Nabal the Fool
1 Samuel died; and all Israel gathered themselves together and mourned for him, and buried him at his house at Ramah. Then David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. 2 There was a man in Maon whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats; and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail. This woman was intelligent and had a beautiful face; but the man was surly and evil in his doings. He was of the house of Caleb. 4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5 David sent ten young men; and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. 6 Tell him, ‘Long life to you! Peace be to you! Peace be to your house! Peace be to all that you have! 7 Now I have heard that you have shearers. Your shepherds have now been with us, and we didn’t harm them. Nothing was missing from them all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let the young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a good day. Please give whatever comes to your hand to your servants and to your son David.’” 9 When David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal all those words in the name of David, and waited. 10 Nabal answered David’s servants and said, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants who break away from their masters these days. 11 Shall I then take my bread, my water, and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men who I don’t know where they come from?” 12 So David’s young men turned on their way and went back, and came and told him all these words. 13 David said to his men, “Every man put on his sword!” Every man put on his sword. David also put on his sword. About four hundred men followed David, and two hundred stayed by the baggage. 14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master; and he insulted them. 15 But the men were very good to us, and we were not harmed, and we didn’t miss anything as long as we went with them, when we were in the fields. 16 They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know and consider what you will do; for evil is determined against our master and against all his house, for he is such a worthless fellow that one can’t speak to him.” 18 Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two containers of wine, five sheep ready dressed, five seahs of parched grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. 19 She said to her young men, “Go on before me. Behold, I am coming after you.” But she didn’t tell her husband, Nabal. 20 As she rode on her donkey, and came down hidden by the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. 21 Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have kept all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained to him. He has returned me evil for good. 22 God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, if I leave of all that belongs to him by the morning light so much as one who urinates on a wall.”
Samuel dies, a rich man insults the men who guarded his flocks, and David — who spared a king in a cave — straps on his sword over a slight.
Samuel died; and all Israel gathered themselves together and mourned for him, and buried him at his house at Ramah. Then David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
One verse for the man who anointed two kings. The nation buries the last judge, and the book moves straight to a sheep-shearing — which is its own comment on where Israel now is: no prophet, a king hunting his successor, and the story's moral weight resting on a household in the hills of Judah.
2 There was a man in Maon whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats; and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail. This woman was intelligent and had a beautiful face; but the man was surly and evil in his doings. He was of the house of Caleb.
The introductions are a verdict before a word is spoken. And his name means fool — not a comic simpleton but Scripture's technical term for the man who lives as though God were irrelevant Psalms 14:1, the category Abigail will apply to him openly: as his name is, so is he 1 Samuel 25:25.
Now I have heard that you have shearers. Your shepherds have now been with us, and we didn’t harm them. Nothing was missing from them all the time they were in Carmel.
David's request is courteous and, by the customs of the country, entirely reasonable: his men had protected Nabal's shepherds in open country — they were a wall to us both by night and by day 1 Samuel 25:16 — and shearing time was a feast, when generosity was expected. Modern readers sometimes hear a protection racket; the servants' own testimony rules it out.
Nabal answered David’s servants and said, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants who break away from their masters these days.
Nabal's reply is contempt with a political edge — the phrase Saul spits 1 Samuel 20:27, and the insinuation that David is a runaway slave — followed by a sentence with three my in it: my bread, my water, and my meat 1 Samuel 25:11. That is the fool's grammar. Everything is his, nothing is owed, and God does not enter the calculation.
David said to his men, “Every man put on his sword!” Every man put on his sword. David also put on his sword. About four hundred men followed David, and two hundred stayed by the baggage.
And here is the chapter's shock. The man who would not lift a hand against the king who hunted him for years is riding out to slaughter an entire household over an insult at dinner — four hundred swords, and an oath to leave nothing male alive by morning 1 Samuel 25:22. The restraint in the cave was real; it was not a settled character trait that covered every provocation. Wounded pride from an equal reached a place that mortal danger from a king had not touched. Anyone who has been steady under a great trial and lost it over a small slight will recognize the mechanism exactly.
settled What this mark means