Wednesday Bible Study: Ladies night finale

 

Our final Lady is Abigail, and her story dovetails nicely with the world's conception of how to disarm anger- but with a twist of faith.

Our story begins with a gent named (or nicknamed) Nabal.

1Sa 25:2  And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
1Sa 25:3  Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite. 

Now, the first thing to know that you don't get from just reading is that "Calebite" is kind of a mistranslation. The root translation  is closer to calling him... well, a phrase that we often soften to 'son of a gun'.  We'll see that this comes up again later, but our focus is that he didn't get where he was by being kind.

David is on the run from Saul at this point, and has been in the neighborhood for a while, offering protection for Nabal's men from outside raiders.  And they lived in peace, until David asked him a favor...

1Sa 25:4  David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.
1Sa 25:5  So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, "Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name.
1Sa 25:6  And thus you shall greet him: 'Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.
1Sa 25:7  I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel.
1Sa 25:8  Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.'"

But rather than welcoming the opportunity to help someone who had helped him, Nabal was more worried about cutting into the stock that he could sell for a profit:

1Sa 25:9  When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited.
1Sa 25:10  And Nabal answered David's servants, "Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters.
1Sa 25:11  Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?"

Needless to say, David was filled with righteous anger for this rebuff, and in a colorful way (which I will also avoid quoting directly) vowed to kill Nabal and all his men.  But not all his men agreed with their boss- most were unwilling to die for Nabal's pride, and they had been here before, apparently.  So one of them did what they always had- they went to Abigail:

1Sa 25:14  But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, "Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them.
1Sa 25:15  Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them.
1Sa 25:16  They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.
1Sa 25:17  Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him."

And here we have our second questionable translation, out of kindness.  The phrase, "worthless man", translates into "son of Belial", or basically, 'son of the Devil." Sound familiar?  And Abigail, far wiser than her hubby, and experienced in pulling his fat out of the fire, went to see David.

Here, I'd like to share with you a list I found on the net about how to disarm another person's anger, so we can see why Abigail did what she was about to do.

1- Listen first before speaking.  Give them opportunity to vent.

2- When the opportunity comes, 'play back' what was said to show you listened.

3- Change the focus from the offense to something else.

4- Show empathy.

5- Number the offenses being complained about, thus taking the angry one's brain from right side, emotional reactions to left brain, logical functions.

6- While explaining they aren't right, show them they aren't wrong for their feelings.

7- Be solution-oriented.

Now, let's see how, not necessarily in this order, Abigail does just this with David.

1Sa 25:18  Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys.
1Sa 25:19  And she said to her young men, "Go on before me; behold, I come after you." But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

This is her being solution oriented; she prepares to give David MORE than what he had asked for.

1Sa 25:21  Now David had said, "Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good.
1Sa 25:22  God do so to the enemies of David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him."
1Sa 25:23  When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground.
1Sa 25:24  She fell at his feet and said, "On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant.

So David gets the chance to let out his anger, and Abigail makes him "not wrong", by taking the blame herself.

1Sa 25:25  Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him. But I your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent.

This verse is key to the story.  Once again, Nabal is called a son of Belial, and the explanation of his name- Nabal, translated, means "fool".  And here, she mentions she hadn't seen David's men coming- which tells us normally, she would have dealt with this.  Any good rep Nabal had came from the efforts of Abigail, often behind his back.  If she'd been diligent to see them come, we wouldn't be at this point.

1Sa 25:26  Now then, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as your soul lives, because the LORD has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal.
1Sa 25:27  And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord.

 

 Here, she makes NOT killing Nabal David's own idea (a place he hadn't gotten to yet). And, she gives David the solution- the supplies that Nabal denied him.

1Sa 25:28  Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live.
1Sa 25:29  If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the LORD your God. And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling.
1Sa 25:30  And when the LORD has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince over Israel,
1Sa 25:31  my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord taking vengeance himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant."

And now, she changes his focus to the future, how much better it will be if he isn't regretting killing all these men who didn't harm him because Nabal is a son of a ... well, a dog.  And David finds she is right.

1Sa 25:32  And David said to Abigail, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me!
1Sa 25:33  Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from avenging myself with my own hand!

And so, David takes her offering and leaves, grateful for her stopping him.  And he would soon pay that back, and "remember his servant."  In the meantime, Abigail goes back home and finds...

1Sa 25:36  And Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until the morning light.

But that next morning, she told him the whole story; and whether it was the shock that his mouth had almost got him killed by a man he should have been grateful to, or that his wife had went behind his back to humble him in David's eyes, his mind and pride couldn't handle it;  One commentator at least suggests that he had a stroke right then and there- and ten days later...

1Sa 25:38  And about ten days later the LORD struck Nabal, and he died.

A second stroke, and he was gone.  Was this a merciful God giving him ten days to do nothing but repent? A wrathful God giving him ten days to suffer before he REALLY met his judgment? That was up to Nabal.  Either way, we now move ahead just slightly in the future...

1Sa 25:39  When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Blessed be the LORD who has avenged the insult I received at the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. The LORD has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head." Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife.
1Sa 25:40  When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, "David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife."
1Sa 25:41  And she rose and bowed with her face to the ground and said, "Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord."
1Sa 25:42  And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife.

And that is the end of Abigail's story, with one postscript: to David Abigail bore one son.  His name was Chileab, which means, "his father's restraint." And thus Abigail, by restraining anger in David, blesses everyone around her, including herself.

Well, except for Nabal, because he was a son of a... well, you know.