1 Samuel 25
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning, my name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab a Bible and go to First Samuel, chapter 25. We are working our way through the book of First Samuel. We left off last week where David had the opportunity to murder Saul. Saul's been chasing David, trying to kill him. David finally has Saul right in his grasp in a cave and he does not kill him. He comes, cuts off a piece of his cloak, follows him out of the cave and says, see this? Do you notice that it used to belong to your cloak? Check out your cloak. I could have killed you and I didn't because I don't want to.
Saul and David have this moment where Saul says, I'm wrong, I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing. There's a little bit of a peace. Then it says they head separate ways. We're picking up in chapter 25, and we're going to see this interaction with David and some other people, and we're going to see David actively pursuing sin and how God meets him in that, what happens, how David responds, and how these other people respond. Hopefully, we will learn along with David to appreciate correction.
The verse says this:
> Now Samuel died, and all Israel assembled and mourned for him and buried him in his house at Ramah.
Samuel has passed and his work as the last judge is over. He's the last judge of Israel. He has transitioned under the leadership of God and under the desire of the people to a monarch ruling the land. It hasn't gone well. We've seen how all that's worked out. The last we saw him, David had run to him to try to hide while Saul was chasing him. He is now passed, and it says all Israel gathered to mourn. I think it is likely that that included David and Saul, but if it excluded one of them, it was probably David. The way the text is written seems as if David was there.
It also says that Samuel was buried in his house at Ramah, which makes me think people didn't keep living in that house. I don't know; maybe it became a site for the people of Israel, but the text doesn't give us much information about that.
Continuing in verse 1, it says:
> Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. And there was a man whose business was in Carmel.
The man was very rich. He had 3,000 sheep and a thousand goats. Take a moment and try to picture that. That's a lot of sheep and goats, a lot of people that have to tend to them. The man was shearing his sheep in Carmel. Now, you may have a picture of what shearing sheep is like. You understand that it's removing the excess wool from a sheep. But culturally, when we just say he's shearing his sheep, I don't think we completely capture the festivity.
This was festive. In order to shear 3,000 sheep, you need a lot of shearers. They gather, it's like a harvest. You've kept these sheep alive all winter; it's now about to get hot, and it's spring. They gather. It's celebratory. A bunch of people together. The wool means wealth—he can use it, he can sell it. People gather, eat, celebrate, shear sheep, and then eventually they have to spread back out because you can't have that many sheep in one place at one time.
So they've been all over the place, gather, shear the sheep, have a festival for however long this takes, a bunch of people together, then spread back out. That's what's happening. Culturally, when they heard "sheep shearing," it's like us hearing it's Christmas time. It's festive in their mind with all it entails.
He's shearing his sheep. Verse 3:
> Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail.
There's another cultural thing missed on us here: the word Nabal means fool or boorish; his name is "fool." If you spoke Hebrew, you'd catch that. Names mean things in their culture. Either it was a rough time in the life of his parents when he was born and they took it out on him, or he was born and his mom said, "You look a lot like your father; we're gonna name you Fool." Some family dynamics we don't want to get into. Or he has earned this name over time and just rolled with it.
It'd be like if you introduced him as "my buddy Blockhead," and he'd say, "Sup?" You'd have guesses on what this dude's like. That's what's happening here: his name's Fool.
Then it tells us where we are. The woman, Abigail, was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved. So he's earned it; he's lived up to it. At least he was a Calebite, meaning he comes from a prominent family inside the tribe of Judah. David is also in the tribe of Judah, so they would have considered each other kin, more especially kin than just being of the people of Israel.
David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. So David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men:
> Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. And thus you shall greet him:
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> Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.
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> I hear that you have shearers.
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> Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel.
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> Ask your young men, and they will tell you.
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> Therefore, let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day.
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> Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.
David sends a ten-man delegation to say, "We hear you have shearers, which means it's a feast day. We've been with your shearers and shepherds. We've actually been part of the reason all your sheep are alive. If there's anything you could give us, that'd be great."
This can sound a little extortionary to us: "I helped you out, you owe me." Maybe a little of that is there, but they're of the same tribe. This is a normal thing to be hospitable and to expect hospitality. So what David has helped him, he's saying, "I'm part of the reason why this has gone so well for you this year, and we'd like to participate in this feast."
The next layer is that we're of the same tribe. They belong to each other. Another layer is you should just say yes to this anyway, no matter who shows up and asks because that's what the people of Israel are supposed to be like: hospitable and welcoming.
Well above our cultural pressures to be hospitable and welcoming, this is a normal cultural thing that you would say yes to.
It's a little bit like if someone says, "Hey, is there anything you could do? It would be really helpful. You know it is Christmas." Saying "It's Christmas" adds this "You should" kind of thing to it. But they should say yes all the time. At sheep shearing time, it's more festive and more hospitable; there are all kinds of layers to why Nabal should say yes to this. It's expected, it's good, it's what he ought to do.
Remember his name, right? Let's see how he acts.
Verse 9:
> When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David. And then they waited.
And Nabal answered:
> David's servants, who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to the men who come from nowhere, whom I do not know?
That would be rude to us. It is wildly, excessively rude to them. You ever watch a Western? You know how there's a moment where one calls the other a liar, and everything gets tense? They stand up because you've called me a liar. Obviously, I have to shoot you now. That's the kind of thing happening.
Or in the play Hamilton, they've seen multiple duels in writing letters back and forth. You can tell these are fighting words, working toward a duel. Culturally, we don't have that anymore. We don't do duels anymore; that's probably good for us.
Every once in a while you meet someone and think, "I wish someone had hit them upside the head," but in general, culturally it's good that we turn the other cheek, that we're calmer, that we don't overreact or defend our honor in that way.
But what Nabal has done is aggressively, intentionally disregarded, dishonored, picked a fight with David in pride. He said, "Who is David? Who's the son of Jesse? You come from no one; you are worth nothing." He says there are many people who have broken away from their masters and are roaming around the woods these days. You want me to feed all of them? Like, no.
This is very aggressive.
They go back to David. Let's see how David responds.
Verse 12:
> So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this.
David said to his men:
> Every man, strap on his sword.
Every man strapped on his sword; David also strapped on his sword. About 400 men went up after David, while 200 remained with the baggage.
He leaves 200 and takes 400, saying, "Put your swords on. Let's go talk to Nabal ourselves."
Verse 14:
> But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, "Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. Yet the men were very good to us. We suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields. As long as we went with them, they were a wall to us both by night and by day. All the while we were with them, keeping the sheep."
Now, therefore, know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house. He is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.
There’s a handful of things going on here. Somebody watches this interaction and says, somebody go tell Abigail, somebody get Ma—she'll handle this. That's the assumption.
You can actually see the kind of respect and the position that she held in this household by the way they're responding. I don't know if your life has been like mine, but I've been wildly blessed by ladies like this who can handle things, who will sort stuff out, who, when something's going poorly, you say, "Yeah, go get them. Explain this to them. They'll step in, make this better, know what to do." That's the situation she's in: somebody goes to say, "Hey, real quick, Nabal was Nabling, and I need to talk to you about what just happened."
They explain it to her.
I also want to point out that they say, "You know what he's like. You can't talk to him. He is such a worthless man. No one can speak to him." I just want to tell you that you don't want that to ever be true for you. You don’t want people to say, "Well, you know what it’s like to talk to them? They don’t listen. They’re hard to talk to."
You want to actively fight that in yourself. When someone says, "Hey, I need to talk to you about something," you want to go, "Okay, this is my chance. Lord, help me. Don't get defensive. Help me listen," because that's a bad spot to be in.
They say he was very rude to them, and they've been great. David was great to us. It was great to be with David. We didn't worry about anything. As long as we were with them, there was nothing to worry about. They helped us; they protected us; they defended us.
Not only should he probably not respond that way to anybody, but he certainly should be good to these guys because they’ve been very good to us. That's the situation they're saying to him.
Verse 18:
> Then Abigail made haste and took 200 loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared, and five seahs of parched grain, and a hundred clusters of raisins and 200 cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys.
That's a lot of food just ready to go.
She starts piling this on donkeys: 200 loaves, five sheep already prepared, 200 cakes of figs. He’s very rich.
We’ll find out later it’s not like she went and cleaned out buffets. They don’t even notice this stuff is gone. Not only should he have said yes, he actually had the ability to say yes and not even notice it. So he’s got all this ready to go at the moment. It's unnoticed.
She puts it on donkeys.
Verse 19:
> She said to her young men, "Go on before me; behold, I come after you."
But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
As she rode on the donkey and came down under the cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her. She met them.
David had said:
> Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him. And he has returned me evil for good.
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> God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.
David’s plan as he’s traveling is, when we get there, we’re going to kill every man. David says to himself that it was a huge waste of time that he defended his sheep.
If you lived in a modest home backed up to somebody's massive acreage and could see all the wealth they had, and at some point their fence broke and their little yappy dog got out, you helped catch the dog and fixed the fence. Then later, you go around and say, "Hey, you wouldn't happen to have any eggs?" and they say, "I can't be giving handouts to people who can’t afford eggs." What does that look like? Charity? "Get off my lawn before I call the police."
You might go back to your house and think, "I'm going to break their fence and steal their dog." Originally, you weren't doing it because you knew one day you were going to need something, but there might be something in you that goes, "That was a waste of time. This guy's such a jerk. He doesn't deserve any good thing I’ve ever done for him."
You might just be losing it in your backyard.
That’s a little bit of what’s happening with David here. He's responded violently and is saying to himself, everything that I did that was good was a waste of time. He’s decided he’s going to kill everybody.
He gives an interesting curse—we’ve seen several curses in First Samuel. This is one of the better ones because of how he words it. Most curses we’ve seen have followed a pattern: "May the Lord do so and more also to me if I don’t blank to them." But David says:
> May the Lord do so and more also to my enemies if I don't kill all of them.
A double outward-facing curse. It seems like a better way to word it. If I don’t kill them, may the Lord kill them. He just puts it out that way; he doesn’t bind himself in a curse.
His plan is to go kill everybody.
I want you to hear this clearly: David is wrong. Don’t read your Bible and think this is one of the good guys. Not everything he does is good. The Lord is good, and what he does is good. You can see what he’s doing and say that’s good (Jesus is good). The Bible isn’t about good people and bad people; it’s about bad people and Jesus.
You see Jesus at work; you can say, "This must be good," but you can’t do that with anybody else.
What David is about to do is wrong; he’s going to defend his pride through massacre. Nobody talks to David like that; that’s where he’s at.
But who just met him? Abigail.
David’s coming with 400 men, all with swords strapped on. They don’t look pleasant; they’re on their way to harm people. She comes to talk to them.
What she’s about to do is insanely courageous.
You know how you have things you’re afraid of? Meeting new people, large crowds, public speaking, facing down an army, possibly being murdered, conflict. She’s about to do all those, and handle them extremely well.
When you look at Proverbs 31, which talks about what a woman should look like—a wife should look like—Abigail is Proverbs 31 on display: using intelligence, ability, wisdom for the good of those around her.
She could have avoided this situation. She knew something bad was coming. She could have left; it would have affected her household. But she was involved.
She jumps right in the middle for Nabal’s sake and for David’s sake. She sees two foolish men. She actually knew that something bad was going to happen.
As soon as she heard the situation, she said David's on the move. She was right. She said, "I don’t think you can talk stuff to David like that without there being a lot of bad things that happen next."
She’s right.
She’s going to intercept David and Nabal, jump in the middle of them and this brokenness where pride, arrogance, anger are about to slam into each other.
Suddenly there’s Abigail on a donkey, about to give the largest speech of any woman in the Old Testament. She’s going to share wisdom, clarity, humility, faith.
This is what she says.
Verse 23:
> When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground.
She begins with a very humble posture. She shows up, bows to the ground. It does not tell us if she gets up. It's possible she continues speaking from that posture or maybe stands.
Verse 24:
> She fell at his feet and said,
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> On me alone, my lord, be the guilt.
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> Please let your servant speak in your ears and hear the words of your servant.
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> Let not, my lord, regard this worthless fellow Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him.
Quick pause: I don’t believe this gives wives license to speak however they want about their husbands, even their foolish husbands. Which I know is a follow-up question.
Put your hand down.
But if you are negotiating good for his entire household and trying to save his life, I think the rules get looser than when you’re at book club with your friends. She doesn’t speak in a very honoring way of her husband. He has actively done dumb things. She is trying for the sake of their household to bring good.
She’s trying to bring blessing to him, even though he’s acted like that.
But this isn’t how I think you’re allowed to talk about them all the time.
Even if she did, you still shouldn’t.
She starts off by saying we don’t want Nabal representing her house. This is on me.
Don’t let him lead you into this. That’s what she’s saying.
She continues:
> But I, your servant, did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent. Please forgive me. This is on me. If I had seen him, we wouldn’t have this problem.
Verse 26:
> Now then, my lord, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, because the Lord has restrained you from blood guilt and from saving with your own hand, now then, let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal.
She says it’s so good the Lord restrained him from blood guilt. She assumes graciously and boldly that he’s going to stop. The Lord has intercepted him to keep him from doing something foolish.
She doesn’t say "foolish," but it’s baked in.
The fool was about to create folly, and she’s thankful the Lord helped stop it.
Then:
> May the Lord make all of your enemies like Nabal—not dead, but foolish. Let them act foolish, but don’t let you act foolish.
Verse 27:
> And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. Please forgive the trespass of your servant, for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the Lord, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live.
> If men rise up to pursue you and seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God, and the lives of your enemies shall he sling out as from the hollow of a sling.
She’s wise in words, uses sling metaphors for David. He gets it immediately.
She brings blessing. She shows up in the middle of sin, takes guilt, and brings blessing.
She brings physical blessing and then verbally blesses him. She says, “Take this gift,” and then she blesses David, his house, family, future.
Verse 30:
> When the Lord has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince over Israel...
It seems known that David has been anointed and that he's going to be king; that has spread at least to the people in Judah.
Verse 31:
> My lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause, or for my lord working salvation for himself.
> When the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.
She says when she shows up, "I’m glad the Lord let me intercept you to keep you from blood guilt." She ends with, when he makes you king, you won’t feel bad about this. You won’t have pangs of conscience that you tried to save yourself or shed blood without cause.
It’s wise, clear, corrective, humble.
Verse 32:
> David said to Abigail,
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> "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me.
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> Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you who have kept me this day from blood guilt and from working salvation with my own hand.
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> For as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left in Nabal so much as one male."
David erupts in worship:
Oh, thank the Lord! Blessed be the Lord! Blessed be your discretion! Blessed be you that you came because I was about to do something so foolish!
Y'all, may we respond like David when we’re corrected. May we love the people who correct us.
Culturally, we celebrate, "I want my friends to match my energy." Like, if I’m amped up, I want you to get amped up with me.
I saw a clip from a movie: a guy comes in, looks at his friend, says, "Hey, you can’t ask me questions; I need you to come with me. We’re going to hurt some people. We can never talk about this again." His friend looks at him and says, "Are you driving, or am I driving?"
Culturally, we say, "Yay! Best friends! Secret murders!"
That’s what we want. We want friends who ride or die. We want you to hop in the car if I say, "Let’s go."
Reality is, no. You need some calm, patient, wet blanket friends. Some people who say, "Why aren’t you mad?"
You need people who have wisdom, discretion, who slow you down, love you enough to risk a relationship by correcting you.
I’m not talking about argumentative, contrary people. I’m talking about people who love you enough to say, "Hey, we need to talk because what you’re doing is unwise, unhelpful, foolish, sinful."
We want to learn to be people who say, "Praise Jesus that you listened to the Spirit when I didn’t! Thank you, Lord, that you sent them to be around me."
You’re doing things over your life that are unwise. You’re doing things that aren’t good. You’re sinning.
The last time you were corrected is maybe the last time someone showed you genuine love.
If you go long seasons without correction, you need to begin to work on how you respond to correction and the type of people you surround yourself with.
May we be people like Abigail who love people enough to say something. She jumped in the middle, could have left, but she was involved.
Verse 35:
> Then David received from her hand what she had brought him.
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> He said to her, "Go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice and granted your petition."
Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house like the feast of a king.
Nabal’s heart was merry within him; he was very drunk.
She told him nothing at all until morning.
Verse 37:
> In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things.
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> His heart died within him, and he became as a stone.
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> About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.
She went and explained: you said this, I did this, I met David with 400 men coming to kill everybody, the gift I gave him.
He locks up; something happens to his heart, his body. He dies ten days later.
Verse 39:
> When David heard that Nabal was dead,
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> He said, "Blessed be the Lord, who has avenged the insult I received at the hand of Nabal and kept back his servant from wrongdoing.
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> The Lord has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head."
This principle runs throughout Scripture: we aren't meant to get vengeance ourselves. We're to trust the Lord that He will respond, will care for us, and this is not to be taken into our hands.
We are to say, "Lord, I will bear insult, trusting you’ll bring about good."
That’s how David responds when he hears that: "Thank you, Lord, for letting his wickedness fall back on him and not on me."
"For me not getting involved, me not doing wrongdoing, You kept me back from him."
Verse 40:
> Then David sent and spoke to Abigail to take her as his wife.
When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her:
> David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.
She rose and bowed with her face to the ground, saying:
> "Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord."
Abigail hurried, rose, mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her.
She followed the messengers of David and became his wife.
First of all, she has little notes: she has the largest lady entourage of anybody in Scripture.
She’s wealthy and well attended to. She humbly accepts this. She even responds, "I’ll just be a servant." I think she knows she’s going to get married, but she humbly says, "I’ll be a servant." She’s gracious.
The story begins with David sending men to say, "Hey, Nabal, can we have some food from your feast?"
It ends with him going and getting Nabal’s wife.
It’s a wild story.
One thing is when David’s corrected by Abigail, he loves her for it; he responds.
I want to read the last of this chapter before considering a few things:
Verse 42:
> So she became his wife.
David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives.
Saul had given Michal, his daughter, David’s wife, to Palti, son of Laish, who was of Gallim.
Personally, I wish that note was somewhere else, because it feels like you see this interesting little love story play out, and at the end they’re getting married, but then there’s another lady also, and you’re like, "Wait, what?"
Historically, men in power had multiple wives.
We see David wrongfully, angrily respond to a thing. We see him begin to take multiple wives.
He’s not handling everything well.
One of the things for kings is they wouldn’t have too many wives. He’s not even a king yet; he’s just roaming the woods.
He already has two and a half because we’re not exactly sure what’s going on with Michal. She’s married to someone else but also married to him.
We’ll see how that plays out.
That’s the situation.
Looking back, consider something beautiful in this text.
Abigail rides in to intercept in the middle before things go wildly wrong.
David loves her for it.
He walks under the shadow of the mountain, ready to murder.
He leaves praising the Lord.
His heart is softened at her correction.
Nabal is hardened at her correction. He turns to stone, and it kills him.
We have softening and love, and death born out of the same action.
This reality is how Jesus comes to us.
He intercepts us in our sin.
He comes to correct us, call us away from sin, stepping into situations He didn’t have to but does because He loves us and wants to rescue and bring blessing.
He steps in to take guilt on Himself, saying, "Let the guilt fall on me."
All who hear this message will either, like David, soften and love Him or will harden and say, "Who does He think He is? Why do I have to worship Him? Why do I have to follow Him? What does He mean He died for my sin? What is sin? He made the rules. Why would I have to?"
You will twist on it.
There’s a way to respond that brings life, blessing, joy, hope.
There’s a way that hardens you up.
If you belong to Jesus, your heart ought to be very soft to Him and His correction.
You ought to see with joy the love He shows when He corrects.
You ought to be soft in correction to those around you who say, "I think you're wrong about this."
You ought to say, "Thank you for loving me."
Try to listen as best you can, understand what they're saying, sort it out, be patient.
Praise the Lord for people who will correct you.
None of us want to harden ourselves against Jesus or His people so we might work closer to death, locking ourselves into stone so we can’t hear His voice or listen.
Let’s pray.
God, may You in Your grace let us be soft and receptive.
May we be receptive to Your Spirit when You call us to repentance.
May we be receptive to the people in our church family and those around us who know us and love us and love You who correct us.
May it be a delight to our soul as David was blessed and continued to bless Your name for turning him away from wrongdoing.
Lord, may we love the people in our church and those close to us enough to correct them.
I pray in Jesus’ name and by Your Spirit’s work, for those who have hardened themselves against Your calls to repentance, may You not let them do it.
May You not let them harden their heart or turn to stone so they cannot hear Your voice or listen to Your people.
May You intercept them by Your grace even now.
May they hear and repent.
We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As a church, we are going to take communion together.
I’d like to read from Luke chapter 22.
This is Jesus on the night He was betrayed, at the last supper with His disciples.
Luke 22:19 says:
> And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying,
>
> "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
When we take communion together, we take a loaf and remember that Jesus' body was broken for us.
Our hope is not that we would suffer and die for ourselves, atone for our sin, but that He has.
We share in one loaf, and when we do this together, we remind ourselves and each other that our one hope is Jesus and Jesus alone.
And then likewise the cup:
> "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood."
This hope is made sure because it is covenanted with us through the blood of Christ, sealed through His work.
If you have trusted Christ, we take communion as a remembrance of this moment and the covenant made with us.
We take it in hope of the day coming when all things are restored and made new, forgiven fully and made free.
If you have not placed your faith in Jesus, this is not for you.
We say Christ is for you. His offer of salvation is for you. Repentance is for you.
But we ask you not to take communion until you understand fully what you’re celebrating.
For those who’ve placed faith in Jesus, take a moment, listen to the Spirit.
If there’s somewhere you need to repent, if there’s someone you need to talk to, do that, then come joyfully.
Remind your soul your sin has been paid for, and your hope is held sure because of Christ’s work.
If you have a gluten allergy, we have gluten-free back there.