David
Dear Abby
There is a certain kind of meekness — of submission — that brings out the worst in a man, whereas that same man, faced by spirit and determination might be a different creature.
—Agatha Christie
Isabella Thoburn, a nineteenth-century missionary to India wrote, "No man ever rises higher than the point to which he elevates women." There's a wealth of wisdom in those words.
Here's a story about David that illustrates well her proverb. It begins with Samuel's death. Samuel was David's last chance for reconciliation with Saul. With Samuel's death David's chances with Saul vanished, and David withdrew into the wilderness of Paran — a vast semi-arid region that stretched between Judah and the Sinai.
In that place David was relatively free from Saul's insane pursuit and could be of service to his countrymen by protecting their flocks from attacks of marauding desert
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tribes. There one day, David and his men came across the man the Bible calls The Big Fool:
A certain man in Maon, who had property there at Carmel, was very wealthy. He had a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel. His name was Nabal and his wife's name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband, a Calebite, was surly and mean in his dealings" (1 Samuel 25:2-3).
Nabal was mismatched with his wife, Abigail. She's described as a beautiful woman — beautiful of form and face — but her beauty was more than skin deep; she was "intelligent," a word that means insightful and perceptive.
Nabal, on the other hand, was a churlish, intractable man, "surly and mean in his dealings." The translated surly means "hard, cruel, severe." This must have been a very unhappy marriage.
What kind of fool am I?
Nabal's name means "fool" — an ominous designation. It's unlikely that a parent would saddle a kid with a name like that. I rather think "Nabal" was a tongue-in-cheek corruption of the man's real name, but in whatever way he got the handle, he deserved it. As Abigail herself said, in our modern slang, "Fool is his name and fool is his game" (25:25).
The Hebrew language knows five kinds of fools. In ascending order of foolishness, there is the petî, from a Hebrew root that means "to be open." The petî is naive and untutored, a "simpleton." This is the way we come into the world; this is the natural-born fool. This is the young man who watches Beavis and Butthead and thinks he knows everything there is to know about life. If he doesn't receive serious instruction, he will soon graduate into serious folly.
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Then there is the kesîl, from a root that means "to be dull, obtuse." The kesîl is a little to the dark side of the petî. He is insensitive to wisdom and disinterested in learning about it.
The third fool is the 'ewîl. The root suggests that this fool is characterized by stubbornness. He is entrenched in his resistance to truth — headstrong, willful, unteachable. "Don't confuse me with the facts," he says. "My mind is made up."
The lîtz is darker still. The root indicates that he is full of scorn. He is the "scoffer" of King James fame. This is the cynical, sneering university professor or student who sits above God's wisdom and mocks those who take it seriously.
And finally there is the nabal, a composite of all other fools, and the worst of the lot — the fool to end all fools. This is the person who follows his own rules and acts as if there is no God. "The fool [nabal] says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, and their ways are vile" (Psalm 53:1). Abigail's Nabal was the ultimate fool.
Isaiah describes the final fool this way: "The fool [nabal] speaks folly, his mind is busy with evil: He practices ungodliness and spreads error concerning the LORD; the hungry he leaves empty and from the thirsty he withholds water" (Isaiah 32:6).
Socrates divided the world into two types of people: the wise who know they are fools and the fools who think they are wise. It's wise to know what kind of fools we are.
The "dog"
One more thing. Nabal is also called a "Calebite," which could mean nothing more than that he was a descendent of Caleb, the old, Israelite warrior who settled Mt. Hebron. But caleb also means "dog."
In those days dogs were not pets. They were mean-spirited, snarling scavengers, more like jackals than the dogs we know. If the author intends us to understand the term this
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way, it's a reference to Nabal's cynical, sneering contempt of others. (Our word cynic comes from cynicus, the Latin word for dog and, meaning doglike and churlish.)
The festival
Nabal's residence was in the city of Maon, but his "business" was at Carmel, a place about half an hour northwest, where he kept his vast herds. The time mentioned in 1 Samuel was a special occasion: sheep-shearing time.
Sheep-sheering was traditionally a festive event, much like our old-time harvest festivals, when hearts were open and hospitality was extended. People gathered from far and wide to share the joy of the occasion.
It was in the spirit of such an occurrence that David sent ten of his men to Carmel with this message:
"Go up to Nabal at Carmel and greet him in my name. Say to him: 'Long life to you! Good health to you and your household! And good health to all that is yours!
"'Now I hear that it is sheep-sheering time. When your shepherds were with us, we did not ill-treat them, and the whole time they were at Carmel nothing of theirs was missing. Ask your own servants and they will tell you. Therefore be favorable toward my young men, since we come at a festive time. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can find for them'" (25:5-8).
It was only right for David to make this request. David and his men needed food and drink, and festivals were times when the impoverished were gathered in. Furthermore, David and his men had watched over Nabal's herds and herdsmen and, as Nabal's servants put it, he had not suffered the slightest loss (25:15-16). Nabal owed David this favor.
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David's men gave Nabal his message. Then they waited — and waited, and waited. (One method of intimidating others and empowering oneself is deliberately to keep others waiting!)
Finally, Nabal answered David's men,
"Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants are breaking away from their masters these days. Why should I take my bread and water, and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men coming from who knows where?"
David's men returned and reported every word (25:10-12).
David's request was denied in the most insulting, contemptuous way. Nabal knew who David was and what he stood for, but cared nothing for David and God's plan to bring salvation to the earth through his anointed servant.
When the affront was reported to David he reacted with predictable passion:
David said to his men, "Put on your swords!" So they put on their swords, and David put on his. About four hundred men went up with David while two hundred stayed with the supplies (25:13).
Testosterone took over! "Strap on you guns," David shouted to his companions. "Let's take this oaf out!" And he and his angry young men set off to chasten the old fool. But David was the fool on this occasion — his passion was brutal and cold.
Injustice takes us by surprise and arouses us to anger. We may not be driven to kill like David, but we still feel like murdering someone. Our passion, like David's becomes bitter and murderous. It's not justice that impels us, but personal pique.
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Abigail to the rescue
David was playing the fool on this occasion, but God stepped in and averted the massacre. He moved one of Nabal's men to alert Abigail:
"David sent messengers from the desert to give our master his greetings, but he hurled insults at them. Yet these men were very good to us. They did not ill-treat us, and the whole time we were out in the fields near them nothing was missing. Night and day they were a wall around us all the time we were herding our sheep near them. Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our master and his whole household. He is such a wicked man that no one can talk to him" (25:14-17).
Abigail lost no time. She immediately set out to intercept David.
She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. She told her servants, "Go on ahead; I'll follow you." But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
As she came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, there were David and his men descending toward her, and she met them (25:18-20).
The Hebrew for "mountain ravine" is literally the "covert" or "hidden place" of the mountain — some topographical feature that hid Abigail and David from one another's view until the last minute.
David was fuming — ranting and raving, muttering under his breath:
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"It's been useless — all my watching over this fellow's property in the desert so that nothing of his was missing. He has paid me back evil for good. May God deal with David, be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to him!" (25:21-22).
At that very moment, Abigail rounded the corner and found herself face to face with David. She fell on her face at the feet of the young, would-be king and uttered some of the purest words ever spoken.
"Please let your servant speak to you; hear what your servant has to say. May my lord pay no attention to that wicked Nabal. He is just like his name — his name is Fool, and folly goes with him. But as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my master sent.
"Now since the LORD has kept you, my master, from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands, as surely as the LORD lives and as you live, may your enemies and all who intend to harm my master be like Nabal. And let this gift, which your servant has brought to my master, be given to the men who follow you. Please forgive your servant's offense, for the LORD will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my master, because he fights the LORD's battles. Let no wrongdoing be found in you as long as you live. Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my master will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the LORD your God. But the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling. When the LORD has done for my master every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him leader over Israel, my master will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having
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avenged himself. And when the LORD has brought my master success, remember your servant" (25:24-31).
Abby's advice
"Unsolicited advice is criticism," someone has said. At least that's how we perceive it. But there are some things to note about Abigail's advice that helped to make the medicine go down.
She demonstrates a remarkable degree of sensitivity, asking David's tolerance, acknowledging that it will not be easy for him to hear her counsel.
She understood human resistance to advice and asked David's forbearance. (She had learned how to handle an angry man. She had lived with one for years.)
There's a certain amount of exaggerated, overstated Eastern courtesy going on here, but two traits come through — meekness and tranquility. Abigail doesn't engage in an emotional tirade. She is remarkably composed given her situation. She demonstrates what Peter calls "a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight" (1 Peter 3:4). (It should be pointed out that meekness and tranquility are not attributes enjoined on women alone. These are not feminine or masculine traits but godly traits [see Matthew 5:5; 2 Thessalonians 3:12].)
Advice and counsel should always be offered in this spirit. "A gentle answer turns away wrath," the wise man says. Paul agrees: "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently" (Galatians 6:1).
Her message
The first piece of advice Abigail gave David is to let fools be fools. Nabal was a "Son of Belial" — a godless man. Leave him alone in his insanity, she says.
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Wise words! The proverbs tell us, "Do not speak to a fool, for he will scorn the wisdom of your words" (Proverbs 23:9). "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself" (Proverbs 26:4).
Chronically arrogant people are impossible to reason with. Appeal to them once or twice, bring other witnesses to bear, but in the end, if a man or woman will not listen to wisdom, we must leave them alone. "Though you grind a fool in a mortar," says the wise man, "grinding him like grain with a pestle, you will not remove his folly from him" (Proverbs 27:22). The only way to handle people who are not teachable and not convinced of the value of humility and modesty is to leave them alone.
Social scientists working in the realm of learning theory talk about a phenomenon they call an "extinction-burst." Some people must do their insane thing, they say, until they self-destruct. There's no other way to bring them to their senses. (The story of the Prodigal may be an example of the truth of this theory.)
Jesus' disciples came to him once and remarked on the tomfoolery of the Pharisees. He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots; leave them [alone]" (Matthew 15:13-14).
I recently came across a story that seems apropos. A terrifying lion encountered a cowardly monkey on a jungle trail and pinned him to the ground. "Who's the king of the beasts!" the lion roared in his face. "Y-y-you are!" the monkey stammered. The lion let him go.
Next the lion came across an elephant. He roared out insults to the elephant and asked him the same question. With his trunk the elephant reached out, picked him up, and slammed him against a tree fifty feet away. "Well," said the lion meekly, as he dusted himself off and slunk away, "just because you don't know the answer, you don't have to get rough about it."
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The moral is clear: Leave a fool alone and let life rough him up. Maybe he'll get the lesson, maybe not. In either case it's not our job to chasten fools.
The second piece of advice Abigail gave was to let God deal with fools. "Learning is remembering," said Plato. Nothing Abigail told David was news. He was aware of these truths, had written about them, and practiced them in the forbearance he showed Saul. Abigail simply reminded David of truths his fury had caused him to forget.
The main thing was that he must trust God and not take matters into his own hands. God had been faithful to keep David from shedding blood in the past, and he would deal with David's enemies in the future. God was the one who chastened fools.
Abigail knew the word: "Do not seek revenge . . ." (Leviticus 19:18). "It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them" (Deuteronomy 32:35).
God treads the winepress of his wrath alone. Leave the avenging to God, she pleads. God will make all your enemies as Nabal — showing them to be fools, with the ruin and self-destruction that the name implies. David must not defend himself nor work for his own deliverance. He was engaged in the "LORD's battles," not his own. David must wait for God to work out his judgment in his own way and in his time.
The alternative was to rob God of his honor and rob himself of a pure conscience. Abigail knew that one day David would ascend to the throne and when he did so it was her prayer that he would know that he had not sought the throne by ungodly means — means that would leave him with profound regret.
Walter Brueggerman writes, "All [Abigail's] actions are informed by her conviction that David has a 'sure house' (vs. 28). That house is made sure by the restraint of David and the decisive work of the Lord."
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God had given David authority to bring salvation and deliverance to others (see 1 Samuel 23:4), but, as Abigail reminded him, he must not use his hand for his own salvation. This the Lord must do. Thus in the gospels Jesus saves, heals, and delivers others, but he will not use his power to save himself. This God must do.
Paul applies this principle to all believers: "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:17-21).
David's enlightenment
David, duly humbled, came to his senses:
David said to Abigail, "Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me. May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands. Otherwise, as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak."
Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought to him and said, "Go home in peace. I have heard your words and granted your request" (1 Samuel 25:32-35).
Proverbs says the earth shakes a "fool who is full of food" (Proverbs 30:22). Here's a case study:
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When Abigail went to Nabal, he was in the house holding a banquet like that of a king. He was in high spirits and very drunk. So she told him nothing until daybreak. Then in the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him all these things, and his heart failed him and he became like a stone. About ten days later, the LORD struck Nabal and he died (1 Samuel 25:36-38).
When Abigail reported what she had done Nabal was so enraged that he had a stroke and sank into a coma. Ten days later he died. "The LORD struck Nabal and he died," the text declares. Rarely does God's justice come so swiftly. His mills normally grind more slowly. But they do grind exceedingly small. "Though with patience he stands waiting; with exactness grinds he all."
When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Praise be to the LORD, who has upheld my cause against Nabal for treating me with contempt. He has kept his servant from doing wrong and has brought Nabal's wrongdoing down on his own head."
Then David sent word to Abigail, asking her to become his wife. His servants went to Carmel and said to Abigail, "David has sent us to you to take you to become his wife."
She bowed down with her face to the ground and said, "Here is your maidservant, ready to serve you and wash the feet of my master's servants." Abigail quickly got on a donkey and, attended by her five maids, went with David's messengers and became his wife (1 Samuel 25:39-42).
That's an interesting assessment on the part of David! "He has kept his servant from doing wrong . . . " David heard God's voice in Abigail's wise counsel.
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Abigail became David's wife-in-exile, though she soon after passed off the scene and it's assumed that she died shortly after David became king at Hebron. She did not enjoy the fruit of his reign, but her influence lingered on. Abigail and David had one son whom David named Chileab — "A Father's Restraint" (2 Samuel 3:3). His name comes from the verb translated "kept [his servant]" in the text cited above, surely to recall the role that Abigail played in curbing David's rash and impulsive soul and keeping him from evil. Abigail had marked her man forever.
There are two kinds of men in the world: those who listen to wise women, and those who don't. Men who treat women with disdain and fail to take them seriously simply because they are women have missed what the Bible has been saying all along: For those who love God, "there is neither male nor female" (Galatians 3:27). When it comes to wisdom, gender makes no difference at all.
David took women as he found them, unlike some men who have their uncertain male dignity to defend. "The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice" (Proverbs 12:15).
David listened to wisdom and grew strong. Unlike Nabal, and some other men I know, David was no fool.
As for us men we must learn from women as well as men, never disregarding or minimizing a contribution simply because it's offered by a woman. That's sexism, and it's sin. It's significant to me that wisdom is personified as a woman in Proverbs. Perhaps they have a special gift for it.
We must not disparage the women in our lives or denigrate their achievements. We must show them honor as joint heirs of eternal life (1 Peter 3:7). As George MacDonald says, "Woman ought to be the dearest word to every man, next to God."
