Samuel dies (1 Sam. 25:1), and his death is like a prelude to the last period of Saul’s history. The faithful servant who had judged Israel during difficult times and who had performed the functions of the priesthood on her behalf in the midst of the collapse that had followed the ruin of the priesthood, the man whom God had chosen to anoint the king according to the flesh and then the king according to grace, the prophet before all—the first of the prophets—was no more. In the midst of these dark times the grace of God maintained communication with the people through the prophetic word. In all the important acts of his life Saul had met the prophet who came so that he might know God’s thoughts, orders, counsels, and judgments. No doubt he had not listened to them, but he had been able to hear them. It is an immense privilege as well as an immense responsibility to have the divine word within reach, and Saul had enjoyed this privilege. Samuel himself during his lifetime had transmitted the Word to prophets raised up of God in order to teach others. Now these prophets themselves were no longer answering (1 Sam. 28:6, 15). This whole dispensation had come to an end for Saul and for his people. The priesthood, destroyed by him, had sought refuge with the true king. Gad the prophet accompanied David in the wilderness and in the caves. Israel and her king were left like a disabled ship without pilot and without compass, driven toward the abyss in the darkness, while a new dawn was about to rise for the faithful.
Is it surprising that Israel gathered together and mourned over Samuel? He who had interceded for them and even for their king ardently without respite was no longer. What was left for them? What terrible judgment when God withdraws His grace, resolutely despised! No other resource remained for Saul but to return to those things he had vomited forth (1 Sam. 28:7). Do we not find in him a picture of apostate Christendom returning to idolatry when God withdraws His Spirit of truth and leaves it as a prey to the lying spirit?
But before we get occupied with Saul’s last days God unfolds a new scene in our chapter. Nabal, a violent man who knows no restraint, despises and insults the Lord’s anointed. This is one of the characteristics of the man of sin in the end times.
Nabal, we are told (1 Sam. 25:3), “was a Calebite.” As a family trait these two men shared energy of nature, but this energy in the service of the flesh produces a Nabal, whereas in the service of faith it produces a Caleb, for one may yield one’s members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness or to God as instruments of righteousness (Rom. 6:13).
The only effect of grace on such a man is to excite him to evil and rebellion. A Saul may sometimes allow himself to become softened (1 Sam. 24:17); a Nabal: never.
David and his companions continue dwelling in the wilderness of Judah, waiting on God for the hour and the signal for their deliverance, but there David has occasion to prove himself the protector of the weak, exposed to a thousand dangers during the night watches. “Neither was there aught missed by them” as long as they were with him (1 Sam. 25:7).
David’s activity in grace is not limited to this. If like the Lord when here on earth he is depending upon man for some refreshment, he to whom by rights everything belongs brings to the sinner, to Nabal, in exchange for this, peace through his messengers. “Peace be to thee, and peace be to thy house, and peace be to all that thou hast!” (1 Sam. 25:6). Does Nabal want this peace after the so evident protection of his men and his flocks? For such grace and courtesy did not David have the right to ask for some proof of thankfulness? What does Nabal answer? “Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there are many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master. And shall I take my bread, and my water, and my flesh which I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men whom 1 know not whence they are?” (1 Sam. 25:10-11). This same expression later came forth from the mouth of the chief men in the presence of the Lord’s work. “As to this man, we know not whence he is” (John 9:29). This is how man treated the rejected Jesus; he despises His sovereign grace without apprehending His power in judgment and without thinking that this judgment is at the door. Nabal speaks of his bread, of his water, of his meat, and of his goods as though they belonged to him, and this at the very moment when calamity is about to strike him personally along with all that belongs to him. When he should have been falling down on his knees before the one who voluntarily had become his servant, he rather disdainfully calls him a “servant who has broken away from his master”! Without a scruple and without thinking that it signified rejecting David personally, he rejects his messengers. “He that rejects you rejects Me; and he that rejects Me rejects Him that sent Me” (Luke 10:16). Their master had sent them to bless, and Nabal insults them (1 Sam. 25:14).
David is in danger of giving free vent to his indignation and of “avenging [himself] with [his] own hand” (1 Sam. 25:26, 34). This is where, it seems to me, the experience of Psa. 35 is found: “They reward me evil for good” (Psa. 35:12; cf. 1 Sam. 25:21). “They speak not peace” (Psa. 35:20; cf. 1 Sam. 25:6). “I behaved myself as though he had been a friend, a brother to me” (Psa. 35:14). “Them that are wrongfully mine enemies” (Psa. 35:19; cf. 1 Sam. 25:26). But David had learned the lesson God wanted to teach him. Instead of defending his rights himself he commits his cause to the Lord: “Stir up Thyself, and awake for my right, for my cause, my God and Lord” (Psa. 35:23). “Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine adversity” (Psa. 35:26), and he commits judgment to Him: “Let destruction come upon him unawares!” (Psa. 35:8).
Before having received this teaching from the mouth of godly Abigail, David had girded on his sword and had ordered his companions to do the same. He was getting ahead of the moment for vengeance; the hour of judgment had not yet struck; it would come through the means of One greater than David. Of Him it is said: “Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O Mighty One, in Thy majesty and Thy splendor” (Psa. 45:3); but as long as David was a stranger in his inheritance it was still the time of grace.
Abigail’s faith understood this. This weak woman, knowing what was appropriate to grace, becomes God’s instrument to keep the greatest of His servants, the very anointed of the Lord himself, from evil. Only one Man—Grace in person, the grace of God which has appeared to all men—being infallible, never needed to be reminded of the feelings that befit the position that He had taken here on earth.
We can all learn in Abigail’s school. One rarely finds a more disinterested affection based on the perfections her faith was discerning in David.
When she learns that “evil is determined” against Nabal and against all his household she hastens to prepare everything that her husband had refused to David, and much more besides, without stinting, and she quickly goes to meet him. Oh! that souls who have heard that evil is decided against them might do the same. There is no time to lose: haste is essential; the avenger is already on His way. When the announcement of judgment is received as a divine testimony one hastens to escape it. This is faith. There is no other resource but to go to meet Him who is going to judge. Abigail had but one fear: that she might not meet David before his sword was drawn. She knew that then it would be too late. But she had no fear about the result of their meeting, for she knew the character of the one whom she would address.
“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, and fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let the iniquity be!” (1 Sam. 25:23-24). Here again Abigail makes haste; she hastens to acknowledge David’s lordship, his rights over her, and her own unworthiness. She supplicates him and thus recognizes that she is dependent on his good pleasure. Much more, in taking this attitude she, the woman of faith, recognizes herself as being guilty, taking on herself all the consequences of her association with Nabal. She does not come to plead her innocence, although she had had no knowledge of what had happened (1 Sam. 25:25). In David’s presence she has no other wish but to find herself guilty, and she hastens to confess it for she knows David’s grace.
She makes haste yet one more time toward the end of the chapter (1 Sam. 25:42). This is when she is called by David to become his companion in suffering (cf. 1 Sam. 27:3) and later to share his reign. “And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her as his wife... And hasted, and arose... and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife” (vss. 39-42). No delay; she hastens to meet the one who loves her, to meet the king of grace; she does not postpone her departure for better times when David’s throne would be made firm. She leaves everything without thinking for an instant of what she was leaving behind. And she even declares herself unworthy of such an honor; for hers is the most humble place. Such a destiny cannot on the other hand fill her with pride, for she understands that if the king’s favor is calling her to share his sufferings so as to then raise her to the highest place, the service of the king must humble her to take the lowest place. “Behold, let thy handmaid be a bondwoman to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” What humility in this wife of the king! Only fellowship with grace, with Jesus, will enable us to abase ourselves in the dust like this, but just as Abigail abases herself, so the king increases in dignity and in majesty, and this is what his wife’s heart desires.
Let us not forget, dear Christian readers, that one of faith’s characteristics is to hasten. Abraham made haste when it was a matter of the Lord’s service (Gen. 18:6-8); Zacchaeus did so when the Savior invited him to receive Him into his house (Lk. 19:6); Mary did so when the Lord called her to come to Him (Jn. 11:29). If it is a matter of Him and of His Person, can we ever hasten enough? But on the other hand, should we not keep ourselves from the haste that so often characterizes the flesh and the old man? “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood” (Provs. 1:16; 6:18), “to strive” (Provs. 25:8), “to be rich” (Provs. 28:20,22). When it is a matter concerning ourselves, let us not do as the world, spoken of here, for it says elsewhere: “He that trusteth shall not make haste” (Isa. 28:16; Rom. 9:33).
She is admirable, this Abigail, for her appreciation of David. We find everything in her from her sense of her lord’s dignity that impels her to bow down before him to the rapture that his beauty of character brings about. “My lord fights the battles of Jehovah, and evil has not been found in thee all thy days” (vs. 28). How could her heart fail to be attracted by the sight of perfection in a man? Yet still, David, a type of Christ, is in himself only an imperfect man. Christ would never have been in danger of procuring justice for Himself. Only the grace of God preserves David when he had already resolved to leave none of his enemies alive. Abigail is the instrument used by God to cause him to retract his decision and to prevent him from losing the character of grace befitting to the Lord’s anointed.
Everything Abigail says is the fruit of her communion with God’s thoughts. It is not prophecy, but she knows what will happen to David because she knows what God thinks of him. “The soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with Jehovah thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall He sling out from the hollow of the sling” (vs. 29), and “Jehovah... shall appoint thee ruler over Israel” (vs. 30). Saul, the king of Israel, is in Abigail’s estimation only “a man... risen up to pursue [David] and to seek [his] life.” In his antagonism against the son of Jesse he does not even merit the mention of his name.
It is easy to see that Abigail’s words are not inspired by fear of what might happen to her household, but she is indignant at the evil that one has dared to wish on such a man; she desires that his character be preserved from dishonor; without reserve she admires the future king of Israel.
And so David blesses her. He will indeed remember her according to her request. Her “Remember thy handmaid” finds an ear just as attentive as does much later the “Remember me” of the converted thief. David sends her back to her house with the peace which Nabal had not desired and with the assurance of his favor (vss. 6, 35). There she will patiently wait for the message of the beloved one calling her to himself.
But during this time judgment overtakes Nabal. “He held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king.” Such is man! Nabal substitutes himself for David and only thinks of treating himself well. He becomes drunk and is in no condition to know anything of what awaits him. His doom is fixed. When he does learn of it “his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.” He is already dead before being actually stricken dead ten days later.
Men’s fate hinges on this alternative: whether they despise Christ today during His rejection, or whether they esteem Him as God esteems Him and appeal to His grace which alone can “accept their person.”
Happy David! He has found a wife according to his heart, a wife whom he blesses and whose wisdom he blesses (1 Sam. 25:33), a true helpmeet in the difficulties of his career. He blesses her for hindering him from doing evil which would have dishonored his God. Saul had blessed the Ziphites who had offered themselves to carry out his evil plans against David, and in the name of the Lord had hailed as deliverers those who would have helped him to make war against His anointed!