that we don’t trust God to do the job properly.

Let me ask then, if God cannot be trusted to do a little thing like bring us vengeance, how can He be trusted to do the big thing and save us from condemnation for all of the things that we have done, that scream for vengeance against us?

Why vengeance is wrong

Vengeance or hurtful anger is not only folly, it is wrong, it is sin. As we discovered in our last study, in pledging vengeance, God also pledged that He Himself would make good all loss. If therefore God is the God who has pledged to pay all recompense, then God has undertaken already to compensate us fully for anything that we have suffered. For this reason, the person who has offended us owes us nothing because God has already undertaken the debt. If we then seek to recover from our fellow man what God has pledged to restore we seek that (from our brother) that we are not owed. We become the thief, the offender.

This lesson that we receive from Abigail is not just a bit of refined theology. It is the same principle that the Lord Jesus presented in what we call the Lord’s Prayer –

^{MT 6:9} "… `Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. 10 `Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. ¹¹ `Give us this day our daily bread. <sup>12</sup> `And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. …

How can we forgive others if we seek vengeance against them? And if we seek vengeance against others, we refuse to God the right for Him to forgive them. How can we claim to know God, and to be a child of God if we have such an ungodly attitude? If we have an unforgiving heart we have it on the authority of the Son of God himself that we have not understood the serious nature of our own sin, and know nothing of the reality of repentance.

As we can now see David listened to Abigail and cancelled his plan for taking his own revenge on Nabal.

^{1SA 25:32} Then David said to Abigail, "Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me, ³³ and blessed be your discernment, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodshed, and from avenging myself by my own hand. ³⁴ "Nevertheless, as the LORD God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from harming you, unless you had come quickly to meet me, surely there would not have been left to Nabal until the morning light as much as one male." ³⁵ So David received from her hand what she had brought him, and he said to her, "Go up to your house in peace. See, I have listened to you and granted your request."

^{1SA 25:36} Then Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk; so she did not tell him anything at all until the morning light. ³⁷ But it came about in the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, that his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him so that he became as a stone. ³⁸ And about ten days later, it happened that the LORD struck Nabal, and he died.

God struck down Nabal, and David was avenged. And through this incident David acquired a wife as well. It seems that David was so impressed by the spiritual wisdom, and the beauty of this woman that on hearing that she had become a widow he immediately sent her a marriage proposal which she accepted. This is the only incident we read of Abigail in action, and almost the last mention of her, but it may be useful to observe that the true value of a Godly mother may be seen in the fact that the son that Abigail bore to David was the only one of his first four sons who is not recorded as having died violently or prematurely.

David had listened to Abigail, and just to show that he really had learned the lesson we find in the very next chapter another encounter with Saul.

David and Saul (again)

^{1SA 26:1} Then the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah, saying, "Is not David hiding on the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon?" ² So Saul arose and went down to the wilderness of Ziph, having with him three thousand chosen men of Israel, to search for David in the wilderness of Ziph. ³ And Saul camped in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon, beside the road, and David was staying in the wilderness. When he saw that Saul came after him into the wilderness, ⁴ David sent out spies, and he knew that Saul was definitely coming. ⁵ David then arose and came to the place where Saul had camped. And David saw the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Ner, the commander of his army; and Saul was lying in the circle of the camp, and the people were camped around him.

^{1SA 26:6} Then David answered and said to Ahimelech the Hittite and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother, saying, "Who will go down with me to Saul in the camp?" And Abishai said, "I will go down with you." ⁷ So David and Abishai came to the people by night, and behold, Saul lay sleeping inside the circle of the camp, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head; and Abner and the people were lying around him. ⁸ Then Abishai said to David, "Today God has delivered your enemy into your hand; now therefore, please let me strike him with the spear to the ground with one stroke, and I will not strike him the second time." ⁹ But David said to Abishai, "Do not destroy him, for who can stretch out his hand against the LORD'S anointed and be without guilt?" ¹⁰ David also said, "As the LORD lives, surely the LORD will strike him, or his day will come that he dies, or he will go down into battle and perish. ¹¹ "The LORD forbid that I should stretch out my hand against the LORD'S anointed; but now please take the spear that is at his head and the jug of water, and let us go." ¹² So David took the spear and the jug of water from beside Saul's head, and they went away, but no one saw or knew it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because a sound sleep from the LORD had fallen on them.

When David returned to his own side of the valley he shouted across and again made Saul aware of the danger that he had been in, and how David had refused to take his own vengeance. Superficially this incident seems very similar to the situation in chapter 24 when David had Saul at his mercy in the cave. There are several differences however in this story from the earlier one. This took place in the open air rather than a cave, and at night instead of in the daytime. Also David went to Saul, instead of Saul (accidentally) coming to him. The greatest difference however is in David’s attitude. In the cave David is unsure of himself, tempted to kill Saul, but only restrained by the anointing oil upon the head of Saul. Now when Abishai sought to kill Saul, David is able to reject the proposal, not just because Saul was the Lord’s anointed, but also now confident in the assurance that it was God’s role to preserve, protect and avenge David.

Living in faith means trusting God to care for us totally, including all our perceived needs or desires for vengeance. We need to learn patience, as well as faith, and to know through a habit of practice the truth of God’s message to us as it was to Paul

^{2CO 12:9} … "My grace is sufficient for you …"

If we do this we will also learn as David did, a confidence in God, so that whether we have time to take our situation to God for guidance, or whether we have to react spontaneously, we will act in harmony with the heart of God.

In this incident David learned the lesson and refused to seek his own vengeance, or to allow Saul’s treatment of him to produce anger in him, and the text shows just how God honoured and protected him. In the next study we shall discover how much we damage ourselves if we forget, or refuse to learn the wisdom of this spiritual giant, Abigail.

Crossroads 6.07.03 - DAB