Abigail

  Abigail wasted no time. She quickly gathered 200 loaves of bread, two wineskins full of wine, five sheep that had been slaughtered, nearly a bushel of roasted grain, 100 clusters of raisins, and 200 fig cakes. She packed them on donkeys and said to her servants, “Go on ahead. I will follow you shortly.” But she didn’t tell her husband Nabal what she was doing. As she was riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, she saw David and his men coming toward her.     1 Samuel 25.18-20

Abigail must have known she wouldn’t have an easy time of it when she married Nabal. The man’s name means “Fool,” and he was one. He was also rich and powerful and mean, with a surly disposition and a taste for raucous feasting and insulting other men. Nabal wasn’t inclined to be generous or to give an inch of ground; when confronted, he was so ill-natured that no one could reason with him. Abigail, on the other hand, was the opposite of her husband. She was as clever and beautiful as he was stupid and loathsome. She knew how to work around him and, when necessary, clean up after him, skills she’d had plenty of chance to practice, as the wife of such a person. 

It would be nice to report that Abigail’s dreary life began to change the day her ogre of a husband was magically transformed into kindly Shrek with a heart of gold, but that’s not quite how it went. Abigail’s life began to change the day she learned that four hundred armed men were on the road to her house because her fool of a husband had just offended the biggest war hero in Israel. 

The armed men were with David, the future King David, who was living through a rough patch, having recently been banished from court. David was the Lord’s anointed, and King Saul had once embraced him like a son. But Saul was unstable, plagued by jealousy and paranoia; his love for David turned to delusional accusations of treachery. For years, he’d been hunting David like a man possessed. David had fled to the wilderness and was living as an outlaw while he waited for the king’s foul-weather mood to lift. His men were a band of merry misfits he’d attracted along the way (“Everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him” is how 1 Sam. 22.2 sums them up). As captain of this outfit, David wasn’t exactly Robin Hood; he and his gang were running a protection racket among the local herdsmen. But his storied reputation preceded him, and people knew who he was. Abigail knew who he was. Her foolish husband, not so much. 

It was shearing time, and Nabal had gone up to shear his three thousand sheep and one thousand goats. David heard of it and sensed that the rich man’s herds might be his next business opportunity. He sent his men to position themselves as a wall around Nabal’s flocks, shielding them from thieves while the shepherds worked. They hadn’t been hired to provide this protection, but that was the racket, to show up and be a conspicuous presence, as courteous as they were intimidating to all concerned. 

When the shearing was done, David’s men went to Nabal and, in David’s name, politely asked for payment, whatever food Nabal could spare for services rendered. It was generally understood that this request was more of a demand, and the herdsman would do well to cooperate. Nabal sneered in their faces. “Who is David?” he mocked. “Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are breaking away from their masters. Shall I take my bread and my water and the meat that I have butchered for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” (.10–11). 

David was furious. He immediately gave orders to four hundred of his men to strap on their swords and march with him to Nabal’s house, to avenge the dishonour and disrespect the fool had shown. Why, he’d done this man a service, and Nabal had returned evil for good! David swore he’d make him pay in blood. “God do so to David and more also if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him” is how the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition of the Bible reads, but what he really said was much cruder. 

David’s temper was primed to explode. He may have shown restraint where King Saul was concerned, and had only just done so, in the chapter prior to this one, by refusing to kill Saul when he’d had the opening. But not with Nabal. The fool would get the full treatment, a battleground slaughter in his own backyard. 

It might have come to that if Abigail hadn’t intervened. One of Nabal’s young men brought her the news of what her husband had done and what David was planning to do in return. With her entire household on the brink of disaster, Abigail didn’t even bother trying to talk with Nabal. She left him to his cups and his table debauchery, and swiftly packed up all the food that should have been given to David’s men in the first place. Then she loaded it all on donkeys, sent the gifts of food ahead, and followed on her own mount, to meet David and his men. 

She had a plan, a speech, all ready. Abigail was a match for any war hero when it came to practical tactical brilliance. She knew what was required when a man’s ego and honour were injured, what to say to de-escalate tension and shift the focus away from the offender. She knew how to appease wounded pride, repair a chipped self-image, and appeal to a man’s higher sense of self. And she knew that calling forth generosity, gratitude, and empathy were key to restoring honour and dignity. Somehow she found the words that turned David around and kept him from the stain of bloodguilt, vengeance that is not ours to take, that will forever haunt us if we do. 

What Abigail said made a big impression on David. He blessed her for her words and sent her home in peace, with reassurances that four hundred men would not be marching on her house that day. She and her household were safe, he said, because of her good sense. He didn’t mention her courage, but we can, Abigail’s courage was truly exceptional. If David had chosen to ignore her words (and she had no way of knowing whether he would or not), she might have been the first fatality of many. As it happened, the only fatality in Abigail’s house was a death no one mourned. Nabal, who collapsed in shock when he heard what his wife had done. Abigail had waited until morning to tell him, when she was sure he’d be sober and would fully appreciate it, which we assume he did, because “his heart died within him; he became like a stone” (.37). David declared it a fitting end to the fool who’d snubbed him, and promptly set about to woo the widow. Sharp-witted, eloquent Abigail became David’s wife. 

It would be nice to report that Abigail’s words continued to make a big impression on David, that she was a wise and trusted counsellor when he finally came to the throne. But that’s not quite how it went. Abigail barely surfaces after the events in this chapter. She bears David a son named Chileab, who doesn’t get much press or attention. The boy is only one among David’s many sons, the way Abigail is only one among David’s many wives. 

But Abigail’s role in David’s life has made a big impression in other places. She is remembered as a person who shaped David’s moral character during a volatile and uncertain period of his life. She is regarded as a prophet for the way she called David out and back to his anointed role. She is the only woman in the Bible to be described as both intelligent and beautiful (in that order), and her speech is the longest by any woman in the Old Testament. 

Abigail has earned respect. A person does when she exercises unfailingly good judgment. And Abigail did, whether riding forth into danger or riding out years of foolishness, she beat outlaws and ogres with good sense alone. It’s quite a record for a biblical character who is often among the last to be noticed. Unless we go alphabetically, and in that case, she leads.