In 1 Samuel 25, David and his men have acted as a “wall” of protection (v. 16) for Nabal’s servants, guarding Nabal’s men and numerous animals from attack by roving marauders (probably raiding Philistines).
Soon after, when Nabal is having his great sheep-shearing feast, David sends men to ask him for provisions. David was not carrying out a protection racket. He was simply asking for supplies since his men have been very kind towards Nabal’s household, guarding them at great personal risk/cost.
Nabal not only refuses this perfectly legitimate request for provisions, he goes on to insult David. Nabal has clearly taken Saul’s side in his conflict with David; indeed Nabal has become a stand-in for Saul in the story. “Nabal” means “fool” – it’s almost certainly a nickname, but obviously a very fitting one.
When David hears about this refusal, he’s so angry that he is determined to kill all the males in Nabal’s household. But he actually describes the males using a vulgarity that most of our English translations (the old KJV excepted) do not translate. David says he will kill all who “piss against the wall” in Nabal’s household. This vulgarity is not just locker room talk or soldier speak. Nabal’s name not only means “fool.” He’s also a Calebite (v. 3) and the word Caleb is closely related to the Hebrew word for dog. To say Nabal pisses against the wall is to say he’s dog-like. David is going to treat him like a dog by killing him.
In terms of the story, it’s clear what all this means. David’s men have been a wall of protection and in return Nabal has pissed on them. Of course, this is a sinful overreaction on David ‘s part. While he was wronged, he should not have retaliated with a threat of murder. This is unrighteous and excessive anger. This is anger which cannot accomplish the righteous purposes of God.
Thankfully Abigail steps in and pacifies David with her beauty, wisdom, and generosity. In doing so Abigail acts as a peacemaker. Indeed, she not only saves her husband and the other men of her household from slaughter, she also saves David from bringing blood guilt upon his own hands. David is supposed to be the Christ-figure but his actions in this chapter are not very Christlike. Indeed, David himself has become like Saul in his misguided wrath. But Abigail is most certainly a church-figure, as she brings peace, declares God’s promises, and shares with the needy. There really is no hero in this story, but there is most certainly a heroine.
In verse 37 we’re told that when “the wine had gone out of Nabal,” meaning when he was sober, or perhaps even more specifically when he had urinated away the wine he had drunk the night before, Abigail lets him know what has happened. At that point, Nabal has a heart attack (or some other health crisis), goes into a coma, and dies 10 days later.
Nabal’s death opens the door for Abigail to marry David. It’s easy to see how Abigail and David complement one another: he brings the strength, she brings the beauty. She has already acted as his helper by speaking sense into him and reminding him of his true mission. She does not try to flatter David or manipulate him with tears. She simply speaks as a wise woman. Her godly femininity makes David a better man, drawing out of him a more virtuous form of masculinity than the toxic masculinity he was on the verge of acting out. Their marriage is a fitting climax to the chapter. If he is king in waiting, she is now queen in waiting.
Abigail’s first husband had been a counterfeit king in that he feasted like a king (v. 36), but he did not act very kingly. Meanwhile, Abigail is a manifestation of the virtuous wife in Proverbs 31. Nabal was a fool to not consult with her as his helper for she is indeed a model of Lady Wisdom. He’s an unworthy man married to a very worthy woman. In God‘s providence, Abigail was rewarded and she was able to trade up after his death. The death of Nabal is proof that vengeance is the Lord’s.
The question is sometimes asked, “Was Abigail an unsubmissive or disrespectful wife to Nabal”? The answer is “No.” She was seeking to save Nabal the fool from his own folly. Everything she said about her husband was accurate and necessary to her peacemaking mission. She refused to follow her husband into sin. Indeed, from her speech, it becomes clear she rightfully has a higher loyalty to the Lord‘s anointed. She recognizes David’s true identity when her husband was blind to it. Abigail sees David as the promised king, whereas Nabal saw him as nothing more than a runaway slave; obviously she has faith that he lacks. In normal circumstances, wives should most certainly submit to their husbands, but there’s nothing normal about this situation in 1 Samuel 25. Her husband was such a fool he would not listen to sound counsel from anyone, as his servant recognized in verse 17. With so much at stake, Abigail had to do what she did in order to spare her husband and the men of her household from the wrath of David and his men. Her wisdom was most certainly vindicated.
True femininity manifests grace, gentleness, kindness, and meekness. But femininity is not weak. The woman might be the weaker vessel as Peter tells us, but femininity has a strength of its own. It’s a different kind of strength than the strength given to men, but Abigail reveals that strength in the way she navigates the perilous situation in which she finds herself. Abigail is proof that a beautiful woman is not just an ornament. She’s not just supposed to be a decoration. She has agency. She has courage (going to face 400 armed and angry men was not for the faint of heart!). She is humble yet assertive. She is not aggressive but also manages to challenge David in light of his divine calling. She is politically shrewd and relationally savvy. Abigail handles the situation masterfully; she is strong and wise in a distinctively feminine way and it got results.
When a woman is married to a wise man, she will rarely find herself and the kind of situation Abigail was in. But if a godly woman is married to a fool, she might have to act in similar ways. My hunch is this was not first time Abigail had to covertly counteract the stupidity of her husband.
1 Samuel 25 is wonderfully constructed historical account with a multitude of very practical lessons. We learn about the danger of anger, of taking vengeance into one’s own hands when it should be left to the Lord. We learn about true femininity, the unique power inherent in godly women. And we learn that the wise will be peace-seekers and peacemakers.
ADDENDUM: David becomes a polygamist at the end of 1 Samuel 25, which is a problem. By the time he marries Abigail, Saul has given Michal to another man so the marriage to Abigail does not seem to be problematic in itself. But David does take a second wife shortly after he married Abigail at the end of 1 Samuel 25 – a sign that David will have trouble with women in the years to come.
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A few more notes on the chapter after having preached on it (7/13/25):
It’s true that Abigail went behind the back of her husband Nabal in 1 Samuel 25. She submitted to God precisely by refusing to submit to her husband. Nabal was a fool to reject David’s request for provisions; she was wise to minister to him. Whereas Nabal called David a runaway slave, she recognizes him as the Lord’s anointed king. She admitted to David that her husband lived up to his name – he was a fool. But she also called David back to his mission as the king-in-waiting. This is one of the best things a woman can do for a man who has lost his way. When a man is showing mission drift, she can deftly and respectfully call him back to his divine calling. For David, the mission was not annihilating Nabal to payback an insult; such a reckless action would have been counterproductive to his true work. Rather, David’s mission was furthering God’s kingdom program and readying himself for the throne and the crown when the time came. Her speech to David is an expression of uniquely feminine grace and wisdom and strength. Her femininity drew David back to his own proper masculinity. Her feminine virtue brought out the best in David’s masculinity. She restored him to masculine sanity. This is how the dance between the sexes is supposed to work: virtuous femininity in a woman draws out the man’s virtuous masculinity, and virtuous masculinity in a man draws out the woman’s virtuous femininity.
But anyone who thinks Abigail was a proto-feminist has to explain a couple things. First, consider her response to David’s murderous plot. Imagine if Hollywood was telling this story. Upon hearing of David’s murderous intention, a Hollywoodized Abigail would have strapped on her own sword and somehow defeated David and his 400 men single-handedly. Hollywood knows nothing of true femininity. The only way it knows how to make women powerful and relevant is to have women do manly things in a female body. The only women who count are the boss babes. Of course, this is a lie – not only because it is ridiculously unrealistic, but because it completely misses the fact that feminine power is of a different order than masculine power. Women are the weaker vessel, as 1 Peter says; but this does not mean women have no strength at all. It means feminine strength operates in a different dimension, on a different plane, from male strength. Feminism turns women into second rate men. Virtuous femininity turns them into first rate women. Women do not become powerful by masculinizing themselves. Nor do they become powerful by sexualizing themselves. Women become powerful by leaning into their femininity. There is power in a woman’s quiet and gentle spirit. There is power in feminine beauty and charm. There is power is feminine wisdom.
Further, anyone who wants to turn Abigail into a spokeswoman for modern feminism has to explain her response to David’s marriage proposal after Nabal’s death. When she receives the marriage proposal, she responds, “Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” She fully intends to submit to her new husband, calling herself his maidservant and calling him her lord (like Sara did Abraham). She will wash the feet of David’s servants if that’s what he requires of her. Abigail was not against wives submitting to husbands; she was against anyone being required to submit to evil. Abigail was never seeking to be the strong, independent woman feminists hold out as the ideal. Today’s progressives cannot answer the question, “What is a woman?” But Abigail knew exactly how to answer that question – and her answer is every bit as true and relevant today as it was then.
One of the best features of the Bible is that it tells the same story over and over again, but with various twists. 1 Samuel 25 replays and retells the stories of Genesis 3 and 16 but in a redemptive way. In Genesis 3, Adam was wrong to listen to his wife and eat the forbidden fruit. [Note the whole story in 1 Samuel 25 takes place in Carmel, which means “garden.”] In Genesis 16, Abraham was wrong to listen to his wife and take the forbidden fruit (Hagar). In both these stories, the man failed to resist his wife; he followed his wife’s bad counsel into sin. 1 Samuel 25 has the same pattern as these stories – a woman counsels a man and the man heeds her – but it reverses these stories. Abigail, unlike Eve and Sara, gives true help and wise counsel to the man in the story. And when David heeds her counsel, he is saved from disaster rather than creating disaster. Abigail is what Eve and Sara should have been – a true helper, a true of source of wisdom to the man.
Abigail was fully justified in doing an end run around Nabal when she made her speech to David in 25:24-31. No human authority is absolute. The biblical call to wifely submission does not require the woman to follow her husband into foolishness and evil. She did not have to stand by idly while David and his army slaughtered all the men in Nabal’s household. She was shrewd and graceful in her speech to David and her godly charm melted away David’s unrighteous anger. Confronted with the toxic masculinity of Nabal’s arrogance and David’s rage, she used her virtuous femininity to save the day. She was a helper to both men – her first husband (by saving him in spite of himself, even if he only lived a few more days) and her second husband (by persuading him to refrain from staining his hands with the blood guilt). There is no better model of true femininity in the Bible than Abigail. She is the archetype of what a woman should be. She is a living embodiment of Lady Wisdom.
There is no hero in 1 Samuel 25. But there is most certainly a heroine.
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In 1 Samuel 25, a woman correct a man she will later marry. If you want an example of the reverse, consider Knightley’s speech to Emma in Jane Austen’s Emma. I have made use of this story in another way here.
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Note that when Abigail married David, she did so at great cost. She has to leave her plush and extravagant lifestyle in Carmel to become a fugitive. Next time she appears in the narrative of 1 Samuel, she is living with David in exile in Gath (1 Sam. 27:3). Her loyalty to the Lord’s anointed came at a high price.
But this does not necessarily mean that she forefeited Nabal’s estate. Indeed, it is likely that this story illustrates the proverb, “the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous” (Prov. 13:22). By marrying Abilgail, David becomes the owner of Nabal’s estate. When David restrained himself from taking vengeance on Nabal, he was demonstrating meekness. Meekness is essentially strength under control, stregth restrained and guided by virtue. As Jesus said, the meek will inherit the earth — and in this case, that means the meek inherited a palatial ranch in Carmel.
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In chapter 24, David demonstrates internal restraint of his passions and becomes an external restraint to his men who want to kill Saul.
In chapter 25, David fails to exercise internal restraint and needs Abigail to exert an external restraint on his passions.
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How do we explain David’s polygamy at the end of the chapter? It shows us David is not fully resisting the tug of toxic masculinity. he is breaking one of the laws of kingship (cf. Deut. 17) even before he becomes king. He knew better (or should have), even if polygamy was the custom of the day for powerful men.
My guess is that David would have thought it humiliating to only have one wife. “How can you be a real man — you only have one wife!?” Of course, it is precisely this misguided version of masculinity that must be resisted.
It’s also likely that (as with other kings) multiplying wives was a way of expanding one’s network, extending political influence, and minimizing the number of rivals who might undermine his authority. “We can’t challenge the king — he’s married to one of our own — nevermind the fact that she’s only one of several wives he’s taken for himself.”
Polygamy violates the creation norm for marriage established in Genesis 1-2 and appealed to by Jesus in Mark 10. The creation account established the permanence of marriage (a lifelong bond) and the form of marriage (the two, male and female, become one). In Mark, Jesus doubles up on the numerical structure of marriage: “The two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.” The repetition leaves no doubt. It is impossible to be faithful to Scripture and claim “the three – or four, or five – can become one flesh.” Further, marriage is designed to symbolize the gospel and Jesus is not a polygamist. He has one people, one bride. There are no examples in the Bible of polygamy working out well. It always creates family strife (as David’s own experience will show). The NT forbids electing church officers who are polygamists (1 Timothy 3). Finally, polygamy almost always creates a basic injustice – for every man who takes more than one wife, not only will those wives have to share a man, but there will be a man who is left with no wife at all. Polygamy was always a sin, even if tolerated under the old covenant (for reasons I won’t go into here). The church has been virtually unanimous for 2000 years in condemning polygamy and Christendom was right to outlaw it.
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Sometimes violence IS the answer. But 1 Samuel 25 was not one of those times. It was a time for peacekeeping.
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