Better to Hear the Truth
“He that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favour than he that flattereth with the tongue.” “So David received of her hand that which she had brought him, and said unto her, Go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person.” Proverbs 28:23; 1 Samuel 25:35
David and his army had been fleeing from the pursuit of King Saul who wanted to eliminate David as a rival to the throne of Israel. David had a few opportunities to kill King Saul, but David was a man of integrity and could not harm Israel’s king. King Saul finally admitted that he knew that David would be Israel’s king, but David was still suspicious of King Saul’s about-face. David likely had developed the habit of sleeping with one eye open and remained vigilant. He and his men continued on their journey.
During this time, prior to David’s possession of Israel’s throne, he and his men had to rely on the help of local people to provide food as they traveled. There was a man who lived in the local area who was very prosperous. His name was Nabal, and his wife was named Abigail. She was very intelligent and beautiful, but Nabal was boorish, or as my husband used to describe people like him, “rude, crude, and grossly unattractive”. David had apparently heard of Nabal and his vast empire and sent two of his soldiers to this wealthy landowner in an effort to ask him for food. The soldiers were very courteous to Nabal, a lot more courteous than he was to them. When they told him that David had sent them, he was belligerent and acted as if David was some nobody whom he couldn’t care less about. He balked at their request for food. He was not willing to part with any of his food which he was reserving for his own servants, however, he didn’t realize how much it was going to cost him to not help David. When the two soldiers returned to David and told him what happened, he did not take Nabal’s refusal well. Matter of fact, David became extremely angry.
David and his men prepared for battle. David was determined to eliminate Nabal. However, one of Nabal’s servants went to Abigail and told her how her husband had treated David’s men. He also explained how that David’s soldiers did no harm to Nabal’s sheepherders out in the field, and actually became a wall of protection for them as they grazed the sheep. Nabal’s servant instinctively knew that David would not let Nabal’s insolence pass without retaliation, and thus he asked Abigail to intervene somehow to stop David from killing his master and her husband. I get the feeling that Abigail was likely forced into an arranged marriage with Nabal. Why would an intelligent and beautiful woman marry a ruthless, hateful, and greedy man? I can just imagine how folks would turn their heads and ask, “How did that jerk manage to marry such a hot woman?” Some women, and men, for that matter, marry for money, but I don’t think that was the case here. Abigail had to stop David, not so much for Nabal’s sake, but for David’s.
Abigail immediately gathered the best food in the house, had the servants load the food on donkeys, and sent them on ahead. Nabal knew nothing of what she was doing. Imagine if he did! By keeping her plan a secret, she was hopefully preventing a massacre and also preventing David from doing something that he would later regret and possibly bring dishonor upon him in the eyes of the people, and, more importantly, in the eyes of the LORD. Abigail rode her donkey and met up with David, who was still fuming about Nabal’s refusal to help them and was planning to avenge, mostly his own pride. This was not like David. Had he followed through on his revenge, it is possible that he would never have been king or if he was king, his reign would have been marred from this incident. However, as the Apostle Paul wrote in I Corinthians 10:13, God can and will make a way of escape from worldly temptations. And he did for David in the person of a woman named Abigail.
We have to remember that women were second-class citizens in ancient Israel. For a commoner, especially a woman, to approach the future king with a rebuke, even a mild one, was unheard of. Abigail dismounted her donkey, bowed before David, and pleaded for him to let her speak. She didn’t know if he would listen to her. Knowing Nabal like she did, she could understand why David was so angry. She even went so far as to take the blame of not giving food to David’s men because she didn’t know about David’s request. What was David to do? Ignore her? Not likely. Here God had provided David his way of escape from doing something he would forever regret. Later he would be grateful that God had kept him from doing such an evil deed and thankful that a woman was courageous enough to show David the truth of his bowing to his own pride rather than leaning upon his God-given integrity.
In receiving Abigail’s message to refrain from harming Nabal, David was falling back on his integrity and wisdom. He blessed God for sending her to persuade him to not carry out such a malicious deed as murdering a man just because the man’s actions stirred up a fierce anger in David. He was extremely grateful for Abigail’s intervention. The truth can hurt sometimes, but it also can be the only way to cause one to stop and consider the consequences of one’s actions.