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.
Parallel Translations
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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.
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And Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
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And Samuel died; and all Israel gathered themselves together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
Cross-references (16)
Passages linked to 1 Samuel 25:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Samuel 28:3 Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him, and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city. Saul had sent away those who had familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land.
- Numbers 20:29 When all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they wept for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel.
- Deuteronomy 34:8 The children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the days of weeping in the mourning for Moses were ended.
- 2 Chronicles 33:20 So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house; and Amon his son reigned in his place.
- Genesis 21:21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother got a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.
- Numbers 10:12 The children of Israel went forward on their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud stayed in the wilderness of Paran.
- Acts 8:2 Devout men buried Stephen and lamented greatly over him.
- Numbers 13:3 Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran according to the commandment of Yahweh. All of them were men who were heads of the children of Israel.
- 1 Kings 2:34 Then Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and fell on him, and killed him; and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness.
- Genesis 14:6 and the Horites in their Mount Seir, to El Paran, which is by the wilderness.
- Genesis 50:11 When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians.” Therefore its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.
- Numbers 12:16 Afterward the people traveled from Hazeroth, and encamped in the wilderness of Paran.
- Numbers 13:26 They went and came to Moses, to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word to them and to all the congregation. They showed them the fruit of the land.
- 1 Samuel 7:17 His return was to Ramah, for his house was there; and he judged Israel there; and he built an altar to Yahweh there.
- Psalms 120:5 Woe is me, that I live in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
- Isaiah 14:18 All the kings of the nations, sleep in glory, everyone in his own house.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (22 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain That is, among his own kindred.
That is, among his own kindred.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 1Sa 25:1 And Samuel died; and all the Israelites…
1Sa 25:1 And Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
Ver. 1. And Samuel died.] After a long race run without cessation or cespitation: he was one of those few that lived and died with honour. Nabal did not; so: Contraria iuxta se posita, &c. "The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked doth rot." {Pro 10:7}
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And lamented him.] As well they might, and their own folly in laying him aside;
“ Virtutem incolumem odimus:
Sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi. ” - Horat.
And buried him in his house at Ramah.] Where he had, likely, prepared himself a sepulchre; for so was the custom of that people, and others also. The Thebans had a law, that no man should make a house for himself to dwell in, but he should first make his grave.
And David arose.] He had lost a fast friend in Samuel, - cuius consilio subsidioque fretus commodius in regno versabatur, {a} - and therefore speedeth away to the wilderness of Paran, whereof see Num 10:12.
{a} Jun.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Buried him in his house, according to the manner…
Buried him in his house, according to the manner of those times. See Gen 23:9; 50:5; Mat 27:60. The wilderness of Paran, in the southern borders of the land of Judah, that so when occasion served, he might retire out of Saul’s dominions.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain We have here a short account of Samuel's death…
We have here a short account of Samuel's death and burial. 1. Though he was a great man, and one that was admirably well qualified for public service, yet he spent the latter end of his days in retirement and obscurity, not because he was superannuated (for he knew how to preside in a college of the prophets, Sa1 19:20), but because Israel had rejected him, for which God thus justly chastised them, and because his desire was to be quiet and to enjoy himself and his God in the exercises of devotion now in his advanced years, and in this desire God graciously indulged him. Let old people be willing to rest themselves, though it look like burying themselves alive. 2. Though he was a firm friend to David, for which Saul hated him, as also for dealing plainly with him, yet he died in peace even in the worst of the days of the tyranny of Saul, who, he sometimes feared, would kill him, Sa1 16:2. Though Saul loved him not, yet he feared him, as Herod did John, and feared the people, for all knew him to be a prophet. Thus is Saul restrained from hurting him. 3. All Israel lamented him; and they had reason, for they had all a loss in him. His personal merits commanded this honour to be done him at his death. His former services to the public, when he judged Israel, made this respect to his name and memory a just debt; it would have been very ungrateful to have withheld it. The sons of the prophets had lost the founder and president of their college, and whatever weakened them was a public loss. But that was not all: Samuel was a constant intercessor for Israel, prayed daily for them, Joh 12:23. If he go, they part with the best friend they have. The loss is the more grievous at this juncture when Saul has grown so outrageous and David is driven from his country; never more need of Samuel than now, yet now he is removed. We will hope that the Israelites lamented Samuel's death the more bitterly because they remembered against themselves their own sin and folly in rejecting him and desiring a king. Note, (1.) Those have hard hearts who can bury their faithful ministers with dry eyes, who are not sensible of the loss of those who have prayed for them and taught them the way of the Lord. (2.) When God's providence removes our relations and friends from us we ought to be humbled for our misconduct towards them while they were with us. 4. They buried him, not in the school of the prophets at Naioth, but in his own house (or perhaps in the garden pertaining to it) at Ramah, where he was born. 5. David, thereupon, went down to the wilderness of Paran, retiring perhaps to mourn the more solemnly for the death of Samuel. Or, rather, because now that he had lost so good a friend, who was (and he hoped would be) a great support to him, he apprehended his danger to be greater than ever, and therefore withdrew to a wilderness, out of the limits of the land of Israel; and now it was that he dwelt in the tents of Kedar, Psa 120:5. In some parts of this wilderness of Paran Israel wandered when they came out of Egypt. The place would bring to mind God's care concerning them, and David might improve that for his own encouragement, now in his wilderness-state.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And Samuel died,.... In the interval, when Saul and…
And Samuel died,.... In the interval, when Saul and David were parted, and before they saw each other again; according to the Jewish chronology (g), Samuel died four months before Saul; but other Jewish writers say (h) he died seven months before; Abarbinel thinks it was a year or two before; which is most likely and indeed certain, since David was in the country of the Philistines after this a full year and four months, if the true sense of the phrase is expressed in Sa1 27:7; and Saul was not then dead; and so another Jewish chronologer (i) says, that Saul died two years after Samuel, to which agrees Clemens of Alexandria (k); and according to the Jews (l), he died the twentieth of Ijar, for which a fast was kept on that day:
and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him; his death being a public loss, not only to the college of the prophets, over which he presided, but to the whole nation; and they had reason to lament his death, when they called to mind, the many good offices he had done them from his youth upwards; and when the government was in his hands, which was administered in the most prudent and faithful manner; and after that they had his wise counsel and advice, his good wishes and prayers for them; and the rather they had reason to lament him, since Saul their king proved so bad as he did, and at this time a difference was subsisting between David and him:
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and buried him in his house at Ramah; where he lived and died; not that he was buried in his house, properly so called, or within the walls of that building wherein he dwelt; though the Greeks (m) and Romans (n) used to bury in their own dwelling houses; hence sprung the idolatrous worship of the Lares, or household gods; but not the Hebrews, which their laws about uncleanness by graves would not admit of, see Num 19:15; but the meaning is, that they buried him in the place where his house was, as Ben Gersom interprets it, at Ramah, in some field or garden belonging to it. The author of the Cippi Hebraici says (o), that here his father Elkanah, and his mother Hannah, and her two sons, were buried in a vault shut up, with, monuments over it; and here, some say (p), Samuel's bones remained, until removed by Arcadius the emperor into Thrace; Benjamin of Tudela reports (q), that when the Christians took Ramlah, which is Ramah, from the Mahometans, they found the grave of Samuel at Ramah by a synagogue of the Jews, and they took him out of the grave, and carried him to Shiloh, and there built a large temple, which is called the Samuel of Shiloh to this day:
and David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran; on hearing of the death of Samuel, there to indulge his mourning for him; or rather that he might be in greater safety from Saul, being further off, this wilderness lying on the south of the tribe of Judah, and inhabited by Arabs, and these called Kedarenes; and now it was that he dwelt in the tents of Kedar, Psa 120:5.
(g) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 13. p. 37. (h) In Kimchi & Abarbinel in loc. (i) Juchasin, fol. 11. 1. (k) Stromat. l. 1. p. 325. (l) Schulchan Aruch, par. 1. c. 580. sect. 2. (m) Plato in Mino. (n) Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 6. p. mihi, (?) 1011. (o) P. 30. (p) Heldman apud Hottinger in ib. (q) Itinerar. p. 52.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Samuel's death, ver. 1. The character of Nabal, ver.…
Samuel's death, ver. 1. The character of Nabal, ver. 2, 3. David's requests to him, ver. 4-9. His churlish answer, ver. 10-13. David's purpose to destroy him told to Abigail, ver. 13-17. She pacifies David, ver. 18-31. His answer, ver. 32-35. The death of Nabal, ver. 36-38. David marries Abigail and Ahinoam, ver. 39- 44.
Lamented him - Those have hard hearts, that can bury their faithful ministers with dry eyes, and are not sensible of the loss of them who have prayed for them, and taught them the way of the Lord.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The death of Samuel, 1.
CHAPTER XXV
The death of Samuel, 1.
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The history of Nabal, and his churlishness towards David and
his men, 2-12.
David, determining to punish him, is appeased by Abigail,
Nabal's wife, 13-35.
Abigail returns, and tells Nabal of the danger that he has
escaped: who on hearing it is thunderstruck, and dies in ten
days, 36-38
David, hearing of this, sends and takes Abigail to wife, 39-42.
He marries also Ahinoam of Jezreel, Saul having given Michal,
David's wife, to Phalti, the son of Laish, 43, 44.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXV
Verse 1. And Samuel died] Samuel lived, as is supposed, about ninety-eight years; was in the government of Israel before Saul from sixteen to twenty years; and ceased to live, according to the Jews, about four months before the death of Saul; but according to Calmet and others, two years. But all this is very uncertain; how long he died before Saul, cannot be ascertained. For some account of his character, see the end of the chapter. Sa 25:44.
Buried him in his house] Probably this means, not his dwelling-house, but the house or tomb he had made for his sepulture; and thus the Syriac and Arabic seem to have understood it.
David - went down to the wilderness of Paran.] This was either on the confines of Judea, or in Arabia Petraea, between the mountains of Judah and Mount Sinai; it is evident from the history that it was not far from Carmel, on the south confines of Judah.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 1Sa 25:1. And Samuel died — According to the…
1Sa 25:1. And Samuel died — According to the best chronologers, he governed Israel after the death of Eli sixteen years or upward, and lived about forty years after in the reign of Saul; and all the Israelites lamented him — It is no wonder that so wise and holy a man, so righteous a ruler, so just a judge, and so enlightened a prophet, should be uncommonly and universally lamented; especially when the wisdom and equity of his government, compared with Saul’s tyranny and extravagance, made his memory more dear and his loss more regretted. “Those have hard hearts,” says Henry, “that can bury their faithful ministers with dry eyes, and are not sensible of the loss of them who have prayed for them, and taught them the way of the Lord.” And buried him in his house in Ramah — Where, it is likely, there was a burying-place for his family in some part of his garden, or some field adjacent. For they had then no public places of interment. He was now attended by all Israel to his grave, and his remains, many centuries after, were removed with incredible pomp, and almost one continued train of attendants, from Ramah to Constantinople, by the Emperor Arcadius, A.D. 401.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain In his house at Ramah - Probably in the…
In his house at Ramah - Probably in the court or garden attached to his dwelling-house. (Compare 2Ch 33:20; 2Ki 21:18; Joh 19:41.)
The wilderness of Paran - The Septuagint has the far more probable reading “Maon.” The wilderness of Paran lay far off to the south, on the borders of the wilderness of Sinai Num 10:12; 1Ki 11:18, whereas the following verse 1Sa 25:2 shows that the scene is laid in the immediate neighborhood of Maon. If, however, Paran be the true reading, we must suppose that in a wide sense the wilderness of Paran extended all the way to the wilderness of Beersheba, and eastward to the mountains of Judah (marginal references).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Samuel died. The Rabbins say four months before Saul.…
Samuel died. The Rabbins say four months before Saul. (Seder, olam 13.) (Tirinus) --- Others believe about two years; and suppose that he was 98 years old, twenty of which he had been judge: (Calmet) Salien says 38, and that he lived seventy-seven years. (Menochius) --- On all these points the learned are divided, chap. vii. 15. They are more unanimous in praising (Haydock) the conduct of this most holy statesman. Grotius compares him with Aristides. (Calmet) --- But he Holy Ghost gives Samuel a far more glorious character, Ecclesiasticus xlvi. 16., &c. (Haydock) --- Both he and his mother are figures of the two testaments. Anna becomes fruitful --- Samuel is substituted in the place of Heli. The sterility of Anna represents the incapacity of the Synagogue, to produce living and virtuous children. She bears Samuel, the figure of Jesus Christ, who reunites in his person the royal and the sacerdotal dignity. But under another point of view, Samuel, how perfect soever, must give place to the more perfect David, the glorious type of Jesus Christ, and thus the Synagogue, notwithstanding all her prerogatives, must yield to the Church. See St. Augustine, de C.[City of God?] xvii. 1, 4. Many of the ancients have looked upon Samuel as the high priest: but the generality have acknowledged that he was only a Levite, (Calmet) or an extraordinary priest, like Moses. (Haydock) --- All Israel, or many from every tribe, assembled to attend his funeral; (Tirinus) and all mourned for him, as they had done for Moses and Aaron. (Salien) --- House, or among his kindred, (Tirinus) in a place which he had chosen for his tomb. This is called the house of the wicked for ever; but the just raise their hopes much higher, and await a more splendid palace above, and a glorious resurrection. (Haydock) --- The would not bury Samuel in his dwelling-house, as it could not then be entered without incurring an uncleanness. (Calmet) --- His bones were translated with great respect to Constantinople, and a noble mausoleum was built for them by the emperor Justinian. (Procopius v.; St. Jerome, contra Vigil.) (Tirinus)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain VII. Samuel’s death. David’s march into the wilderness of…
VII. Samuel’s death. David’s march into the wilderness of Paran. The history of the foolish Nabal and the wise Abigail
1Sa_25:1-44
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1And Samuel died; and all the Israelites [Israel] were gathered together, and lamented him and buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose and went down1 to the wilderness of Paran.2
2And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel. And the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats; and Hebrews 3 was shearing3 his sheep in Carmel. Now [And] the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail; and she was a woman [the woman was] of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance; but the man was churlish and evil 4in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb.4 And David heard in the wilderness 5that Nabal did shear his sheep. And David sent out [om. out] ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel and go to Nabal and 6greet5 him in my name. And thus shall ye say to him that liveth6 in prosperity [om. that liveth in prosperity], Peace be both [om. both7] to thee, and peace be to 7thy house, and peace be unto all that thou hast. And now I have heard that thou hast shearers.8 Now thy shepherds which [om. which] were with us; we hurt9 them not, neither was there aught missing unto them all the while they were in Carmel. 8Ask thy young men and they will show [tell] thee. Wherefore let the young men find favor in thine eyes, for we come in a good day; give, I pray thee, whatsoever 9[what] cometh to thine hand unto thy servants10 and to thy son David. And when [om. when] David’s young men11 came they [and] spake to Nabal according to all 10those words in the name of David, and ceased.12 And Nabal answered David’s servants and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be [are] many 11servants13 nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my flesh [meat] that I have killed for my shearers, 12and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be? So [And] David’s young men turned [ins. to] their way, and went again [returned] and came and told 13him [ins. according to14] all those sayings. And David said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man his sword, and David also girded on his sword. And there went up after David about four hundred men, and two hundred abode by the stuff.
14But [And] one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of [from] the wilderness to salute our master; and he railed15 15on them. But [And] the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything, as long as we were conversant with them, when we were 16in the fields [field]. They were a wall unto us both by night and day all the while 17we were with them keeping sheep. Now therefore [And now] know and consider what thou wilt do, for evil is determined against our master and against all his household, for he is such a son of Belial [bad man] that a man [one] cannot speak to him.16
18Then [And] Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves and two bottles [skins] of wine and five sheep ready dressed and five measures [seahs] of parched corn and an hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs and laid them 19on [ins. the] asses, And she [om. she] said unto her servants [young men], Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But [And] she told not her husband Nabal. 20And it was so, as she rode [And she was riding] on the ass that she came down by [and descending into] the covert of the hill [mountain], and behold, David and his 21men came down [were coming down] against her, and she met them. Now [And] David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed17 of all that pertained unto him, and he hath requited 22me evil for good. So and more also do God unto the enemies of [om. the enemies of18] David if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light19 any that pisseth against the wall [any male].
23And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before 24David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground,20 And fell at his feet,21 and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be [On me, even me, my lord, be the sin], and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the 25words of thine handmaid. Let not my lord, I pray thee [om. thee], regard this man of Belial [this bad man], even [om. even] Nabal. For, as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name and folly22 is with him. But I, thine handmaid, saw not the 26young men of my lord whom thou didst send. Now, therefore [And now], my lord, as the Lord [Jehovah] liveth and as thy soul liveth, seeing [om. seeing] the Lord [Jehovah] hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood [into blood-guiltiness] and from23 avenging [saving] thyself with thine own hand. [ins. And] now, let 27thine enemies and they that seek evil to my lord be as Nabal. And now, this blessing which thine handmaid hath brought24 unto my lord, let it even [om. even] be 28given unto the young men that follow my lord. I pray thee, forgive [Forgive, I pray thee] the trespass of thine handmaid; for the Lord [Jehovah] will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord [Jehovah], 29and evil hath not been [shall not be] found in thee all thy days. Yet [And] a man is risen25 to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul [life]; but [and] the soul [life] of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord [Jehovah] thy God, and the souls [life] of thine enemies, them [it] shall he sling out as out of 30the middle [sling out in the pan26] of a [the] sling. And it shall come to pass, when the Lord [Jehovah] shall have done [shall do] to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed [shall appoint] 31thee ruler over Israel, That this shall be no grief27 unto thee nor offence of heart unto my lord, either [om. either28] that thou hast shed blood causeless [causelessly] or [and] that my lord hath avenged himself [hath saved himself with his own hand]. But [And] when the Lord [Jehovah] shall have dealt [shall deal] well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid.29
32And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord [Jehovah] God of Israel, which 33[who] sent thee this day to meet me; And blessed be thy advice [understanding30], and blessed be thou, which [who] hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood 34[into blood-guiltiness] and from avenging [saving] myself with my own hand. For [And] in very deed, as the Lord [Jehovah], God of Israel liveth, which [who] hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely [om. surely] there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning-light any 35that pisseth against the wall [any male]. So [And] 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.
36And Abigail came to Nabal. And behold, he held a feast in his house like the feast of a king; and Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for [and] he was very 37drunken, wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light. But [And] it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and [that] his wife had [om. had] told him31 these things, that [and] his heart died 38within him and he became as a stone. And it came to pass about ten days32 after, 39that the Lord [Jehovah] smote Nabal that [and] he died. And when [om. when] David heard that Nabal was dead [ins. and] he said, Blessed be the Lord [Jehovah] that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil, for [and] the Lord [Jehovah] hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail 40to take her to him to wife. And when [om. when] the servants of David were come [came] to Abigail to Carmel they [and] spake unto her saying, David sent us unto 41thee to take thee to him to wife. And she arose and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thy handmaid be [thy handmaid is] a servant to 42wash the feet of the servants of my lord. And Abigail hasted and arose and rode upon an [the] ass with five damsels of hers that33 went after her, and she went after the messengers of David and became his wife.
43David also [And David] took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they were also both of 44them his wives. But Saul had given [And Saul gave] Michal his daughter, David’s wife to Phalti the son of Laish, which [who] was of Gallim.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Sa_25:1. Brief account of Samuel’s death.—And Samuel died.—The narrator supposed Samuel’s death to fall in the time of the events here related.—All Israel mourned him, not merely because his career as judge and leader up to the time of the establishment of the kingdom was fresh in the memory of the people, but because his political work as prophet and watcher over the kingdom had remained to the end of profound importance for the whole people, as is clear from his relation to Saul and David on the one hand, and his position as head of the prophetic community, on the other. At his burial the people were no doubt represented by their elders. As to such mourning for the dead see Gen_50:10.—And buried him in his house at Ramah.—Not literally: “in his house,”—this “would not have accorded (Lev_19:16) with the Jewish purification laws” (Then.),—but in some space, court or garden (Mat_27:60) belonging to the house. Grot.: “Sepulchres were then usually private, see Gen_23:9; Gen_50:5.” On such interments “in the house,” comp. 1Ki_2:34; 2Ki_21:18; 2Ch_33:20. Tradition puts the burial-place of Samuel on the height of Mizpah, where it is yet shown. The harmonization of this statement with our passage by regarding Ramah as a region (Pressel, s. v. “Ramah” in Herzog) is untrustworthy by reason of the untenableness of this geographical and topographical supposition and the distance of Mizpah from the city Ramah (comp. Nägelsbach in Herz. XIII. 399). In Ramah—“for the prophets seem, though we infer it only from this passage and 1Sa_28:3, to have shared with the kings the right of burial within the city” (Thenius).34
1Sa_25:2 sq. David’s affair with the rich land-holder and herd-owner Nabal of Maon, after he had gone down from his hitherto abode in the highland of Engedi farther south and into the wilderness of Paran. The Sept. (Vat.) has Maon instead of Paran, and this is taken as the original reading by Then., Ew., Bunsen, because the wilderness of Paran would be too far off (at least fifteen geographical miles) from Nabal’s residence (Thenius). But this supposition is “certainly unnecessary” (Win. s. v. 193, Rem. 1); for David, descending southward, withdrew into the northernmost part of this somewhat undefined wilderness, “which extended widely between the wilderness of Shur on the west, the present Jebel et-Tih on the south, the Edomite territory on the east, and the land of Canaan on the north” (Winer).35 Cler.: “the boundaries of this desert are not clearly defined.” Comp. Keil on Num_10:12. Probably the wilderness of Judah no longer afforded sustenance to David and his large body of six hundred men (Keil). Nabal is called a man of Maon because he dwelt in this city in the hill-country of Judah (Jos_15:55). His business (see Exo_23:6) on the contrary was in Carmel, where Saul had raised his monument of victory over the Amalekites, whence also came his wife Abigail, “the Carmelitess” (1Sa_27:3). It is the present Kurmul on the elevated plain of the highland of Judah, about a mile north of Maon [and ten miles south-east of Hebron.—Tr.]. It is thence easily understood how Nabal, living in the mountain-city Maon, had his herds on the high plain in Carmel. Thenius understands mount Carmel [in the north], because a mountain is spoken of in 1Sa_25:5; 1Sa_25:7-8; 1Sa_25:13; 1Sa_25:20; 1Sa_25:35, and because it is said that Nabal had his possessions, his herds, on Carmel, and the mountain-meadow would be specially wholesome for the sheep and goats. But, as to height, the place Carmel lay on a mountain-plain, which afforded the best pasture for the herds. Moreover, the distance of Mount Carmel from the scene of this history [nearly one hundred miles north-west.—Tr.] would exclude it. Maon, Carmel, Ziph, are named together in Jos_15:55. Nabal’s claim to the title of “very great,” that is, rich man, is proved by the size of his herds (“three thousand sheep and one thousand goats”).—Sheep-shearing was usually accompanied by festivities, as now also on great estates. While the rich man was shearing at Carmel, David sent to him; the protasis begins with “and it came to pass, in the shearing” (וַיְהִי בִגְזז), 1Sa_25:3-4, is explanatory parenthesis, and the apodosis begins with 1Sa_25:5 (Then.).36 The statements of the names, Nabal, Abigail, and the descriptions of the persons are arranged chiastically: The woman good of understanding (sensible, wise) and beautiful of form—the man, on the contrary, hard, churlish of disposition and wicked in conduct. As to the last word of the verse, the Kethib or text (כְּלִבּוֹ) “according to his heart” would mean “following only the desire of his mind” (Maur.), that is, self-willed—which is, however, “linguistically impossible” (Buns.). The Qeri or marginal reading (כָּלִבִּי), “found also in some manuscripts and printed editions in the text” (Then.), is, with Targum and Vulgate, certainly preferable: “he was of the family of Caleb.” The two former statements sufficiently characterize his disposition; a third would be out of keeping with the simplicity of the description. On the other hand, the statement of his origin accords with his importance as a man “great” by his riches, and it is introduced as something new by the words “and he” (וְהוּא), which would not suit the continuation of the moral portraiture. Caleb had received for a possession the region of Hebron, near which Maon and Carmel lay (Jos_15:13 sq.). Comp. 1Sa_30:14 : the southland of Caleb, a region in the south of Judah. The translation of the Sept., “a doggish, cynical man” (so Arab, and Syr.) and of Josephus leading a cynical life” (from כֶּלֶב a dog”) must be rejected. [So Boothroyd: “irritable as a dog” (Philipps.)—Tr.].
1Sa_25:4. As Nabal was a man rich in herds, it was worth while to send an embassy to him from some distance for the purpose indicated in the context. The distance would indeed be great and improbable, if with Thenius we took Carmel to be the mountain of that name. The stately number ten of the messengers shows the importance and solemnity of the embassy; such a solemn sending would not suit the proximity of “Maon,” David’s abode according to the reading of the Sept. In Carmel Nabal had a house (1Sa_25:35-36). The Sept. adds to Nabal: “the Carmelite,” taking the designation from 1Sa_30:5, where it belongs to Abigail. Ask in my name after his peace, give him friendly greeting. Comp. Exo_18:7.
1Sa_25:6. Here the content and form of the greeting is exactly prescribed. First, the general wish: לֶחַי [Eng. A. V.: “to him that liveth (in prosperity”)]. The translation “to my brothers” (לְאַחַי, Vulg.), is impossible by reason of the following “thou;” it could only be “my brother” = “friend,” but it is an arbitrary conjecture. Some take the word (חַי) as adjective [“living,” so Eng. A. V.—Tr.]. Clericus joins it to the preceding “say” and renders: “to the living (say), if ye find him alive,” S. Schmid: “and thus shall ye say: to the living (that is, the living God) I commend thee.” But the first (Clericus) is superfluous, since in sending the messengers, David assumed that Nabal still lived; the latter (Schmid) is untenable because of the arbitrariness of the reference to God. Böttcher connects it with the “say,” and takes the Sing. (חַי) in the sense of “man” (as one possessing vigorous life), adducing the use of the Plu. (חַיִּים) and the Collective-form (חַיָּה) in the sense of “people,” as in 1Sa_18:18; Num_35:3; 2Sa_23:13. The meaning would then be: “Say to the living one,” that is, to the man. But the Sing, is never used in this sense. Against De Wette’s earlier rendering: “say to the well-living” [so Philippson and Eng. A. V.—Tr.] is the fact that the simple word will not bear this meaning [the addition of “well” or “in prosperity” is unwarranted.—Tr.]. The Sept. has “for this year” (εἰς ὥρας as in Gen_18:10; Gen_18:14), that is, mayest thou with thy house be in peace till the return of this happy day—a “tolerably far-fetched idea,” impossible as a translation of the text, and a mere makeshift to avoid the difficulty.—It is better (considering the difficulties) to take the word as Subst. = “life.” It is objected that only the Plu. is so used; but the Sing, is found not only in the formula of swearing “by the life of thy soul, of Jehovah,” but also in Lev_25:36 in the signification “life.” The phrase (לֶחַי), however, can then mean neither “for a long time, for many years” (Vulg. according to another reading, and Jos.), nor “for the life, the whole lifetime, forever” (Chald., D. Kimchi, Dathe); the expression does not allow these renderings, which introduce a foreign idea (long), unless we change the following letter (ו) into the suffix (ךָ) and read “for thy life.” But, instead of this bold and unsupported conjecture, it is better to take life (De Wette: zum leben “unto life”) as = “fortune, prosperity,” and to regard the expression as a popular form of congratulation, not found in the literary language; Luther: “success” (glück auf)! Maurer: “to life, that is, may it turn out well; may thy affairs be fortunate” [so Rashi, and apparently Talmud Bab., Berakoth fol. 55, 2.—Tr.]. We cannot admit such a congratulation is superfluous by reason of what follows (Then.), for the threefold special “peace” on Nabal, his house and his possessions is the unfolding of the general wish, the latter is the prelude, the former the triple chord. It may be freely rendered “thou shalt live” or “live thou long!” [Bib. Com. prefers to attach the following letter (ו) as suffix and render: “and ye shall say thus about his life,” which seems forced and unsatisfactory, though it accounts for the ו, which in its present position is disturbing. Cahen: ainsi pour la vie! “thus for life!” which is obscure. Wellhausen sees nothing better than “to my brother.” In support of the rendering which Erdmann adopts Gesenius cites the Arabic formula: “may God grant thee life!” The phrase cannot be said to have received a satisfactory explanation.—Tr.]
1Sa_25:17 sq. After the instruction to greet comes the direction how to present his earnest request to Nabal. Now I have heard that thou hast shearers.—These words correspond precisely to the real life, and can only be rightly understood when we recollect that the regularly recurring sheepshearing was one of the greatest events in the housekeeping of such an establishment. In accordance with the urgency of his request, which is due to his pressing need of sustenance for his men, David’s introduction is very circumstantial and is based on a captatio benevolentiæ; he reminds Nabal of the peaceful association of his men with Nabal’s herdsmen during his stay in the wilderness (“thy herdsmen were with us”), of the forbearance exercised by his warriors towards the unarmed herdsmen (“we did not injure them”—הֶכְלַמְנוּ as in Jdg_18:7; on the form see Ges. § 53, 3 Rem. 6), and of the honorable disinterestedness with which his people had refrained from appropriating the property of others (“nothing was missing to them”). The last words may refer, however, to the protection afforded the herdsmen by David’s people against the predatory incursions of the neighboring desert-tribes; for such protection against thieving attacks (which came especially from the south) is expressly affirmed in 1Sa_25:16; 1Sa_25:21. “Thus, even in his outlawry, David showed himself the protector of his people” (Keil). Apart, therefore, from eastern custom, according to which such a request would seem no ways strange, David had a certain right to ask a gift from Nabal’s superfluity; he had indirectly no small share in the festal joy of Nabal and his house; “without some part of the superfluity of the inhabitants whom he protected, he could not have maintained himself with his army” (Ewald). And this must modify Stähelin’s remark (p. 19), that “this narrative shows that David blackmailed even his own countrymen, regarding himself, like an Arab sheikh, as lord of the desert where he lived.” For the rest Robinson remarks II. 429 [Am. ed. I., 498—Tr.] in reference to the permanence of customs in the East: “On such a festive occasion near a town or village, even in our own day an Arab Sheikh of the neighboring desert would hardly fail to put in a word, either in person or by message; and his message, both in form and substance, would be only the transcript of that of David.”—In a “good day,” that is, a festive, happy day; sheep-shearing was conducted like a festival (comp. Gen_38:12; 2Sa_13:23), when feasts were held, strangers entertained, and portions given to the poor. Give what thy hand finds, that is, as much as thou canst, to thy servants and thy son David, an expression of deepest reverence and devotion, and of the piety of the younger man towards the older, in order that he might share in his paternal goodwill.
1Sa_25:9. The messengers executed their commission, making the request in David’s name. And they sat down, so we must translate the Heb. word (וַיָּנוּחוּ), not “they waited modestly for an answer” (Buns.), not “they were silent” (Vulg., Grot., De Wette). That they sat down is not a superfluous remark, but serves to complete the description, which is true to the reality in the smallest details. Formal sitting down is part of oriental custom in such visits; it is not necessary, therefore, to refer to their need of rest, though, after so long a journey, they need not have been weakly persons (Then.), to require rest. Thenius’ change of text so that this shall read “and he arose” (וַיָקָם after Sept. ἀνεπήδησε “he sprang up”) is improbable.
1Sa_25:10 sq. The insulting answer with which Nabal contemptuously rebuffed David’s ambassadors. Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?—He knew him well; all the more insulting is this answer, whose meaning is: what do I care for David? what have I to do with him? There are many servants nowadays that break away every one from his master.—(The Art. stands here with Partcp., not with Subst., עֲבָדִים הַ׳, because the former alone is to be distinctly defined (Maurer)).—To his impertinent question Nabal adds a rude insult to David’s servants, whom he characterizes as good-for-nothing runaways, and also to David himself, to whose relation to Saul he maliciously alludes.
1Sa_25:11. Nabal speaks out his mean, niggardly mind (וְלָקַחְתִּי, Perf. with ו consec., here expressing future time, Ges. § 126, 6, Rem. 1). The whole sentence is to be taken as a question: Shall I take? The bread and water represents the necessary sustenance of life. The flesh stands for luxuries beyond mere necessaries. Instead of “water” the Sept. has “wine” in accordance with its arbitrary way of getting rid of difficulties. In the excitement of his avaricious soul, Nabal declares that he will give David and his men neither necessaries of life nor what he had killed for the feasting of his shearers.—[Bib. Com.: The mention of water indicates a country where water was scarce, Jos_15:19. Or, “bread and water” may=“meat and drink.”—Tr.]
1Sa_25:12. The report of this contemptuous and insulting rebuff.
1Sa_25:13. David determines to take bloody revenge for the insult and hostile reception. Nabal’s wicked response to his friendly and modest overture excites his anger. The following narrative shows that he herein sinned before God, but also how God’s wonderful providence saved him from the factual completion of his sin.
1Sa_25:14-22. Abigail, Nabal’s wife, goes to David.
1Sa_25:14-17. One of Nabal’s servants informs Abigail of what has occurred; he relates Nabal’s bearing towards David’s greeting (1Sa_25:14), describes the friendly protection they had had from David’s people (1Sa_25:15-16), asks Abigail’s counsel and help in respect to the danger that threatened her husband and his whole household, and excuses himself for applying to her by referring to Nabal’s bad character and inaccessibility to well-meant representations and requests.
1Sa_25:14. A lad of the lads.—The word “lad” (נַעַר), which is wanting in Sept. and Vulg. [which render, as Eng. A. V., “one of the lads.”—Tr.], is indeed a rounding of the phrase, but is not, for this reason, and because these translations have properly declined to transfer the phrase literally, to be regarded as the error of a copyist (Then.). בָּרֵך [lit. “to bless.”—Tr.] = “to congratulate, greet,” comp. 1Sa_13:10.—And he drove over them, that is, as above described, with insulting, angry words.—[Eng. A. V. “railed on them,” better “flew on them.”—Tr.] See on 1Sa_14:32, 1Sa_15:19.37
1Sa_25:15 is the confirmation of the words of 1Sa_25:8 : “ask thy young men, and they will tell thee.” The testimony of these youths to the friendly and helpful conduct of David’s men agrees exactly with what David told his messengers to say, 1Sa_25:7. On the phrase: “all the days of our walking with them” (כָּל־יְמֵי ה׳, Eng. A. V.: “conversant with them”), it is to be remarked, that sometimes, as here, substantives of time, place or manner stand in construct relation to a whole sentence (Ew., § 286, 3, 1).—The words: “while we were in the field” (Vulg., Syr., Arab.: “in the wilderness”), are not to be connected with the following (Sept., Syr., Then.), making “they were a wall to us” [1Sa_25:16] the apodosis, because then in the words: “as long as we were with them keeping the flocks,” there would be a second indication of time in the same sentence (comp. Zec_2:5).
1Sa_25:16. A wall, that is, a powerful protection against the wild beasts and the attacks of robbers from the Arabian desert.
1Sa_25:17. “Is determined” (כָּלָה), “is a thing settled,” as in 1Sa_20:9. It is not necessary on account of the “and he” (וְהוּא), which refers not to David, but to Nabal, to insert with the Sept. “thou” (אַתְּ) after “consider” (רְאִי), as Thenius insists, for such a contrast is not demanded. Nabal is described as a “bad man” [so should Eng. A. V. read instead of “son of Belial.”—Tr.], see on 1Sa_1:16; 1Sa_30:22; 2Sa_2:12; 1Ki_21:10. “So that one cannot speak” (מִדַּבֵר=“from speaking”), or “he is too wicked for one to be able to speak to him.” This is the confidential expression of the estimation in which Nabal was held by his household and servants, comp. 1Sa_25:3.
1Sa_25:18 sq. To avert the impending danger, Abigail, on the representation and at the request of the faithful servant, sets out to go to David without her husband’s knowledge, with a rich present of various articles of food. They carried two hundred loaves of bread, two skins, not jars (De Wette), five prepared sheep, of parched corn (קָלִי, 1Sa_17:17=by-meat) five seahs=one and two-thirds ephahs (Then.). Sept. has five ephahs instead of five seahs, thinking the latter too little for so many people [the seah about one and a half pecks, ephah=about four and a half pecks.—Tr.]; but it would not be too little as entremets. We need not, therefore, with Ewald read five hundred seahs.—[Abigail’s present was intended not to supply David’s army, but to show her good-will.—Tr.]; one hundred cakes of dried grapes (צמ׳), two hundred cakes of pressed figs (דב׳).
1Sa_25:19. Her journey is described in the minutest particulars; she sends the servants on before with the present, herself following, riding on an ass, in order the better to superintend the movement.
1Sa_25:20. Her meeting with David. In the covert, a hidden place in the mountain. It was “probably a depression between two peaks of a mountain” (Keil), so that David’s march, in the main upward, was here downward, and he encountered Abigail’s train, which was also moving downward.—[Wellhausen’s objection to this explanation as topographically taking too much for granted, seems unfounded, and there is no need for taking the verb (יָרַד) in the general sense of “pursuing one’s way.”—Tr.]
1Sa_25:21-22. A parenthetical explanation of David’s feeling and motive in making this movement. אָמַר = “had said.”—Only to deception [Eng. A. V. “surely in vain”], that is, only to be deceived in my just expectations, have I kept, etc. (comp. 1Sa_25:16), so that nothing was missed, he is indebted to me for the undiminished possession of his herds. David had a right to expect grateful requital from Nabal, instead of which Nabal returned him evil for good.
1Sa_25:22. Oath of vengeance. In this formula [“God do so to me and more also,” etc.], the divine punishment is commonly invoked on the swearer: “God punish me if,” etc. (comp. 1Sa_14:44; 1Sa_20:13). In some cases it is invoked on the person addressed, as in 1Sa_3:17.—[But there it is for failure in the person addressed, and, in general, the curse is invoked on the person failing to do something mentioned.—Tr.]—But here the curse is directed against persons not present; the sense is: God shall punish David’s enemies, if I take not this vengeance on them; so surely as God will not let this evil go unpunished, will I, etc. Instead of “enemies” (לְאוֹיְבֵי) Then, reads, after Syr. and Arab.: “his servant” (לִעַבְדּוֹ); but these versions have evidently substituted this reading to avoid the difficulty of the text.—[In spite of the support of Vulg. and Chald. (and indirectly of Syr. and Arab.), the word “enemies” must be omitted with Sept., being here meaningless and disturbing, and the curse must be considered as invoked on David’s own head. Erdmann’s defence of the text is far-fetched and unavailing. See “Text. and Gram.”—Tr.]—Mingentem ad parietem, that is, “every male.” Bähr on 1Ki_14:10 : “The expression may have been taken originally from dogs, and it is certainly not an honorable designation of the male sex, being used every-where (1Ki_16:11; 1Ki_21:21; 2Ki_9:8) of those who are cast out and exterminated.”—[See Ges., Thes. s. v. שִׁין, where the authorities are quoted, and decision given for the meaning “male person,” and not “mean, insignificant male”—Tr.]—David swears to root out Nabal and all the males of his house in revenge for the insult to his person, which he regards as a sin against the Lord in whose service he is.—[There is not the least evidence that David so regarded, or had a right so to regard Nabal’s fault; he acted under a weak, human impulse of unworthy revenge, from which he was estopped by God’s mercy.—Tr.]
1Sa_25:23-31. Abigail’s address to David.
1Sa_25:23 sq. In the most circumstantial manner five things are first mentioned as to Abigail’s conduct on meeting David, before the narrative comes to her words, which in their form and content confirm what is said in 1Sa_25:3 of her understanding. Her mode of doing reverence to David is based on her conviction that he is the divinely chosen future king of Israel, comp. 1Sa_25:30. This conviction had spread not only in the king’s house (Saul included), but also among the people.—On me, me, my lord, be the blame (בִּי אֲנִי, see Ges., § 121, 3). At the outset she gives the matter such a turn that David has to deal with her only, and is obliged to put Nabal out of sight. At the outset she assuredly opposes to David’s vengeance the contradictory statement, that, on the one hand (1Sa_25:25), she did not see David’s servants and knew nothing of Nabal’s contemptuous behaviour, and, on the other hand, she takes all the blame on herself. “Think not,” she says, “of the bad man, Nabal; for he is what his name signifies: foolishness is his companion (עִמּוֹ with him).” Here, as often happens, foolishness appears connected with wickedness and ungodliness. “Consider me alone as the guilty person with whom thou hast to do.” She does not, however, ask for pardon and forbearance; this she does not do till 1Sa_25:28; till then she urges what may turn David away from his revenge; from there on she points out to him the blessing he will receive from the Lord if he grants her request. 1Sa_25:26-27. She begins with “and now” each of the three sentences with which she introduces the petition, and seeks to secure David’s favor for it. First, indicating the highest point of view in which, as a God-fearing woman, she regards this meeting with the vengeful David, she affirms that God has thus restrained him from committing a grievous sin. (אֲשֶׁר is not here the superfluous ὅτι of indirect discourse, but is (Then.) dependent on the double חֵי־.) So true as—so true is it—the Lord hath kept thee from coming into blood-guiltiness and saving thyself. David would have brought the crime of blood on himself, and with his own hand against God’s will and command have procured help for himself.—Then she says: May all thy enemies be as Nabal, such fools as he; that is, thou standest under God’s protection and guidance, so that all who as thine enemies will, like Nabal, do thee evil, shall like him become fools, and fall under God’s punishment. Seb. Schmid: “whosoever does good to his enemies, and takes not vengeance on them, him will God Himself avenge, as it is said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” Thirdly, she says, 1Sa_25:27 : And now, this present … blessing (בְרָכָה) = gift of blessing, 1Sa_30:26; Gen_33:11. It is a delicate feature of her wise and skilful procedure that she offers the present, with which she designs to make good her husband’s neglect by dispensing what he ought to have offered, not to David himself, but to his men. On the: in the retinue of my lord comp. Exo_11:8; Jdg_4:10 (Keil).
1Sa_25:28. Forgive the trespass of thy handmaid.—With this brief word, which rests on that other: “on me be the blame,” she now makes her request for forgiveness and sparing. The following words to 1Sa_25:31 inclusive contain the promise of the divine blessing which, by fulfilling this request, David will receive instead of the curse that would follow revenge. Her personal affair serves her as occasion to speak to David of the future of his house and his life, and, indeed, she belongs to the prophetic women who, like Hannah, filled with the Spirit of the Lord, share in the theocratic inspiration and in the prophetic outlook into the future development of the theocracy. She says to David that the Lord would not leave the fulfilment of her request unrequited: 1) For the Lord will make my lord a sure house. Since she is sure of David’s call to the kingship of Israel, she means by “sure house” permanent kingly rule in his house. Comp. the divine promise, 2Sa_7:8 sq. [Bib.-Com. compares Rahab’s faith and foresight, Jos_11:9-13, and cites Abigail as an illustration of how faith and reason may concur now in leading men to Christ. “In connecting her prayer for forgiveness with the reference to David’s future reign, she is asking for complete pardon to be in force then.”—Tr.] 2) For my lord will fight the battles (wars) of the Lord. On the expression “wars of the Lord,” comp. 1Sa_18:17. In the celebrated warrior, who has fought and conquered in the name and power of the Lord, she sees the future royal hero, who, in the wars which the covenant-God as King of His people will wage against their enemies, will prove himself God’s champion. 3) And no evil will be found in thee all thy days. “Evil” (רָעָה) is here misfortune,” not “wickedness” (Mich., Dathe). She does not mean to say: “Thy hand will not be stained with wickedness, as would be the case if thou tookest revenge for this insult;” she says that in 1Sa_25:31. Here she predicts for him safety and good fortune as the gift of the Lord.
1Sa_25:29 attaches itself in its content to this third affirmation. The text reads “hath arisen” or “arises” (וָיָּקם), instead of which we must, with Then, and Böttch., after Tanchum, read it as Impf. (וְיָקֹם): And should a man arise.… Though she knows that Saul is persecuting David, she yet with delicate reserve expresses herself hypothetically. In relation to what precedes the sense is: “Though such a misfortune should come upon thee that some one should rise against thee … yet it will not continue.” [The text, however, as rendered in Eng. A. V., gives a good sense, and, as the fact was so notorious, the more open reference to Saul’s persecution could not be considered as an offence against delicacy. Bib.-Com., interpreting the sense properly, renders: “Though a man is risen … yet,” etc.—Tr.] What is bound in a bundle is safely kept. The bundle of the living [Eng. A. V. life] with the Lord is thus the figurative expression for those whose life is under the protection of God’s love. In contrast with the wicked human power, which might seek after his life, she points him to the safe preservation of his life which is involved in the inclusion of his person in the community of the godly, whose life—that is, their temporal-earthly life, since she is not speaking here of the eternal life beyond, to which Keil finds here an indirect reference38—is preserved inviolable in God’s hand. Then the contrast: But the life of thy enemies will he sling out in the pan of the sling—an energetic expression for the divine rejection in contrast with gracious preservation. The “pan” of the sling is the hollow for the reception of the missile. See Gen_32:26 [hollow of the thigh].
1Sa_25:30 is the protasis, 1Sa_25:31 the apodosis. In the words: And when the Lord shall appoint thee ruler over Israel, Abigail shows that she is acquainted with God’s choice and calling of David to be king of Israel. This she had probably learned through personal acquaintance with those prophetic circles, her spiritual affinity with which is shown by her words. Here she looks out beyond the attacks of his enemies to the goal of his divine calling which David has reached. Then (1Sa_25:31) “this will not be a stumbling-block and vexation of heart to thee that thou didst shed blood without cause, and also that my lord with his own hand helped himself.” The word “this” (זֹאת) does not refer to the request for forgiveness in 1Sa_25:28 (Keil), but to the two following facts, namely, bloodshed and self-help. The sense is: After obtaining the kingdom, thou wilt not have a bad conscience in the recollection of having shed innocent (innocent, that is, in respect to such revenge) blood, and depended on thyself for help. In the words: And when the Lord shall do good to my lord, she briefly includes all her wishes and hopes for David, that to her so deeply-grounded request for forgiveness (1Sa_25:28) she may in conclusion attach the thought of future prosperity. (וְהֵיטִיב is to be taken as condition or hypothetical indication of the desired result).
1Sa_25:32-35. David’s answer and conduct to Abigail.
1Sa_25:32. Thankful acknowledgment that the Lord had sent her to him. So, in his whole life even in errors and faults David knows himself to be under the oversight and guidance of the divine providence.
1Sa_25:33. Having given due honor to the Lord, he praises Abigail’s wisdom and her opposition to his purpose so displeasing to the Lord. He acknowledges that she has restrained him from bloody revenge and ungodly self-help, and confesses his sin and guilt in forming such a plan.
1Sa_25:34. His discourse advances rapidly to the declaration (which strengthens that thankful acknowledgment) that, but for her interposition, he would have exterminated Nabal’s house. “For otherwise” (וְאוּלָם), Vulg. alioquin, “otherwise” [Eng. A. V. “in very deed”].—By the life of the Lord, the God of Israel, who, etc., I swear that if thou, etc., that nothing would have remained.—The thought that the Lord had brought her to meet him is here completed by the parenthetic declaration: God the Lord has here Himself interfered with my purpose, and through thee prevented the execution of the wicked deed.39
1Sa_25:35. David accepts the present, and dismisses Abigail with the assurance that her request is granted. “To accept the person” (נָשָׂא פָנִים) = “to have regard to,” Gen_19:21.
1Sa_25:36-38. Nabal’s death.
1Sa_25:36. Abigail finds Nabal in the revel of a feast.—Like a king’s feast, as rich and luxurious. Compare the description of the rich man, Luke 19. “Merry on account of it,” that is, the feast. The reference (in עָלָיו) to the feast (Maur., De W., Keil), as in Pro_23:30, answers better to Nabal’s thorough self-abandonment to pleasure than the reference to his person: “within him” [so Eng. A. V.]; and this view is confirmed by the following words: he was very drunken. 1Sa_25:37. Not till next morning, when the wine was gone out of him, that is, not by vomiting, but by the gradual passing off of the debauch, can Abigail tell him what has happened. The choleric man is so affected by it that he has an apoplectic stroke. The cause of this is neither horror at his loss (Then.), for Abigail’s gift to David was insignificant, nor at the danger, hitherto unsuspected, which threatened him (Cler., Mich.), for this could not surprise him, he must have contemplated its possibility when he dismissed David’s messengers,40—but the violent anger and vexation of the passionate man (always hard and inflexible), because his right had been usurped, his authority as master ignored, and the whole business transacted by his wife against his will with the hated David.—His heart … stone; here we must retain the text [“he became a stone”], and not render with the VSS.: “as a stone” (Then.)., the strong hyperbole of the text corresponding to the preceding expression: “his heart died,” and the reading of these VSS. being obviously an explanatory change [so Eng. A. V.].
1Sa_25:38. It is expressly said, that Nabal’s death, which did not occur till ten days after the stroke, was a dispensation of the Lord. As an execution by God’s hand, this death is here, though not expressly in words (as in 1Sa_25:39), yet in the connection represented as a punishment for his ungodliness.
1Sa_25:39-42. Abigail David’s wife.
1Sa_25:39. In Nabal’s sudden death David recognizes God’s judgment for the insult offered him, over against the revenge which he himself would have taken, from which the Lord estopped him in order Himself to exercise vengeance. This rests on the thought that the insult offered David was also offered to the Lord, since David was the Lord’s Anointed, and represented the Lord’s cause. The figure is of a case in law, which is settled by the judicial decision. The “law-cause of my reproach,” that is, the reproach offered me, on account of which the Lord had to appear against Nabal as Judge and Avenger. Connect the “from the hand” with “pleaded” [רָב], not with “my reproach,” and render pregnantly [Germ. zeugmatically.—Tr.]: “he has conducted my cause to a conclusion out of the hand,” that is, he has collected the costs from the condemned person, and has settled the matter by the infliction of the proper punishment.”—And the wickedness of Nabal. The connection shows that these are the words of David, not of the narrator (Then.).
1Sa_25:40. David’s formal application for the hand of Abigail.
1Sa_25:41. With the expression of the deepest devotion in gesture and word, according to oriental custom, she declares herself ready to become David’s wife.
1Sa_25:42. She sets out with a small train, “five damsels,” her ordinary retinue (הַהֹלֽכוֹת ל׳), to follow David’s servants and become his wife.
1Sa_25:43-44. Appendix concerning David’s matrimonial and domestic relations, occasioned by the account of his marriage with Abigail.—And Ahinoam David had taken from Jezreel, that is, before his marriage with Abigail (Then.); Jezreel is not the city in Issachar (Jos_19:18), but in the hill-country of Judah (Jos_15:55-56), near Maon, Carmel and Ziph. “And these two also,” where “also” (גַּם) refers to Michal, 1Sa_18:28.
Ver.44. Saul “had given” (נָתַן, as the “had taken” above, in Pluperf. sense) Michal to Palti (2Sa_3:18) to wife. Gallim, in Benjamin, between Gibeah of Saul and Jerusalem, Isa_10:30.
HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
1. The universal mourning among the whole people at Samuel’s death is a sign that they had preserved the deepest impressions and influences of his reformatory work, and honored in him, even after his withdrawal from public labors, the great restorer of the genuine theocracy. Their sorrow at his decease was the deeper, the more heavily the yoke of Saul’s misgovernment pressed on them. “It was as if from the noble star, as long as it shone in the heaven of the holy land, though veiled by clouds, there streamed a mild, beneficent light over all Israel. Now this star was extinguished in Israel” (F. W. Krummacher).
2. Self-help by one’s own might through revenge is as sinful and ungodly when one knows or supposes that he has suffered insult for the Lord’s sake, or in His service, as when one feels his own honor violated. There is always thus a headstrong and impatient anticipating of God’s counsel and work in the interest of passion, opposition to the fundamental law, according to which God’s justice, not man’s revenge, is the guardian of moral order, and every man receives what is his in the right time and way, according to the attitude of his heart to God. By his excitable temperament, which tends to overflow in passion, David is in great danger of setting himself against the supreme tribunal of divine justice, and taking vengeance into his own hands instead of leaving it to God. “For the first time we find him not master of his spirit, overborne by the passion, which is indeed a natural trait of his character.—He purposes to break the peace, to seize the property of others, and to stain his hands with the blood of peaceful, yea, kindred citizens. This time surely he had not prayed, nor inquired of the Lord through the ‘Light and Right’ [Urim and Thummim]. If he had executed what his wrath suggested—and it was not his doing if it went no farther than suggestion—he would have given the death-blow to his honor and his cause” (F. W. Krummacher).
3. God rules and watches with such paternal special providence and care over those that humbly look to His guidance that, when they are in danger through their own flesh and blood of falling into sin, He raises up persons to guide them by exhortation, warning, and instruction into the right way, He enlightens and strengthens them by His word, so that they see in good time their moral danger and how to avoid it, and go firmly on, and at last praise the Lord for such gracious preservation. “David praised God that He had kept him from sin, and yet saved his honor.—So well does everything at last turn out with those who give heed to God and their own heart. God receives them when they fall, and raises them up when they are cast down; but the ungodly, who listen to nothing and hate instruction, cool their wrath and perish” (Roos).—“That David, like every human being, was not free from desire of revenge, to which he was especially exposed from his liveliness of feeling, is shown in 1 Samuel 25. But there is needed only a slight rousing of his conscience, and he says to Abigail (1Sa_25:31-32): ‘The Lord be praised who hath sent thee to meet me to-day. And blessed be thy discourse, and blessed be thou,’ etc. And what Abigail could do, could not the presence of the Holy One have done, before whom he stood when he sang his Psalm?” (Hengst., 4:302.)
4. Abigail belongs to the prophetic personages of this time, and takes a prominent place among the pious women of the Old Covenant. In contrast with her ungodly, doltish, hard-hearted, thankless, avaricious, purse-proud, rough, and riotous husband, she is deeply pious, clever and intelligent, thankful, generous, humble, of noble disposition and fine tact, intellectual, and gifted with pleasing and winning speech.—Solomon says: “By wise women the house is builded, but a foolish woman destroys it.” This word finds a noble confirmation in Abigail as housewife in respect to this perverse man sunk in sordid avarice and gross materialism.—“Where do we find in all the heathen world a woman comparable with Abigail, the daughter of the wilderness? Unfortunate, indeed, she is. Ah, her house, however blessed with earthly goods, is no Bethany-cottage. With deep sorrow she must call her rude, Mammon-serving husband a ‘fool.’ But she bears with him in patient, hopeful love and faithfulness, and doubtless often lifts holy hands to God for him. So for him she goes to David, like a sacrificial lamb taking her husband’s misdeed on herself. She holds up also to David the grievous sin with which he would have laden himself if he had carried out his purpose against the man.—Indeed the truth and sincerity, the dovelike simplicity united to sanctified wisdom, which appears in the childlike-pious address of the noble woman, is worthy of our liveliest admiration. Who can fail to see that here already the Spirit from above was working mightily? Is it not almost as if in her we heard an advanced disciple of the Gospel speak? Has not her word: ‘Thou shalt be bound in the bundle of the living of the Lord’ been long naturalized in the language of the whole Christian congregation as a favorite expression, and as the designation of the most precious thing that man can desire on earth?” (F. W. Krummacher).—“What wisdom, what humility, what free-heartedness, what order we find in her words! How well she knew how to speak to David’s heart! How well her whole discourse was suited to her position as woman! I know no example of eloquence that excels this. Doubtless she had not studied eloquence in the schools, but the Spirit of God alone made her such an orator. God put wisdom into her heart, and it flowed out in wise discourse” (Roos).—Abigail appears as an organ of the Spirit of God, the prophetic spirit breathes through her words, and she speaks to David in the manner of the prophets. She sees clearly and declares to David with vigorous, heart-searching, and conscience-piercing words, that his high-handed, revengeful purpose is against God’s law and order; she convinces him of his deep guilt, and brings him to acknowledge that she is God’s instrument to save him from a wicked deed which would have cast a dark shadow over his future life; she announces his future royal calling and his lofty mission therein as hero to wage the wars of the Lord against the enemies of God’s people, earnestly exhorts him to walk conformably to the glory and holiness of this calling, predicts under this condition the continuance of the royal dignity in his house (comp. 2 Samuel 7), and promises him the rich blessings of the favor of God. Thus in her is presented the type of the guardian watch-office of prophecy in relation to the royal office. Abigail could so speak only as moved or filled by the prophetic Spirit; and the means thereto was her personal relation to the prophetic circles, whose centre Samuel was till his death and to which all truly God-fearing persons attached themselves. As the prophetic community was at this time of great importance for awakening and cherishing a new religious-moral life in the people, it cannot be surprising if we meet with personages, like Abigail, among the people, filled and illuminated with the prophetic Spirit.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Chap. 25. J. Disselhoff: Let the righteous smite me kindly and reprove me: 1) Even the beloved of the Lord, when he watches not his heart, falls into wrath that deserves reproof; 2) The gracious God sends His beloved ones the deserved reproof through some human mouth; 3) The way in which any one receives reproof shows how far he is a man after God’s own heart.
1Sa_25:1. Remember your teachers, etc. Heb_13:7. [The aged man is laid aside, and sinks out of the popular view; and when at length he dies, people are startled as they recall how great a man he was in his prime, how great a work he did. It is something to live so that one’s death will be truly mourned by a whole people. The old, who sadly think themselves forgotten, may find solace not only in reviewing the past, but also in the persuasion that yet once again they will be vividly remembered; while the younger should strive to anticipate the feelings of that coming time, and show respect and affection while it can be fully enjoyed.—Tr.]
1Sa_25:2 sqq. Cramer: Wealth, consideration, power, and good fortune, are nothing without wisdom (Pro_17:16). Therefore we should prefer wisdom and virtue to all temporal things; for riches and rank do not help against folly.—Schlier: What does money help us, when we make Mammon our idol, and know only how to rake and scrape and get rich? How well it would be if we did but once believe that money is not man’s fortune, and that with all riches we may yet be unfortunate people.—[Hall: Even the line of faithful Caleb will afford an ill-conditioned Nabal. Virtue is not, like unto lands, inheritable.—Tr.]
1Sa_25:10 sq. Berl. B.: The fountain of his speech is avarice, and the stream is malignity. So the rich of the world are often haughty and unfriendly, and thereby show themselves to be true Nabals or fools, as Christ also named that rich farmer.—Schlier: Let us not look at Nabal, we will rather think of ourselves.—There is nothing that releases us from the duty of thankfulness, let the other person be as he will. To whomsoever you owe thanks, to him you should also show your thanks. And such ingratitude is doubly a wrong, when the fault on the other’s part, because of which you refuse the thanks, is only an imagined fault, when you have only a wicked grudge against him, as Nabal considered David a seditious person, although he was the most faithful subject of the king.—[Scott: When worldly men are determined not to relieve the necessitous, they often excuse themselves by railing; by charging the vices of some poor persons upon all; and by representing almsgiving as an encouragement to idleness, impertinence, and extravagance: nor are the most excellent characters any defence against such undistinguishing invectives.—Tr.]
1Sa_25:13. Starke: How subject are the best of God’s saints to weak passions! Ye who are pious, recognise this fact, and diligently call on God for the government of His Spirit (Jer_10:23). Schlier: If wrong is done us, we will commit vengeance to the Lord, and will be afraid of all self-revenge. He who suffers injuries and commits his revenge to the Lord, is a righteous man; but it is unmanly to give free course to one’s revenge, and to do what flesh and blood prompts.—Berl. B.: David here felt something quite human, and fell into sudden heat at the affront offered him, and the contemptuous ingratitude of the rude arch-churl. His passions started up, and most of all because Nabal had treated him shamefully when he had done him no hurt. In such a case it may well be said: “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (Jam_1:20).—[1Sa_25:13. Henry: “Is this thy voice, O David?” Can this man after God’s own heart speak thus unadvisedly with his lips? … .Is this he who, but the other day, spared him who sought his life, and yet now will not spare anything that belongs to him who had only put an affront on his messengers? Lord, what is man! What need have we to pray, Lord, “lead us not into temptation!” 1Sa_25:18 : Henry: The passion of fools often makes those breaches in a little time, which the wise, with all their wisdom, have much ado to make up again.—Tr.]
1Sa_25:19. Starke: Silence has its time, speech has also its time. Well for those who know how to suit themselves thereto (Ecc_3:7 sq.).
1Sa_25:22. Berl. Bib.: David here completely changes into a barbarous man, and forgets himself altogether. If this purpose had been carried into execution, Saul would for the first time have had a just cause for pursuing him as a disturber of the public peace.
1Sa_25:23 sqq. Schlier: Men’s wrath is a frightful enemy, and works not the righteousness of God, and yet there is a means of making this enemy no longer hurtful, namely, a friendly, loving word.—Let us especially when one falls into wrath observe well whether we cannot perhaps quiet such wrath by a mild, gentle word. A word spoken in season, and with an eye to the Lord, is not in vain.—When we are on a bad way, the Lord comes not in miracles and signs to bring us to good ways, but He interposes through men. He warns us through parents and friends and other connections, and their word is the Lord’s word.
1Sa_25:27. Starke: Free and rich gifts bring blessing with them; therefore give, and it is given to you (2Co_9:5-6).—Osiander: 1Sa_25:29. Our life is not in the power of our enemies, except so far as God permits it them (Job_2:6).—[1Sa_25:31. Henry: When we are tempted to sin, we should consider how it will appear in the reflection. Let us never do anything for which our own conscience will afterward have occasion to upbraid us.—Taylor: Only a woman could have managed such a negotiation as this so smoothly and successfully; but only a God-fearing woman would have managed it so as to bring David to a sense of the sinfulness of the act which he had been about to commit.
1Sa_25:32-35. Hall: A good heart is easily stayed from sinning, and is glad when it finds occasion to be crossed in ill purposes.—Wicked vows are ill made, but worse kept. Our tongue cannot tie us to commit sin. Good men think themselves happy, that since they had not the grace to deny sin, yet they had not the opportunity to accomplish it.—Tr.]
1Sa_25:36-38. Schlier: So true it is that sin is ruin to the people. What multitudes think that with avarice one can get rich, and yet avarice is a root of all evil; how many think by hard-heartedness and selfishness to get on, and yet thereby every one is only building up his own misfortune; what multitudes think that if they should give themselves up to excesses, they would get pleasure and enjoyment therefrom, and yet all good-living comes only of evil.—[Hall: It was no time to advise Nabal, while his reason was drowned in a deluge of wine. A beast, or a stone, is as capable of good counsel as a drunkard. O that the noblest creature should so far abase himself as for a little liquor to lose the use of those faculties whereby he is a man!—“O that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!”—Tr.]
1Sa_25:39 sqq. Schlier: It is a good thing to trust in the Lord and give up everything to Him. All self-revenge in every case comes of evil; but to contain one’s self, to suppress one’s wrath, to turn over vengeance to the Lord, brings good fortune and blessing.
[1Sa_25:2-11. Nabal: 1) His advantages: a) Of excellent family (1Sa_25:3, comp. Jos_14:6; Jos_15:13); b) Very wealthy; c) Having a wife most remarkable not only for personal beauty (1Sa_25:3), but for thoughtfulness, energy, tact and grace. 2) His faults: a) Avaricious and stingy in the extreme; b) Yet ostentatious of his wealth (1Sa_25:36); c) A drunken sot; d) A fool; e) Rude and insulting habitually (1Sa_25:17). What a son of Caleb! what a husband for Abigail! 3) His ignoble end. Remembered for his faults, and from his connection with the men he insulted.
[1Sa_25:23-31. A specimen of the soft answer that turneth away wrath: 1) She takes the blame on herself, so as to divert attention from the offender (1Sa_25:24). 2) She extenuates the offence, and makes amends for it, as far as the circumstances admit (1Sa_25:25; 1Sa_25:27). 3) She delicately assumes that the wrathful purpose will be abandoned through divine influence (1Sa_25:26). 4) She turns the angry man’s mind towards a future of great and sure prosperity, through Jehovah’s blessing (1Sa_25:28-29). 5) She declares that in that happy time he will be glad he did not to-day incur blood-guiltiness (1Sa_25:30-31). The sum of the whole is that she makes him forget his wrath in thoughts of Jehovah and of the brilliant future which Jehovah has in reserve for him. The result appears in 1Sa_25:32-33.
[1Sa_25:32-33. South: “Prevention of sin is one of the greatest mercies that God can vouchsafe a man in this world.” South a) shows the danger that sin unprevented may never be pardoned, and b) argues that prevention is better than pardon; and in the “Application,” urges a) that a higher satisfaction is to be found from a conquered than from a conquering passion; b) that the temper with which we receive providential prevention of sin is a criterion of the gracious or ungracious disposition of our hearts; c) that we ought thankfully to acquiesce in any providential crosses, since these may be the instruments of preventing grace.—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1][1Sa_25:1. Some MSS. have simply “went,” יֵלֵךְ instead of יֵרִדִ.—Tr.]
[2][1Sa_25:1. This reading is well defended by Erdmann against the Sept. “Maon” which is preferred by Wellh. and Bib. Comm.—Tr.]
[3][1Sa_25:2. Eng. A. V. here follows the Vulg., factum est ut tonderetur grex eius. But the exacter rendering seems to be: “and he was, when he was shearing his sheep, in Carmel” (so Cahen, Philippson, and apparently Sept.). On the other hand the Syr. takes וַיְהִי in the sense: “and it came to pass,” the rest of the clause being the Relative protasis, 1Sa_25:3-4 parenthesis, and 1Sa_25:5 the apodosis: “and it came to pass, when he was shearing, etc., (and the name … his sheep), that David sent, etc.” This construction is adopted by Then., Erdmann, and in part (1Sa_25:3) by Cahen. To this Wellh. properly objects that 1Sa_25:2 is closely connected with 1Sa_25:3, and 1Sa_25:4 with 1Sa_25:5, and that the proposed construction would require the suffix וֹ to בִּנְןן. The Heb. text (simple Inf.) is confirmed by Sept. and Chald. and perhaps by Syr. (Partcp. without following Pron.), and it is to be noticed that the Greek has ἐγενήθη (as in 1Sa_25:20) and not ἐγένετο, which is the usual rendering of the pleonastic or anticipatory וַיְהי (as in 1Sa_25:37-38). Statements, more naturally conceived by us as parenthetic, are frequently put in Heb. in the form of continuous narration.—Tr.]
[4][1Sa_25:3. So the Qeri. The Kethib or text is discussed by Erdmann in Expos.—Tr.]
[5][1Sa_25:5. Literally: “ask him as to peace.” On the pointing of שְׁאֶלְתֶּם see Ges. Gr., § 44, 2 Rem. 2.—Tr.]
[6][1Sa_25:6. לֶחָי֑. In the impossibility of determining the form and sense of this word it seems better to omit the certainly wrong rendering of Eng. A. V. (though it is adopted by Philippson), especially as the word, whatever its meaning, cannot affect the general sense of the clause. See Erdm. in Expos.—Tr.]
[7][1Sa_25:6. This “both” is intended as translation of ו, but this letter must be stricken out, or, possibly, attached to preceding word (Bib. Com.).—Tr.]
[8][1Sa_25:7. So the Heb. and the VSS., except Sept. which reads: “that thy shepherds are now shearing for thee,” connecting the following הָר׳ with the Partcp., which the connection does not allow. Yet the Heb. phrase sounds curt and strange. We should expect “thou art shearing,” or, “they are shearing for thee.”—Tr.]
[9][1Sa_25:7. The Seghol of the ה is a neighboring form to Chireq, both being degradations (the latter more advanced) of the original Pattach.—Tr.]
[10][1Sa_25:8. Sing. in some MSS. and Edd., “thy servant, namely, thy son, David,” perhaps from failure to see the application to David’s young men. Sept. omits the word.—Tr.]
[11][1Sa_25:9. Some MSS. read עַבְדֵי “servants,” indicating a certain vacillation in the use of these synonyms.—Tr.]
[12][1Sa_25:9. Erdmann: “sat down,” Chald., Vulg., Philippson, Cahen, Wellhausen as Eng. A. V., Bib. Comm.: “rested.” Syr. eludes the difficulty (as it often does) by omitting the word. For various text-words which Sept. (ἀνεπήδησε) may have had before it see Schleusner s. v. If we retain the Heb., the rendering of Eng. A. V. is as good as any other; for the impression made on us is that Nabal’s answer followed immediately on the delivery of the message (so that there was no occasion to rest), and, if a considerable time (as a night) had intervened between message and answer, it would probably have been mentioned. Yet the passage is not satisfactory; we do not expect to be informed here that David’s messengers ceased when they had said their say, or sat down to rest; we should rather look for some intimation of churlish bearing on Nabal’s part, which, however, cannot well be found (even by changing our word) in the present form of the Heb. text.—Tr.]
[13][1Sa_25:10. Wellh. inserts the Art. before ע׳, yet Heb. (perhaps the conversational language particularly) allowed latitude in this respect.—Tr.]
[14][1Sa_25:12. So Heb., Chald., Sept. and Erdmann (gleich); the כ is omitted by Syr., Arab. and Vulg. which last Eng. A. V. probably follows.—Tr.]
[15][1Sa_25:14. Or, “flew on them.” See the Exposition. Chald. and Syr. “was disgusted with them” (from קיּץ or קוּט)—Tr.]
[16][1Sa_25:17. The rendering of the Syr. is strange: “he was with the shepherds.” Is this a copyist’s erroneous repetition of the end of the preceding verse?
[17][1Sa_25:21. Sept. (“we prescribed not”) and Theodotion (“we demanded not”) take this wrongly as 1 plu. Impf. (in the Coislin. it is Sing.), where Symmachus has διεΦώνησεν in the sense of “perished” (see Schleusner), Vulg. periit.—Tr.]
[18][1Sa_25:22. The sense of the common formula requires the omission of this phrase, for the insertion of which there is no good reason here. It is not improbable, as Wellhausen suggests, that it was added by a copyist who saw that in fact David had not carried out his scheme of destruction, and would thus avert the imprecation from his head to that of his enemies. But such an imprecation is always to be considered as resting on two conditions: 1) if it be wrong, it must be withdrawn, and 2) if its occasion be removed, it is null and void.—Tr.]
[19][1Sa_25:22. The word “light” (אוֹר) is omitted in Sept., Syr., Vulg., and in many MSS. and Edd.; it was perhaps introduced by a copyist from 1Sa_25:34.—Tr.]
[20][1Sa_25:23. We should here expect אָרְצָה as one MS. has it.—Tr.]
[21][1Sa_25:24. In this description of Abigail’s demeanor (1Sa_25:23-24) the עַל “on” before רַנְלָיו and the two prostrations are somewhat difficult. The difficulty is removed by the Sept. which omits the second “fell” (1Sa_25:24). But here we should probably maintain the harder reading, and it is likely that Abigail's anxiety and trepidation made her movement somewhat elaborate and complicated.—Tr.]
[22][1Sa_25:25. Aquila: ἀπόῤῥευσις (see Ges., Thes. on נָכֵל), on which says Schol. (in Schleusner): ’Ακύλας ἡρμήνευσεν ἀπόῤῥευσις μετ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ γὰρ λογισμοῦ ὑποῤῥέοντός τε καὶ σβεννυμένου, τὸ τῆς ἀφροσύνης γίνεαι πάθος.—Tr.]
[23][1Sa_25:26. We here expect the מֵ to be repeated before the Inf.—Tr.]
[24][1Sa_25:27. The fem. form (see 1Sa_25:35) is found in some MSS. and Edd., and in some is given as Qeri.—Tr.]
[25][1Sa_25:29. Erdmann: “should a man arise.” Sept. has the Fut. The rendering of Eng. A. V. seems to suit the connection better.—Erdmann: “the bundle of the living,” which is the same in general meaning with Eng. A. V.—Tr.]
[26][1Sa_25:29. So the Heb., Sept. and Syr. The general meaning is clear, but the VSS. vary in the rendering. Chald: “As those who sling stones in a sling.” Vulg.: inimicorum tuorum anima rotabitur quasi in impetu et circulo fundœ. The Heb. is difficult, but perhaps for that reason better retained.—Tr.]
[27][1Sa_25:31. Commonly now rendered “stumbling-block.”—Wellh. would regard לֵב as clerical repetition of לְךָ and לַאדֹנִי as courtly correction of the latter, and would omit these two words. This would give the simple rendering: “This will not be to thee an offence and a stumbling-block” (Sept. σκάνδαλον), and get rid of the apparently cumbrous “to my lord.” Yet here again simplifying corrections are suspicious.—Tr.]
[28][1Sa_25:31. The “either” is translation of ו, which is better stricken out.—The construction seems to require us to supply “his hand” (ידוֹ) as in 1Sa_25:26; 1Sa_25:33).—Tr.]
[29][1Sa_25:31. The Sept. adds flatly and indelicately “to do good to her.”—Tr.]
[30][1Sa_25:33. Thy “good sense, discretion.”—Tr.]
[31][1Sa_25:37. The Arab. VS. and some MSS. insert “all” (כֹּל).—Tr.]
[32][1Sa_25:38. Wellh. rejects the Art. as the time is not defined, but the Heb. allows in such cases definiteness of statement.—Tr.]
[33][1Sa_25:42. The Partcp. has the Art., and so we render better: “the five, etc., that went.” Sept. omits the Art., which may be a repetition from the preceding ה; but the Heb. gives a good sense. The Partcp. is not necessarily predicate, but may be subject along with “Abigail.”—Tr.]
[34][Bib. Com. compares the death and burial of Moses, Deu_34:5-6; Deu_34:8.—Tr.]
[35][So Mr. Hayman in Smith’s Bib. Dict., Art. “Paran,” who suggests that the skirts of the great wilderness may have passed (without well-fixed dividing lines) under different names, Zin, Maon, etc.—Tr.]
[36][On this construction see “Text. and Gram.,” where a different view is taken.—Tr.]
[37]Instead of וַיָעַט Thenius proposes to read וָיָקט because several VSS. so render, Sept. ἐξέκλινεν απ’ αὐτῶν, Sym. ἀπεστράφη, Vulg. aversatus est eos; but this is unsafe, for 1) to the phrase: “he was disgusted with them,” we must then give the sense: “he treated them with contempt” (Then.), which the substituted verb does not permit, and 2) it is tolerably clear that these VSS. read wrongly ויּט from נטה in the transitive sense: “to turn one's self”=“thrust out of the way,” Job_24:4; comp. Amo_2:7, “lead aside,” 2Sa_3:27, “repulse,” Psa_27:9.
[38][So Abarbanel], Targ., Talmud Shab. 152, 2; Chag. 12, 2; Pirk. El. 34 (Philippson).—Tr.]
[39] מְהַָרַע—Inf. Const. Hiph. from כִּי ּרָעַע is dependent on a verb of affirmation which is to be supplied from the connection. The repetition of the כִּי is occasioned by the parenthesis “unless thou.” The strange form תָּבֹאתִי, Impf. with termination of Perf., is either a clerical error for תָּבֹאִי, perhaps arisen from the following word, in which the final בִי is preceded by א (Then.); comp. Olsh. Gr., pp. 452, 525; or, according to Ew. §191 c, a strengthened form of 2 fem. Impf. as תָּבוֹאתָה, Deu_33:16 (Keil).
[40][Not necessarily. It seems not unlikely that fright had something to do with his seizure.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain Ch. 1Sa_25:1. Samuel’s death and burial
Ch. 1Sa_25:1. Samuel’s death and burial
1. all the Israelites, &c.] A public mourning was held as after the death of Moses (Deu_34:8), and the whole nation met to do honour to him, who for well nigh eighty years had gone in and out amongst them as Prophet, Judge, and Counsellor of the King.
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in his house] Not actually in the house, which would have been inconsistent with the laws of ceremonial purity (Num_19:16), but in some court or garden attached to the house. Compare 2Ch_33:20 with 2Ki_21:18. The Mussulman tradition places the prophet’s tomb on the hill known as Neby Samwil, five miles N.W. of Jerusalem, but see note on 1Sa_1:1.
the wilderness of Paran] A general name for the great tract of desert south of Palestine, between the wilderness of Shur on the west, Edom on the east, and the wilderness of Sinai on the south. It was the abode of Ishmael (Gen_21:21); the scene of the wanderings of the Israelites; and the place from which the spies were sent (Num_10:12; Num_13:3). The Sept. reads Maon, but the change is unnecessary, if we suppose the term Paran to be used with some latitude.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) And Samuel died.—At this period—namely, about the time…
(1) And Samuel died.—At this period—namely, about the time when Saul and David met at En-gedi—died Samuel, full of years and honour—perhaps rather than honours, for a long time the old prophet had lived apart from the court, and alienated from the king he had chosen and anointed. Since Moses, none so great as Samuel had arisen. Briefly to recapitulate his work: his influence had in great measure restored the Law of Moses to the affections of the people. Before his time, the words and traditions which the great lawgiver, amidst the supernatural terrors of Sinai, had with some success impressed upon the great nomadic tribe of the Beni-Israel were almost forgotten; and the people among whom, for a long period, no really great leader had sprung up were becoming rapidly mixed up, and soon would have been hardly distinguished from the warlike tribes of Canaan in the neighbouring countries. But Samuel, aided by his great natural genius, but far more by the Glorious Arm, on which he leaned with a changeless trust from childhood to extreme old age, quickened into life again the dying traditions of the race, and taught them who they—the down-trodden Israelites—really were—the chosen of God. He restored the forgotten laws of Moses, by the keeping of which they once became great and powerful, and by the creation of an earthly monarchy he welded into one the separate interests of the twelve divisions of the race; so that from Dan to Beersheba there was but one chief, one standard. But his greatest work was the foundation of the Prophetic Schools, in which men were trained and educated carefully, with the view of the pupils becoming in their turn the teachers and guides of the people. (These schools, which exercised so great an influence upon the future of Israel, and their especial character have been already discussed.)
And all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him.—“When the hour of his death came, we are told, with a peculiar emphasis of expression, that all the Israelites—not one portion or fragment only, as might have been expected in that time of division and confusion—were gathered together round him who had been the father of all alike, and lamented him, and buried him, not in any sacred spot or secluded sepulchre, but in the midst of the home which he had consecrated only by his own long, unblemished career in his house at Ramah.”—Stanley, Jewish Church, Lect. 18 Josephus makes especial mention of the public funeral honours paid to the great prophet. “They wept for him a very great number of days, not looking on it as a sorrow for the death of another man, but as that in which they were all concerned. He was a righteous man, and gentle in his nature, and on that account he was very dear to God.”—Antt. vi. 13, § 5. F. W. Krummacher beautifully writes on this public lamentation. “It was as if from the noble star, as long as it shone in the heaven of the Holy Land, though veiled by clouds, there streamed a mild, beneficial light over all Israel; now the light was extinguished in Israel.” It is probable by “in his house,” the court or garden attached to the prophet’s house is signified. To have buried him literally in his house would have occasioned perpetual ceremonial defilement. We read also of Manasseh the king being “buried in his own house” (2Ch_33:20), which is explained in 2Ki_21:18 by the words, “in the garden of his own house.” In modern times Samuel’s grave is pointed out in a cave underneath the floor of the Mahommedan Mosque on Nebi Samuel, a lofty peak above Gibeon, which still bears his honoured name. There is, however, a tradition that his remains—or what purported to be his remains—were removed with royal pomp from Ramah to Constantinople by the Emperor Arcadius, at the beginning of the fifth century.
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The wilderness of Paran.—The LXX. (Vatican) read “Maon” instead of “Paran,” not conceiving it probable that the scene of David’s camp would be so far removed from Maon and Carmel, the localities where the following events took place. “Paran” is properly the south of the Arabian peninsula, west of Sinai; “but it seems to have given its name to the vast extent of pasture and barren land now known as the Desert of El Tih. Of this the wilderness of Judah and Beersheba would virtually form part, without the borders being strictly defined. The LXX. emendation, therefore, is quite unnecessary.—Dean Payne Smith.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain DEATH OF SAMUEL (ver. 1).
DEATH OF SAMUEL (ver. 1).
Ver. 1. And Samuel died. According to Josephus, Samuel had for eighteen years been contemporaneous with Saul"s kingdom. If this calculation, which probably rests upon some Jewish tradition, be at all correct, we must include the years of Samuel"s judgeship in the sum total of Saul"s reign, (see on 1Sa_13:1) as evidently his fall was now fast approaching. Samuel"s life marked the beginning of the second age of Israelite history. (Act_3:24) Moses had given the people their law, but Samuel in the schools of the prophets provided for them that education without which a written law was powerless, and called forth also and regulated that living energy in the prophetic order which, claiming an all but equal authority, modified and developed it, and continually increased its breadth and force, until the last prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, with supreme and Divine power reenacted it as the religion of the whole world. And as neither his educational institutions nor the prophetic order, whose ordinary duties were closely connected with these schools, could hare flourished without internal quietness and security, Samuel also established the Jewish monarchy, which was ideally also necessary, because the Messiah must not only be priest and prophet, but before all things a king (Mat_2:1, Mat_2:6; Joh_18:37) And side by side with the kingdom he lived on to see the military successes of the first king, and the firm establishment of the royal power; but to witness also the development of that king into a despot, the overclouding of his mind with fits of madness, the designation of his successor, the probation of that successor by manifold trials, his ripening fitness under them to be the model of a theocratic king, and his growth in power so as practically to be now safe from all Saul"s evil purposes. And so in the fulness of time Samuel died, and all Israel gathered together and made lamentation for him, (see Gen_1:10) and buried him in his house. The tomb at present shown as that of Samuel is situated upon a lofty hill, the identification of which with Ramah is very uncertain. Probably he was buried not actually in his house, as that would lead to perpetual ceremonial defilement (Num_19:16; Luk_11:44) but in some open spot in his garden (comp. 2Ch_33:20) So Joab was buried in his own house. (1Ki_2:34) At Ramah. Thenius thinks that the prophets shared with the kings the right of intramural burial.
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DAVID IN THE WILDERNESS OF PARAN (vers. 1-42).
DAVID ASKS A GIFT OF THE WEALTHY NABAL AND IS REFUSED (vers. 1-13).
David arose. This is not to be connected with the death of Samuel, as though David had now lost a protector. But as he had fully 600 men with him, and his force was continually increasing, it was necessary for him to roam over a wide extent of country in order to obtain supplies of food. The wilderness of Paran. Paran strictly is a place in the southernmost part of the peninsula of Arabia, a little to the west of Mount Sinai; but there can be little doubt that it gave its name to the vast extent of pasture and barren land now known as the desert of El-Tih. (see 1Ki_11:18) Of this the wildernesses of Judah and Beersheba would virtually form parts without the borders being strictly defined. We need not therefore read "the wilderness of Maon," with the Septuagint and many commentators. On the contrary, we have seen that the hold in ch. 24:22 was the hill Hachilah in that neighbourhood, and David now moved southward towards the edge of this vast wilderness.
Vers. 1-12.
Honour to the dead and insult to the living.
The facts are
1. Samuel dies, and is buried at Ramah amidst the sorrow of Israel.
2. David, returning to the wilderness, sends a greeting to Nabal, a wealthy man at Carmel, and asks for some favour to his young men on account of the friendly aid recently rendered to Nabal"s shepherds.
3. Nabal, in a churlish spirit, sends an insulting reply, and refuses the request.
4. Whereupon David resolves on taking revenge for the insult. The allusionhere to the death of Samuel, while a necessary part of the history of the age, seems to be introduced to prepare the way for the continuance of the narrative concerning David, who now has become the principal figure in the national life. We have to consider the teaching of the good man"s death and the churlish man"s insult.
Honour to the dead. The various points brought out in the brief reference are, the brevity of the notice compared with the length of service, the ground of the public homage, the loss and gain to Israel, the extent of influence revealed, and the temporary subsidence of party conflicts. Formulating the truths thus suggested, we see
I That THE SCANTY REFERENCE IN THE BIBLE TO THE PERSONAL WORK AND DEATH OF GOD"S BEST SERVANTS is in instructive CONTRAST WITH THE RECORDS CONCERNING CHRIST. Samuel"s life was long and immensely useful to the world by the reformation wrought in Israel by the force of his character, and the preparation made for prophetic teaching and stable government. A holier and more devoted man was not found, and yet one verse tells us all about his death and burial. The same reticence is true concerning Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and indeed all the most distinguished of men. They during life spoke little of themselves, and referred little to their ancestors. The apostles also live, labour, and die, and no stress is laid on their work and death, a circumstance in keeping with the self-abnegation which never made themselves prominent objects of faith. The contrast with Christ is impressive. He is all and everything. His self-reference is perfect egotism if he be a mere human being ordained only in higher degree than others to execute a Divine purpose. The exaltation of his name, work, and death by the apostles is most natural and harmonious with the silence of the Bible in relation to all others if he be really Divine. The question of his personality cannot be settled by mere verbal discussions. Broad facts must be considered, and these clearly determine the verbal sense where exegetes may be supposed to differ. This kind of argument appeals to the common sense of men, and accords also with the instinct of the Christian heart to worship Christ.
II That THE HONOUR PAID TO THE DEAD, so far as referred to in Scripture, is THAT DUE TO HOLY CHARACTER AND SERVICE. The allusion here and elsewhere to a proper homage to the dead is clearly associated with the holy life and conduct previously recorded in the sacred narrative. There is a singular silence in the Bible with respect to any honours paid to men, on account of the greatness supposed to consist in warlike exploits. True greatness lies in good abilities being pervaded by a spirit of piety, and consequently consecrated to the advancement of the kingdom of God on earth. The value of a man"s life is to be sought in the contribution he makes to the spiritual impulse by which the world is brought nearer to God. The supreme honours often paid to mere titular rank, to wealth, to military prowess, and even to bare learning, are expressive of a human judgment which is discounted by the language of the Bible, and will be reversed when, adjudged by the lofty standard of Christ, every man shall receive according to the deeds done in the body.
III That THE DEATH OF TRULY GOOD MEN is both a LOSS AND A GAIN TO THE WORLD. Israel properly mourned because the "godly man" failed, for the activity and personal influence of the greatest man of the age henceforth would cease. We cannot say whether a good man"s activity of spirit no longer operates as a power on men after his death probably it does if there be any truth in the conservation and persistence of spiritual forces; but so far as survivors are concerned they are unconscious of it, and, on the other hand, are henceforth more open to the action of other visible influences. We lose much when good men die; yet we gain something. The whole life becomes more impressive in death than during its continuance. The germinal good sown in the heart by silent goodness and actual effort is quickened around the grave into healthy growth. The sobering, elevating influence of a sainted memory is a permanent treasure. Many have to bless God for the death of his saints. Heaven becomes more real to those whose beloved ones have gone before, and the levities of life are subdued by the thought of our temporary separation from the "general assembly.
IV That THE REALITY AND EXTENT OF A GOOD MAN"S INFLUENCE OVER OTHERS IS BROUGHT OUT IN DEATH MORE THAN IN LIFE. The public homage paid to Samuel was the nation"s response to his life"s appeal to the heart and conscience. Like Elijah, he no doubt often deplored the degeneracy of the age, and questioned whether he was doing any substantial good. This doubt is the common experience of all God"s servants. They cannot see the incidence of the rays of light as they silently fall on the dull heart of the people, though in theory they know that every ray performs its part in the great spiritual economy of the universe. But the subjects of holy influence do receive in some degree all that comes forth from a consecrated life, and it often requires the removal of a good man from this world to make manifest how strong a hold he has had on the thought and feeling of others. There are many instances of this in all grades of society. Churches and families reveal the power of a character when that character ceases to exercise its wonted energies. This should induce calmness and confidence in all who strive to bless the world by a devoted life. Those who exercise moral power are not always the best judges of its force and extent. God mercifully keeps from our view some of the good we are doing, lest we fall into the snare of the devil.
V That MAN"S CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE SACREDNESS AND MYSTERY OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, when aroused, is SUPREME OVER EVERY THOUGHT AND FEELING. All Israel, embracing Saul, David, the prophets, and the slanderers and conspirators at the court, assembled around the grave of Samuel and wept. The strifes and rivalries of parties, the deadly feuds and cruel animosities of life, the most urgent of human passions, were for the time set aside under the influence of that deep, all-mastering feeling that human existence on earth is a sacred mystery. The holiest and most honoured are seen to succumb to the strong hand which carries off the most worthless. Each asks, Is this the end? Is there nothing beyond? If there is, what? Thus it is man"s reflectiveness, awakened by the death of the great, which causes him to recognise at the same time both his littleness and his greatness. The solemnity of having a rational existence comes on all in presence of death. That we are made for something far above what now engages our attention is forced on the spirit, and our connection with an invisible sphere and final tribunal rises into awful distinctness. This frequently recurring sense of the sacredness and mystery of existence is a check on sinful tendencies, and furnishes occasions for the application of the gospel to the hearts of men. Gospel truth learnt in early years will often assert its power in men as, leaving awhile the contentions and sins of life, they stand by the open grave.
Insult to the living.
The question arises, Why is it that this narrative of Nabal"s churlishness occupies so prominent a place in the sacred records, seeing that so adventurous a life as that of David must have abounded in striking incident? Among, then, the topics suggested by the account of the churlish man"s insult we may notice
I THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH EVENTS ARE RECORDED IN SCRIPTURE. Is this principle ascertainable? Can any hypothesis concerning it be verified by an induction of facts? Granting an affirmative reply to these questions, do we here get a harmony of Scripture superior to that of literal agreement in details? Now, in dealing with such questions we have to be guided by a few broad facts, such as, the order of Providence among men is subservient to the working out of the redemptive purpose in Christ; the redemptive purpose is wrought out through the instrumentality of chosen servants, succeeding one another by Divine arrangement; events touching the lives of these men affected the performance of their part in the accomplishing of the purpose, in so far as they developed character or brought the great principles for which they lived into conflict with opposing principles; the Bible is designed to be a record of the events which advanced the unfolding of the redemptive purpose, either directly, or by indirectly shaping the character and conduct of those engaged in its outworking, and forcing the Divine idea into sharp contrast with various forms of evil. The attempt to find the principle of selection of facts for incorporation in God"s record of the history of redemption in any other direction must fail. The great thought of this Book of Samuel is the conflict of the Messianic hope with opposing evils. Hence all through the life of David we see that the "salvation of the Lord," i.e. the great spiritual reformation to be wrought as a prelude to a future and more blessed one, was the issue at stake; and those events are evidently related which helped it on, and such as were opposed to it. Principles are embodied in each of these instances, and thus the relation of events to the unfolding purpose of God is that quality in them which accounts for their insertion in the Scriptures. The verification of this is an interesting study. It may suffice here to note that when we consider the great influence on the life of David of such a woman as Abigail, and therefore on his work for the world, we can see the propriety of some account of her in relation to him, and we shall see directly how completely Nabal"s churlishness was an illustration of the grovelling spirit which scorns such lofty spiritual aspirations as are involved in working out the Divine purpose for mankind.
II THE CAUSES AND CURE OF DOMESTIC INFELICITY. The home life of Nabal was evidently not happy, arising partly from utter diversity of taste, temperament, and culture, and partly from dissimilarity of moral conduct and religious principle. A low, grovelling disposition, revelling in sensual indulgence and proud of wealth, could not but embitter the life of a "woman of good understanding," and of such fine spiritual perceptions as are indicated by her words to David (vers. 27-31). There are unfortunately many such homes. Wise and holy women are held to the humiliation and sorrow of a lifelong bondage. In modern times the causes of domestic infelicity are various fashion, that considers station before happiness; love of wealth, that lays beauty, sweetness, and culture at the feet of mammon; inconsiderate haste, acting on partial knowledge of character; concern for a livelihood irrespective of moral qualities; incompatible religious sentiments; selfishness on the one side, seeking inordinate attention, and neglect on the other, heedless of the sacred bond. In many cases the release is only in death, so utter is the desolation. So far as Abigail was concerned, her discretion and self-command mitigated the evils of her home; but the radical remedy is a renewal of the spirit, a turning of the life to God.
III THE OBLIGATIONS OF WEALTH. That every talent imposes on its possessor corresponding obligation is a first principle of morals and religion. No man holds material wealth for himself. He is a member of society, and bound to exercise his gifts for the welfare of others. The common responsibilities attached to wealth therefore devolved on Nabal, and no narrow, private views or acquired greed of gain could release him from the laws of God, however irksome they might make obedience to it. But there were special reasons why he was bound to allow David to share in his plenty; for was he not known to be a man persecuted for righteousness" sake, of the same tribe as Nabal, admitted by the popular voice to have been a benefactor by his prowess on behalf of the nation, the guardian, by means of his men, of Nabal"s servants in a recent season of peril, and regarded in Nabal"s house (vers. 27-31) and elsewhere as the coming king, well fitted by his qualities to raise the spiritual and social condition of the people? The modest request of David was just, and the duty of the rich man was clear. The question of the obligations attaching to the possession of wealth needs to be pressed home with earnestness and elucidated with intelligence. The "love of money" is so strong in some as to blind the intellect and harden the heart against a recognition of the proper uses of it. No fixed standard can be set up for the distribution of wealth, for the duties of giving and spending are relative to position and surroundings. The first thing to recognise is that wealth is not for self-indulgence or aggrandisement, but for the enrichment of all around. The next is the cultivation of a kindly, generous spirit that looks tenderly on the more needy, combined with a sound judgment as to the best means of enabling many to enjoy the distribution of wealth as the recompense of labour and skill. Above all, every man should, in a spirit of love and gratitude, lay all on the altar of God, and see to it that a good proportion be devoted to the cause of Christ. None have ever regretted consecrating wealth to God. But that is not consecration to God which appropriates to religious uses when dependent ones are lacking means of support. (Mar_7:11) It would work a revolution in the social condition of our country, and that of the mildest and most beneficent kind, as well as give an immense impulse to the cause of religion, did men of wealth but conscientiously estimate their obligations to God and man, and act accordingly.
IV CONTEMPT FOR SPIRITUAL ASPIRATIONS. "Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants nowadays that break away from their masters." Thus did Nabal, knowing well who David was, what course he had pursued, what trials had befallen him, and what high spiritual anticipations were associated with his chequered life, express his contempt for the coming king and his supposed mission in Israel. This was clearly the case of a rich man, fond of sensual indulgence, boastful of his possessions, indifferent to the culture, moral elevation, and spiritual prosperity of his countrymen, and looking with scorn on the men who long for a higher form of life in which purity, knowledge, and joy in God are prominent features. He wanted to have nothing to do with "theorists," "fanatics," and men of that type. The country was well enough, and the son of Jesse was not wanted. The insult to the living was insult to man. Men are often only the exponents of principles that survive when they are gone. Samuel during his early labours was the energetic exponent of the spiritual idea of God"s kingdom as against the grovelling conceptions of Israel"s function entertained by the degenerate nation. Later David became its chosen representative, and in this his anointing as a more worthy man than Saul had its significance. Those who, like Jonathan, Gad, and Abiathar, identified themselves with David became a party in the State devoted to the assertion of the higher hope, while the men who prompted Saul to evil, the Ziphites, and now Nabal, were the supporters of the low, earthly ideal of Israel"s life. Their antagonism to David was, therefore, deeper than at first appears; it was based on lack of sympathy with, and in fact positive dislike of, the spiritual aspirations cherished by David, and which he in the providence of God was destined largely to enunciate and realise. What is meant by such as love thy salvation?" (Psa_40:16) Evidently those who are yearning for that great deliverance from evil which God was then working out for Israel typical of the wider deliverance which the true King of Zion is now working out for men. And as men like Nabal despised the holy aspirations of David, so do the same men now despise the aspirations of those who think not their work done till spiritual religion is universal. The Saviour heard men say, "Is not this the carpenter"s son?" The pure and lofty aspirations of his life met with the reverse of a response in grovelling minds. Men do not object to a religion, but they do dislike a holy religion.
Practical lessons:
1. Let it be our effort so to live that men may remember us with feelings of loving interest.
2. The tone of our daily life may often be raised, and a shield againsttemptation may be found, by occasionally communing in spirit with the honoured dead whom we have known.
3. In all arrangements for life we should allow moral and religiousconsiderations to have chief influence.
4. Conscientious regard for the teaching of God"s word in reference towealth, and special prayer for guidance in its use, cannot but make it a blessing to the possessor and to others.
5. It requires careful thought to trace out the connection between growingriches and distaste for spiritual religion. (Mar_10:23-27)
HOMILIES BY B. DALE.
Ver. 1. (RAMAH.)
Samuel"s death and burial.
"And Samuel died.
1. The end of the great prophet"s life is recorded in brief and simple words.This is according to the manner in which the death of men is usually spoken of in the Scriptures. Whilst their life is narrated at length, their death is either passed over in silence or mentioned only in a sentence, as of comparatively little consequence in relation to their character, work, and influence. There is one significant exception, viz., that of him "who once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.
2. In the last glimpse afforded of him before his decease he is described as "standing as one appointed over the company of the prophets," and occupied with them in celebrating the praises of God. (1Sa_19:20) During the years that had since elapsed he was left unmolested by Saul; and it is hardly likely that David ever ventured to Ramah again, although he probably kept up indirect intercourse with his aged and revered friend, (1Sa_22:5) and was often in his thoughts.
1. In connection with the mention of his death it is stated that "David arose and went down" (from "the hold" in the hill of Hachilah, to which he had returned from Engedi) "to the wilderness of Paran." He may have done so for reasons independent of this event, or without the knowledge of it; or possibly because he feared that with the removal of Samuel"s restraining influence Saul might renew his persecution. However it may have been, the melancholy intelligence would speedily reach him.
2. "Samuel died." Good and great as he was, he could not escape thecommon lot of men. "One event happeneth to them all." But that which comes as a judgment to "the fool" (ver. 38) comes as a blessing to the wise. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." The news of it came upon the people as a surprise and filled them with grief. "It was as if from that noble star, so long as it shone in the heaven of the holy land, though veiled by clouds, there streamed a mild beneficent light over all Israel. Now this star in Israel was extinguished" (Krummacher). "Another mighty one had passed away. The very heart of the nation sighed out its loving, weeping requiem. But who among them all mourned as that son of Jesse, on whose head he had at God"s command poured the anointing oil, as he arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran? Doubtless in those waste places he heard again in living memory the echoes of the prevailing cry of him who was so great among those that call upon the name of the Lord. Doubtless his own discipline was perfected in this new sorrow, but he learnt in losing Samuel to lean more simply and alone on Samuel"s God" ("Heroes of Hebrews Hist."). We have here
I THE DECEASE OF AN ILLUSTRIOUS MAN: saint, prophet, intercessor, judge, restorer of the theocracy, founder of the monarchy. "He was a righteous man, and gentle in his nature; and on that account he was very dear to God" (Josephus). "Samuel, the prophet of the Lord, beloved of the Lord, established a kingdom and anointed princes over his people. And.before his long sleep he made protestations in the sight of the Lord, etc. And.after his death he prophesied, and showed the king his end". He died
1. In a good old age. At what age we know not; but long ago he spoke of himself as "old and grayheaded". (1Sa_12:2) His protracted life was an evidence of his self-control and piety, a mark of Divine favour, and a means of extended usefulness. He was cut down not like "the flower of the field," which blooms for a day and is gone, nor like the spreading forest tree smitten by a sudden blast; but rather like the ripe corn, bending down beneath its golden burden and falling under the sickle of the reaper; arid "as shocks of corn are brought in in their season," so was he "gathered to his people.
2. At the proper time. When his appointed work was done, the new order of things firmly established, and he could by his continuance do little more for Israel, he was "taken away from the evil to come" through which the nation was to attain its highest glory. "He was the link which connected two very different periods, being the last representative of a past which could never come back, and seemed almost centuries behind, and also marking the commencement of a new period intended to develop into Israel"s ideal future" (Edersheim). "If David"s visible deeds were greater and more dazzling than Samuel"s, there can be no doubt that David"s blaze of glory would have been impossible without Samuel"s less conspicuous but far more influential career, and that all the greatness of which the following century boasts goes back to him as its real author" (Ewald).
1. In peaceful retirement; removed from public strife, under Divine protection, surrounded by prophetic associates, reviewing the past,
2. contemplating the present, and awaiting the final change. A holy and useful life is crowned with a peaceful and happy death.
3. In Divine communion, which constitutes the highest life of the good. In God (with whom he had walked from his childhood, and whose inward voice he had so often heard) he found his chief delight, to his will he cheerfully submitted, and into his hands he committed his spirit in hope of continued, perfect, and eternal fellowship. The ancient covenant to be "the God" of his people overshadowed the present and the future; nor did they suppose (however dim their views of another life) that he would suffer them to be deprived by death of his presence and love "All live unto him" and in him. He "died in faith." His decease was like a peaceful summer sunset.
Not the last struggle of the sun Precipitated from his golden throne Holds, dazzling, mortals in sublime suspense; But the calm exode of a man, Nearer, but far above, who ran The race we run, when Heaven recalls him hence". (W.S. Landor)
II THE MOURNING OF A WHOLE PEOPLE. "And all Israel" (represented by their elders) "were gathered together" (out of common veneration and love), "and lamented him (whom all knew and none would see again), and buried him in his house at Ramah" ("the ancient and the manor house," so long his residence, and endeared to him by so many tender associations). It was "a grievous mourning," as when Jacob was buried at Machpelah (Gen_1:11; Act_8:2) The honour rendered to his memory was simple and sincere, very different from that which, it is said, was paid to his dust in later times, when "his remains were removed with incredible pomp and almost one continued train of attendants from Ramah to Constantinople by the Emperor Arcadius, A.D. 401" (Delany, 1:148). But "of Samuel, as of Moses, it may be said, "No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day (Stanley). The national mourning was an indication of
1. The high esteem in which he was held, on account of his great ability, eminent piety, and beneficent activity his integrity, firmness, gentleness, consistency, disinterestedness, adaptability, and living communion with 1Sa_2:30; Psa_112:6 "A true Christian. may travel in life under troubles and contempts; but mark his end, and you shall find (as peace, so) honour. Life is death"s seed time; death life"s harvest. As here we sow, so there we reap. He that spends himself upon God and man shall at last have all the honour that heaven and earth can cast upon him" (R. Harris).
1. The deplorable loss which had been sustained. "The men who had once rejected Samuel now lamented him; when the light of his presence was departed they felt the darkness which remained; when the actual energy of his example had ceased to act they remembered the strength of his principles, the consistency of its operation. There was a feeling common to man. Whilst we enjoy the gift we ofttimes forget the Giver, and are awakened only to the full consciousness of the value of that which we once possessed by finding that we possess it no longer" (Anderson).
2. The unjust treatment which he had received, and which was now regretted. His predictions had proved true, (1Sa_8:11) and his course was fully vindicated. "The sorrow at his decease was the deeper, the more heavily the yoke of Saul"s misgovernment pressed on them.
3. The continued influence he exerted upon the nation. "The holy expression stamped by him on the tribes of Benjamin and Judah remained for centuries uneffaced. Never was a single man more instrumental in sowing the soil of a district with the enduring seeds of goodness. It seems to have been mainly through his influence that piety found a home in Judah and Benjamin when it was banished from the rest of the country. Humanly speaking David could never have been king if Samuel had not prepared the way. He was to King David what John the Baptist was to Christ. Unquestionably he is to be ranked among the very greatest and best of the Hebrew worthies" (Blaikie). "And he being dead yet speaketh.
O good gray head which all men knew, O voice from which their omens all men drew, O iron nerve to true occasion true, O fall"n at length that tower of strength Which stood foursquare to all the winds that blew! (Tennyson)
Learn to
1. Honour the memory of the good.
2. Praise God for their lives.
3. Imitate their example.
4. Carry out their purposes. D.
Vers. 1-44. (THE WILDERNESS OF PARAN.)
David"s activity and advancement.
David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran" (ver. 1). Samuel was dead. Saul was becoming more and more incapable of fulfilling the duties of his high office. Meanwhile David was being prepared by Divine providence to grasp the sceptre when it fell from his hand and wield it in a nobler manner. He was the rising sun of the new era. And we see in this chapter numerous signs of his peculiar qualification for his future rule and of his gradual progress towards it; such as, e.g.
1. The strict discipline which he exercised among his men. Those 600 warriors dwelt in the neighbourhood of Nabal"s shepherds, and could easily have supplied their wants from the flocks kept by the latter; but "the men were very good to us," said one of them, "and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything," etc. (ver. 15). "He was bringing his wild followers under a loving discipline and government which they had never experienced; he was teaching them to confess a law which no tyrant had created, no anarchy could set aside" (Maurice).
2. The valuable service which he rendered to his people. "They were a wall unto us both by night and day" (ver. 16). He employed his followers (whom he could not lead against Saul without incurring the charge of rebellion) in protecting those who were occupied in honest industry against the plundering Bedouin, and thus doing the work which had been left undone by the king. There is no place or position but affords opportunity for useful work. Even an outlaw may be serviceable to his country.
3. The perfect equity of the claim he made. His defence of the sheep gave him a right to some share in them; and he was justified in voluntarily undertaking it by the condition of society at the time and his own peculiar position. The reply of Nabal, in its application to David, was destitute of justice, truth, and charity (vers. 10, 11).
4. The respectful consideration he showed in urging his claim. He did not make it unseasonably, but waited till "a good day" (a festive occasion on which men were usually disposed to be generous), and then sent ten young men to offer him a courteous greeting, state the case, and humbly seek as a favour what might have been demanded as a right (vers. 6-8). He appealed to what was noblest and best in the man.
5. The conscious power which he displayed. "Greet him in my name a name well known in Israel as that of a faithful, though persecuted, servant of Jehovah. Not a word escaped his lips, indeed, on this or any other occasion concerning his royal destiny. But he knew the strength of his position (see ch. 26.), which was very different now from what it was at the beginning of his wanderings, was manifested in his whole bearing, and especially in the marriage relationships into which he entered (vers. 42 44).
6. The increased renown, which he bad acquired. The words of Abigail (vers. 28-31) expressed the growing conviction of the godly in Israel that David was destined to be their theocratic ruler. She may also have "received certain information of his anointing and destination through Samuel, or one of the pupils of the prophets" (Keil).
7. The Divine restraint by which he was kept from doing what would have imperilled or interfered with his future honour and happiness (ver. 26). When God has an important place for a man to fill, he prepares the way to it and prepares him for it, and a part of his preparation consists in his being taught faithful cooperation with the Divine purposes. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain And Samuel died, and all the Israelites were gathered…
1Sa_25:1
And Samuel died, and all the Israelites were gathered together and lamented him.
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When I die, will I be missed?
And Samuel died; and all Israel lamented him. What an epitaph! What a character to have deserved such an epitaph! The humblest mortal can so live as to leave a gap when he goes--a fact we realise with difficulty, for we say, Oh! the great ones are missed, but I am poor and humble; my attainments are so insignificant. No life need be insignificant. And Samuel died; and all Israel lamented for him. Some poor housewife in far Beersheba, who had never been five miles from home, when the word comes that Samuel is dead, she goes to the corner, lifts her apron to her eyes and weeps. Such is the result of a good life. We do not know how far its influence may travel. Are we not all of us largely influenced by men and women whose faces we have never seen, whose voices we have never heard? Do they not lead us, cheer us, inspire us on our way?
1. The self-forgetting life. We want to learn to do good quietly, unostentatiously.
2. Joy in daily tasks.
3. Disinterested virtue. To live a good life in order to be missed, and nothing more, is one thing. But to live it without any such intention is another. Our virtue must be disinterested.
4. The life of service. So we speak of the useful life as the true one. The ideal life is that of consecrated service. Is there anyone living in loneliness who will say: When I had not a friend in the world, when I came up from come country place and went into a certain church, that man befriended me?
5. Active religion. And Samuel died, and all Israel wept for him. We, too, must die. Will men weep for us? Will the world be sorry or will he clap his hands? (Ebenezer Rees.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain
CHAPTER X X X I I.
DAVID AND NABAL.
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1Sa_25:1-44.
WE should be forming far too low an estimate of the character of the people of Israel if we did not believe that they were very profoundly moved by the death of Samuel. Even admitting that but a small proportion of them are likely to have been in warm sympathy with his ardent godliness, he was too remark- able a man, and he had been too conspicuous a figure in the history of the nation, not to be greatly missed, and much spoken of and thought of, when he passed away.
Cast in the same mould with their great leader and legislator Moses, he exerted an influence on the nation only second to that which stood connected with the prophet of the Exodus. He had not been associated with such stirring events in their history as Moses; neither had it been his function to reveal to them the will of God, either so systematically, or so comprehensively, or so supernaturally; but he was marked by the same great spirituality, the same intense reverence for the God of Israel, the same profound belief in the reality of the covenant between Israel and God, and the same conviction of the inseparable connection between a pure worship and flowing prosperity on the one hand, and idolatrous defection and national calamity on the other.
No man except Moses had ever done more to rivet this truth on the minds and hearts of the people. It was the lifelong aim and effort of Samuel to show that it made the greatest difference to them in every way how they acted toward God, in the way of worship, trust, and obedience. He made incessant war on that cold worldly spirit, so natural to us all that leaves God out of account as a force in our lives, and strives to advance our interests simply by making the most of the conditions of material prosperity.
No doubt with many minds the name of Samuel would be associated with a severity and a spirituality and a want of worldliness that were repulsive to them, as indicating one who carried the matter, to use a common phrase, too far. But at Samuel's death even these men might be visited with a somewhat remorseful conviction that, if Samuel had gone too far, they had not gone half far enough. There might come from the retrospect of his career a wholesome rebuke to their worldliness and neglect of God; for surely, they would feel, if there be a God, we ought to worship Him, and it cannot be well for us to neglect Him altogether.
On the other hand, the career of Samuel would be recalled with intense admiration and gratitude by all the more earnest of the people. What an impressive witness for all that was good and holy had they not had among them! What a living temple, what a Divine epistle, written not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart! What glory and honour had not that man's life been to the nation, - so uniform, so consistent, so high in tone! What a reproof it carried to low and selfish living, what a splendid example it afforded to old and young of the true way and end of life, and what a blessed impulse it was fitted to give them in the same direction, showing so clearly "what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."
By a remarkable connection, though perhaps not by design, two names are brought together in this chapter representing very opposite phases of human character - Samuel and Nabal. In Samuel we have the high-minded servant of God, trained from infancy to smother his own will and pay unbounded regard to the will of his Father in heaven; in Nabal we see the votary of the god of this world, enslaved to his worldly lusts, grumbling and growling when he is compelled to submit to the will of God. Samuel is the picture of the serene and holy believer, enjoying unseen fellowship with God, and finding in that fellowship a blessed balm for the griefs and trials of a wounded spirit; Nabal is the picture of the rich but wretched worldling who cannot even enjoy the bounties of his lot, and is thrown into such a panic by the mere dread of losing them that he actually sinks into the grave. Under the one picture we would place the words of the Apostle in the third chapter of Philippians - "Whose god is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things; "under the other the immediately following words, "Our conversation is in heaven." Such were the two men to whom the summons to appear before God was sent about the same time; the one ripe for glory, the other meet for destruction; the one removed to Abraham's bosom, the other to the pit of woe; each to the master whom he served, and each to the element in which he had lived. Look on this picture and on that, and say which you would be like. And as you look remember how true it is that as men sow so do they reap. The one sowed to the flesh, and of the flesh he reaped corruption; the other sowed to the Spirit, and of the Spirit he reaped life everlasting. The continuity of men's lives in the world to come gives an awful solemnity to that portion of their lives which they spend on earth: - "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he that his filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still."
There is another lesson to be gathered from a matter of external order before we proceed to the particulars of the narrative. This chapter, recording David's collision with Nabal, and showing us how David lost his temper, and became hot and impetuous and impatient in consequence of Nabal's treatment, comes in between the narrative of his two great victories over the spirit of revenge and impatience. It gives us a very emphatic lesson - how the servant of God may conquer in a great fight and yet be beaten in a small. The history of all spiritual warfare is full of such cases. In the presence of a great enemy, the utmost vigilance is maintained; every effort is strained, every stimulus is applied. In the presence of a small foe, the spirit of confidence, the sense of security, is liable to leave every avenue unguarded, and to pave the way for signal defeat. When I am confronted with a great trial, I rally all my resources to bear it, I realize the presence of God, I say, "Thou God seest me"; but when it is a little trial, I am apt to meet it unarmed and unguarded, and I experience a humiliating fall. Thus it is that men who have in them the spirit of martyrs, and who would brave a dungeon or death itself rather than renounce a testimony or falter in a duty, often suffer defeat under the most ordinary temptations of everyday life, - they lose their temper on the most trifling provocations; almost without a figure, they are ''crushed before the moth."
Whether the death of Samuel brought such a truce to David as to allow him to join in the great national gathering at his funeral we do not know with certainty; but immediately after we find him in a region called "the wilderness of Paran," in the neighbourhood of the Judean Carmel. It was here that Nabal dwelt. This Carmel is not to be confounded with the famous promontory of that name in the tribe of Asher, where Elijah and the priests of Baal afterwards had their celebrated contest; it was a hill in the tribe of Judah, in the neighbourhood of the place where David had his encampment. A descendant of the lion-hearted Judah and of the courageous Caleb, this Nabal came of a noble stock; but cursed with a narrow heart, a senseless head, and a groveling nature, he fell as far below average humanity as his great ancestors had risen above it. With all his wealth and family connection, he appears to us now as poor a creature as ever lived, - a sort of "golden beast," as was said of the Emperor Caligula; and we cannot think of him without reflecting how little true glory or greatness mere wealth or worldly position confers, - how infinitely more worthy of honour are the sterling qualities of a generous Christian heart. It is plain that in an equitable point of view Nabal owed much to David; but what he owed could not be enforced by an action at law, and Nabal was one of those poor creatures that acknowledge no other obligation.
The studied courtesy and modesty with which David preferred his claim is interesting; it could not but be against the grain to say anything on the subject: if Nabal had not had his "understanding blinded" he would have spared him this pain; the generous heart is ever thinking of the services that others are rendering, and will never subject modesty to the pain of urging its own. "Ye shall greet him in my name" said David to his messengers; -and thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be both to thee and peace to thy house, and peace be to all that thou hast." No envying of his prosperity - no grudging to him his abundance; but only the Christian wish that he might have God's blessing with it, and that it might all turn to good. It was the time of sheep-shearing when the flocks were probably counted and the increase over last year ascertained; and by a fine old custom It was commonly the season of liberality and kindness A time of increase should always be so; it is the time for helping poor relations (a duty often strangely over-looked), for acknowledging ancient kindnesses, for relieving distress, and for devising liberal things for the Church of Christ. David gently reminded Nabal that he had come at this good time; then he hinted at the services which he and his followers had done him; but to show that he did not wish to press hard on him, he merely asked him to give what might come to his hand; though, as the anointed king of Israel, he might have assumed a more commanding title he asked him to give it to "thy son, David." So modest, gentle, and affectionate an application, savouring so little of the persecuted, distracted outlaw, savouring so much of the mild self-possessed Christian gentleman - deserved treatment very different from what it received. The detestable niggardliness of Nabal's heart would not suffer him to part with anything which he could find an excuse for retaining. But greed so excessive, even in its own eyes, must find some cloak to cover it; and one of the most common and most congenial to flinty hearts is - the unworthiness of the applicant. The miser is not content in simply refusing an application for the poor, he must add some abusive charge to conceal his covetousness - they are lazy, improvident, intemperate; or if it be a Christian object he is asked to support, - these unreasonable people are always asking. Any excuse rather than tell the naked truth, "We worship our money; and when we spend it, we spend it on ourselves." Such was Nabal. "Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants now-a-days that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, that I know not whence they be?"
As often happens, excessive selfishness overreached itself. Insult added to injury was more than David chose to bear; for once, he lost self-command, and was borne along by impetuous passion. Meek men, when once their temper is roused, usually go to great extremes. And if David's purpose had not been providentially arrested, Nabal and all that belonged to him would have been swept before morning to destruction.
With the quickness and instinctive certainty of a clever woman's judgment, Abigail, Nabal's wife, saw at once how things were going. With more than the calmness and self-possession of many a clever woman, she arranged and dispatched the remedy almost instantaneously after the infliction of the wrong. How so superior a woman could have got yoked to so worthless a man we can scarcely conjecture, unless on the vulgar and too common supposition that the churl's wealth and family had something to do with the match. No doubt she had had her punishment. But luxury had not impaired the energy of her spirit, and wealth had not destroyed the regularity of her habits. Her promptness and her prudence all must admire, her commissariat skill was wonderful in its way; and the exquisite tact and cleverness with which she showed and checked the intended crime of David - all the while seeming to pay him a compliment - could not have been surpassed. "Now therefore, my lord, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the Lord hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies and they that seek evil to my lord be as Nabal." But the most remarkable of all her qualities is her faith; it reminds us of the faith of Rahab of Jericho, or of the faith of Jonathan; she had the firm persuasion that David was owned of God, that he was to be the king of Israel, and that all the devices men might use against him would fail; and she addressed him - poor outlaw though he was - as one of whose elevation to sovereign power, after what God had spoken, there could not be the shadow of a doubt. Her liberality, too, was very great. And there was a truthful, honest tone about her. Perhaps she spoke even too plainly of her husband, but the occasion admitted of no sort of apology for him; there was no deceit about her, and as little flattery. Her words had a wholesome honest air, and some of her expressions were singularly happy. When she spoke of the soul of my lord as "bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God," she seemed to anticipate the very language in which the New Testament describes the union of Christ and His people, "Your life is hid with Christ in God." She had a clear conception of the "sure mercies of David," certainly in the literal, and we may hope also in the spiritual sense.
The revengeful purpose and rash vow of David were not the result of deliberate consideration; they were formed under the influence of excitement, - most unlike the solemn and prayerful manner in which the expedition at Keilah had been undertaken. God unacknowledged had left David to misdirected paths. But if we blame David, as we must, for his heedless passion, we must not less admire the readiness with which he listens to the reasonable and pious counsel of Abigail. With the ready instinct of a gracious heart he recognises the hand of God in Abigail's coming, - this mercy had a heavenly origin; and cordially praises Him for His restraining providence and restraining grace. He candidly admits that he had formed a very sinful purpose; but he frankly abandons it, accepts her offering, and sends her away in peace. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to me; and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand." It is a mark of sincere and genuine godliness to be not less thankful for being kept from sinning than from being rescued from suffering.
And it was not long before David had convincing proof that it is best to leave vengeance in the hands of God. "It came to pass, about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal that he died." Having abandoned himself at his feast to the beastliest sensuality, his nervous system underwent a depression corresponding to the excitement that had accompanied the debauch. In this miserable state of collapse and weakness, the news of what had happened gave him a fright from which he never recovered. A few days of misery, and this wretched man went to his own place, there to join the great crowd of selfish and godless men who said to God, "Depart from us," and to whom God will but echo their own wish - "Depart from Me!"
When David heard of his death, his satisfaction at the manifest interposition of God on his behalf, and his thankfulness for having been enabled to conquer his impetuosity, overcame for the time every other consideration. Full of this view, he blessed God for Nabal's death, rejoicing over his untimely end more perhaps than was altogether becoming. We, at least, should have liked to see David dropping a tear over the grave of one who had lived without grace and who died without comfort. Perhaps, however, we are unable to sympathize with the earnestness of the feeling produced by God's visible vindication of him; a feeling that would be all the more fervent, because what had happened to Nabal must have been viewed as a type of what was sure to happen to Saul. In the death of Nabal, David by faith saw the destruction of all his enemies - no wonder though his spirit was lifted up at the sight.
If it were not for a single expression, we should, without hesitation, set down the thirty-seventh Psalm as written at this period. The twenty-fifth verse seems to connect it with a later period; even then it seems quite certain that, when David wrote it, the case of Nabal (among other cases perhaps) was full in his view. The great fact in providence on which the psalm turns is the sure and speedy destruction of the wicked; and the great lesson of the psalm to God's servants is not to fret because of their prosperity, but to rest patiently on the Lord, who will cause the meek to inherit the earth. Many of the minor expressions and remarks, too, are quite in harmony with this occasion: "Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." ''Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil." "The meek shall inherit the earth." "The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom," - unlike Nabal, a fool by name and a fool by nature. The great duty enforced is that of waiting on the Lord; not merely because it is right in itself to do so, but because "He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday."
The chapter ends with Abigail's marriage to David. We are told, at the same time, that he had another wife, Ahinoam the Jezreelite, and that Michal, Saul's daughter, had been taken from him, and given to another. These statements cannot but grate upon our ear, indicating a laxity in matrimonial relations very far removed from our modern standard alike of duty and of delicacy. We cannot acquit David of a want of patience and self-restraint in these matters; undoubtedly it is a blot in his character, and it is a blot that led to very serious results. It was an element of coarseness in a nature that in most things was highly refined. David missed the true ideal of family life, the true ideal of love, the true ideal of purity. His polygamy was not indeed imputed to him as a crime; it was tolerated in him, as it had been tolerated in Jacob and in others; but its natural and indeed almost necessary effects were not obviated. In his family it bred strife, animosity, division; it bred fearful crimes among brothers and sisters; while, in his own case, his unsubdued animalism stained his conscience with the deepest sins, and rent his heart with terrible sorrows. How dangerous is even one vulnerable spot - one un- subdued lust of evil! The fable represented that the heel of Achilles, the only vulnerable part of his body, because his mother held him by it when she dipped him in the Styx, was the spot on which he received his fatal wound. It was through an unmortified lust of the flesh that nearly all David's sorrows came. How emphatic in this view the prayer of the Apostle - "I pray God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord." And how necessary and appropriate the exhortation, "Put on the whole armour of God" - girdle, breast-plate, sandals, helmet, sword - all; leave no part un- protected, "that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand."
Thus, then, it appears, that for all that was beautiful in David he was not a perfect character, and not without stains that seriously affected the integrity and consistency of his life. In that most important part of a young man's duty - to obtain full command of himself, yield to no unlawful bodily indulgence, and do nothing that, directly or indirectly, can tend to lower the character or impair the delicacy of women, - David, instead of an example, is a beacon. Greatly though his early trials were blessed in most things, they were not blessed in all things. We must not, for this reason, turn from him as some do, with scorn. We are to admire and imitate the qualities that were so fine, especially in early life. Would that many of us were like him in his tenderness, his godliness, and his attachment to his people! His name is one of the embalmed names of Holy Writ, - all the more that when he did become conscious of his sin, no man ever repented more bitterly; and no man's spirit, when bruised and broken, ever sent more of the fragrance as "of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain 1Sa_25:1. “And Samuel died.” Josephus says that “Samuel governed…
CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES—
1Sa_25:1. “And Samuel died.” Josephus says that “Samuel governed and presided over the people alone, after the death of Eli, twelve years, and eighteen years in conjunction with Saul, the king.” He likewise adds, “They wept for him a very great number of days, not looking on it as a sorrow for the death of another man, but as that in which they were everyone of themselves concerned. He was a righteous man, and gentle in his nature, and on that account he was very dear to God.” “In his house,” i.e., in a court or garden attached to his house. “Every respectable family in the East still has its own house of the dead, and often this is in a little detached garden, consisting of a small stone building, where there is no rock, resembling a house. It has neither door nor window. (Cf. 1Ki_2:34; Job_30:23.) (Jamieson.) “David arose,” etc. It might be that David felt himself in more danger now that the restraint which Samuel might have exercised over Saul was removed, or, as Keil suggests, the wilderness of Judah might no longer afford sustenance to him and his large body of six hundred men. The wilderness of Paran seems to have been a somewhat undefined tract of country extending from the southern border of Canaan to the Sinaitic desert on the south, the wilderness of Shur on the west, and the territory of Edom on the east. The examination of the various Scripture references to this region seems to show that the term was sometimes used for the entire wilderness tract of this district. (See Smith’s Biblical Dictionary.)
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Sa_25:1
THE DEATH OF SAMUEL
I. The death of the righteous often seems unseasonable in relation to the living. It is often so in family and social life. Children especially need a kind and strong hand to guide and train them, and when their father’s or their mother’s hand is such an one, their removal by death seems most inopportune and an unmitigated calamity. We think how much better it would have been for the family if the parent’s life had been prolonged for a little season, until the children’s characters were more established, and they were altogether more fitted to face the world alone. And the same thing often takes place in national life. A great and good man is removed when it seems as if the country in which he has been so great a power for good must suffer irreparable loss by his removal, and that the time of his departure is the time when the nation most needs him. Samuel’s death at this time seemed a most unseasonable event so far as the welfare of Israel was concerned. Although he had retired from public life, he could hardly fail still to exert some power for good over Saul, and the universal lamentation at his death shows that the respect of the people was undiminished, and, therefore, his influence upon them was still great and salutary. Looking from a human stand-point, it seemed especially desirable that his life should be prolonged until David had succeeded to the throne, and peace and order had taken the place of the present misrule and anarchy.
II. But the value of the life of the righteous often becomes more manifest at his death, and so the lessons of his life more influential. The sun rises upon the earth morning by morning, and its coming is so regular and certain that men take its appearance and all the light and heat that it brings as a matter of course, and do not realise how many and how inestimable are the blessings that it bestows, or how indispensable it is to our well-being. But if there came a morning when the sun did not rise, and if it were known that it would shine upon the world no more, how the value of sunlight would come home to every man, and how universal would be the lamentation over its absence. So it is often with a good man’s influence. It is so constant, so unobtrusive, and yet so fraught with blessing, that none realise what he is and what he does until he is gone, and then they know his value by his loss. But the awakening to a sense of his worth gives force to the lessons of his life—both to those of deed and word—and so he being dead still speaks, and often to more attentive and obedient ears than when living. This is doubtless the key to what often seems at first sight so mysterious and dark a providence, the death of the righteous when their life seems so much needed. It is quite possible it was so in Samuel’s case. It is certain that the people who had disregarded his advice were the same who now lamented him, and it may be that their sense of loss brought home more powerfully to their hearts and consciences the truths which he had taught them in the days which were past.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The aged man is laid aside, and sinks out of the popular view; and when, at length, he dies, people are startled as they recall how great a man he was in his prime, how great a work he did. It is something to live so that one’s death will be truly mourned by a whole people. The old, who sadly think themselves forgotten, may find solace, not only in reviewing the past, but also in the persuasion that yet once again they will be vividly remembered, while the younger should strive to anticipate that coming time, and show respect and affection while it can be fully enjoyed.—Translator of Lange’s Commentary.
THE GENERAL EFFECT OF SAMUEL’S WHOLE CAREER
Observe what his position was, and how he filled it. He was not a founder of a new state of things, like Moses, nor a champion of the existing order, like Elijah or Jeremiah. He stood, literally, between the two—between the living and the dead, between the past and future, the old and the new, with that sympathy for each which, at such a period, is the best hope for any permanent solution of the questions which torment it. He had been brought up and nurtured in the old system.… His early dedication to the sanctuary belonged to that age of vows of which we saw the excess in the rash vows of Jephthah, of Saul, and the assembly at Mizpeh: in the more regular, but still peculiar and eccentric devotion of Samson to the life of a Nazarite.… He was also the last of the Judges, of that long succession who had been raised up from Othniel downwards to effect special deliverances. (1Sa_7:12.) … But he must be regarded as the first representative of the new epoch which was dawning on the country. He is explicitly described as Samuel, the Prophet. (Act_3:24; Act_13:20.) … By the ancient name of seer—older than any other designation of the prophetic office—he was known in his own and after times, … and he is the beginning of that prophetical dispensation which ran parallel with the monarchy from the first to the last king.… And, unlike Moses or Deborah, or any previous saint or teacher of the Jewish Church, he grew up for this office from his earliest years.… His work and his life are the counterparts of each other, … and his mission is an example of the special mission which such characters are called upon to fulfil. In proportion as the different stages of life have sprung naturally and spontaneously out of each other, without any abrupt revulsion, each serves as a foundation upon which the other may stand—each makes the foundation of the other more sure and stable. In proportion as our own foundation is thus stable, and as our own minds and hearts have grown up thus gradually and firmly, without any violent disturbance or wrench to one side or to the other; in that proportion is it the more possible to view with calmness and moderation the difficulties and differences of others—to avail ourselves of the new methods and new characters that the advance of time throws in our way, … to preserve and to communicate the childlike faith—changed, doubtless, in form, but the same in spirit—in which we first knelt in humble prayer for ourselves and others, and drank in the first impressions of God and heaven. The call may come to us in many ways; it may tell us of the change of the priesthood, of the fall of the earthly sanctuary, of the rise of strange thoughts, of the beginning of a new epoch. Happy are they who are able to perceive the signs of the times, and to answer without fear or trembling, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.”—Dean Stanley.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain Death of Samuel. The Incident of Nabal. David and…
Death of Samuel. The Incident of Nabal. David and Abigail
1. Paran] That part of the desert between Sinai and Palestine which bordered on Judah.
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2. Possessions] rather, 'occupation,' 'business.' Carmel] see on 1Sa_15:12. Great] has frequently the meaning of 'rich': cp. 2Sa_19:32.
Shearing his sheep] A special occasion for festivity and entertainment: cp. 1Sa_25:36; 2Sa_13:23.
Of the house of Caleb] This district of the S. of Judah had been conquered and settled by Caleb. It is called 'the south of Caleb' in 1Sa_30:14.
6. To him that liveth in prosperity] Vulgate has 'to my brethren.'
8. A good day] This is the ordinary Heb. phrase for a festival.
11. My water] Water is precious in these dry lands: cp. Jdg_1:15. But LXX reads 'my wine.'
16. A wall] The protection from Arab robbers deserved some recognition from those who lived near the desert. Precisely the same demand is made at present by Bedouin sheikhs living on the borders of civilisation.
25. Folly] i.e. wrong-headed and foolish obstinacy and churlishness. The Heb. is the feminine form of 'Nabal': cp. 2Sa_3:33.
27. Blessing] RV 'present': cp. 30:26mg; Gen_33:11.
28. Fighteth the battles of the lord] David had rescued the inhabitants of Keilah from the Philistines (1Sa_23:5), and protected the dwellers in the S. of Judah from the desert nomads (1Sa_25:16).
29. A man] The reference is to Saul.
Bound] i.e. safely bound up, so that not one is lost. In the bundle of life] rather, 'in the bundle of the living,' i.e. in the number of those whose lives are guarded and protected by God. With] 'in the custody of.'
31. Causeless] Abigail ventures to hint that Nabal's answer was not a sufficient reason for the vengeance David proposed to take.
33. Thy advice] RV 'thy wisdom.'
39. Communed with Abigail] RV 'spake concerning.' It is the technical term for 'asking any one's hand in marriage': cp. Son_8:8.
44. Saul considered that David, as an outlaw, had forfeited his wife. But David himself never acknowledged this, and claimed Michal as his wife as soon as he had the power (2Sa_3:14).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 1. The death of Samuel (1Sa 25:1)
CHAPTER 25
1. The death of Samuel (1Sa 25:1)
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2. Nabal and his refusal (1Sa 25:2-13)
3. Abigail’s deed and her prayer (1Sa 25:14-31)
4. David’s answer to Abigail (1Sa 25:32-35)
5. Nabal’s death (1Sa 25:36-38)
6. Abigail becomes David’s wife (1Sa 25:39-44)
After the death of Samuel, briefly mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, David went still further south into the wilderness of Paran. An interesting story, the story of Nabal and Abigail, is told in this chapter. David had won a great victory over himself and over Saul. The next event records a great failure. He loses his self-control completely, and instead of manifesting the magnanimity he showed towards Saul, he breaks out in a rage and in the violence of his temper he was ready to kill Nabal and his entire household. God alone in His gracious intervention saved him from committing a crime as heinous as the one Saul committed when he slew Ahimelech, his fellow-priests and the inhabitants of Nob. How he failed! How different He was, whose rejection and suffering David foreshadowed, our Lord! What a contrast with His meekness! David was out of touch with the Lord and we read nothing here of David asking the Lord about sending the ten young men to Carmel, nor did he enquire of the Lord, when in the heat of his spirit he ordered the four hundred men to proceed on their dreadful errand.
It is true the provocation was great. He had sent the young men with a message of peace to Nabal, requesting the rich man for a little help. David had regarded the property of Nabal and his shepherds were not molested. The exiled king had a right to expect the little help he asked. And Nabal was an unbeliever. He did not believe in David as the Lord’s anointed King, but looked upon him as a slave who had left his master. He refused and insulted the King’s messengers. Nabal means “fool.” He is a type of natural man and especially those who reject the Lord and His message of peace. His words “my bread”--”my water”--”my flesh”--”my shearers” and the whole story reminds us of that other fool of whom our Lord spoke. He also spoke of “my barns”--”my fruits”--”my goods” (Luk 12:16-21).
David was restrained from his evil purpose by the intervention of beautiful Abigail, the wife of Nabal. When she heard what her husband had done she at once prepared a magnificent present for David and his men. It was a princely gift, including two skins filled with wine. All this she did without consulting her husband. And the place she takes before David, her supplications, her confession, her humble prayer for forgiveness, her delicate reference to the king’s sinful haste to shed blood, her faith in David’s coming exaltation and her concluding request, “then remember thine handmaid”--all is so rich and beautiful. Abigail the woman with understanding and of a beautiful countenance typifies the true believer and may also be taken as a type of the church. Nabal to whom she is bound as wife is typical of the old nature, the flesh. But Nabal died and Abigail was married to David; even as the believer is dead to sin, dead to the law and is now married to another, even to Christ (Rom 7:4). We leave it to the reader to follow these hints in their application.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Nabal’s Foolishness
Nabal’s Foolishness
v. 1. And Samuel died, his death taking place at about this critical time in the history of Israel; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah, the entire nation thus honoring him as a great prophet, whose rule had been a blessing for Israel. And David arose, and went down to the Wilderness of Paran, the northern end of the Arabian desert.
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v. 2. And there was a man in Maon, 1Sa 23:24, a city southeast of Hebron, whose possessions were in Carmel, he had his herds and flocks on the mountain-meadows near the city, in the elevated plain of Judah; and the man was very great, rich and influential, and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats; and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel, usually an occasion of great festivities.
v. 3. Now, the name of the man was Nabal and the name of his wife Abigail; and she was a woman of good understanding, sensible, well versed in genteel conduct, and of a beautiful countenance, well formed; but the man was churlish and evil in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb, to whom this entire region near Hebron had been given, Jdg 1:10-15.
v. 4. And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep, and therefore would probably have an abundance of food on hand for the joyful meal.
v. 5. And David sent out ten young men, as on an important and solemn embassy, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name, with the customary greeting of peace;
v. 6. and thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, rather, May good fortune attend thee for a long and happy life! Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast. This comprehensive greeting was intended to render Nabal well-disposed toward the messengers.
v. 7. And now, I have heard that thou hast shearers, with all that this implied; now, thy shepherds which were with us, with whom David’s men lived on terms of good fellowship, protecting them against wild animals and against robbers, we hurt them not, by any form of injury, neither was there ought missing unto them all the while they were in Carmel. Even during his exile David proved himself the champion of the people.
v. 8. Ask thy young men, his sheep-herders, and they will show thee, testifying to the splendid fellowship which existed between David’s men and them. Wherefore let the young men find favor in thine eyes; for we come in a good day, for such a festivity should be an auspicious occasion; give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand, as much as he could afford at this time, unto thy servants and to thy son David.
v. 9. And when David’s young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all those words, making their request in his very words, in the name of David, and ceased, they sat down, awaiting the fulfillment of their request.
v. 10. And Nabal answered David’s servants and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? What was David and his concerns to him? Why should he bother about his troubles? There be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master; these words insulted David as a common runaway and renegade, who had maliciously severed his relation with Saul.
v. 11. Shall I, then, take my bread and my water and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be? Both the necessities of life and the luxuries he denied them; the very idea of sharing these with David and his men he represented as preposterous.
v. 12. So David’s young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings, gave him the report of this contemptuous and insulting rebuff.
v. 13. And David said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his sword, to take revenge for this insult. And they girded on every man his sword, and David also girded on his sword; and there went up after David about four hundred men, and two hundred abode by the stuff, guarding the camp. Nabal is a type of a covetous fool, whose heart has been hardened against every form of distress and want, who is willing enough to accept services at the hand of others, but wants to know nothing of services on his part.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 All Israel gathered together and mourned for him
All Israel gathered together and mourned for him
This is likely a generalization. A large number of the people of Israel were probably there, but some were probably unable to attend. (See: Hyperbole and Generalization)
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gathered together
"met together"
buried him in his house at Ramah
Possible meanings are that they buried Samuel 1) in his home town of Ramah or 2) on his family's land in Ramah but not physically in the house or 3) in his house in Ramah.
David rose and went down
"David and his men moved on and they went down"
translationWords
Samuel
die
Israel
mourn
bury
Ramah
David
raise
desert
Paran
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 25:1-44 This episode about Nabal falls between two accounts…
25:1-44 This episode about Nabal falls between two accounts in which Saul pursued David and David spared Saul’s life. Nabal was similar to Saul.
25:1 Maon: This town in southern Judah (see study note on 23:24) was likely Nabal’s home. The wilderness of Paran, located in the northern half of the Sinai Peninsula, was too far south. The wilderness of Paran served as a place of refuge (Gen 21:21; 1 Kgs 11:18).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.