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But Nabal received David's message with language the most insulting to an Oriental.
The provocation was great, and David was not proof against it. Arming about four
hundred of his men, he set out for Carmel, with the determination to right himself
and take signal vengeance. Assuredly this was not the lesson which God had hitherto
made David learn, nor that which He wished His anointed to teach to others. It was
the zeal of the sons of Boanerges, not the meekness of Him Who was David's great
Antitype. And so God kept His servant from presumptuous sin.^220 Once more God's
interposition came in the natural course of events. A servant who had overheard
what had passed, and naturally dreaded the consequences, informed Abigail. Her
own resolve was quickly taken.
Sending forward a present princely in amount,^221 even in comparison with that
which at a later period Barzillai brought to King David when on his flight from
Absalom (2 Samuel 17:27-29), she hastily followed.
Coming down the hollow of a hill ("the covert of a hill"), she found herself of a
sudden in the presence of David and his armed men. But her courage was not
shaken. With humblest Oriental obeisance, she addressed David, first taking all the
guilt on herself, as one on whom David would not stoop to wreak vengeance. Surely
one like Nabal was not a fit object for controversy; and, as for herself, she had
known nothing of what had passed.
But there were far weightier arguments for David's forbearance. Was it not evidently
God's Providence which had sent her for a high and holy purpose? "And now, my
lord, as Jehovah liveth, and as thy soul liveth, that (it is) Jehovah who has withheld
thee from coming into blood-guiltiness, and from thy hand delivering thyself." This
twofold sin had been averted. Such was her first argument. But further, was it not
well to leave it to God -would not Jehovah Himself avenge His servant, and make all
his enemies as Nabal - showing them to be but "Nabal," "fools" in the Scriptural
sense, with all the impotence and ruin which this implied? It was only after having
urged all this, that Abigail ventured to ask acceptance of her gift, offering it, as if
unworthy of him, to David's men rather than to himself (ver. 27). Then returning to
the prayer for forgiveness, she pointed David to the bright future which, she felt
assured, was reserved for him, since he was not pursuing private aims, nor would he
afterwards charge himself with any wrong in this matter. How closely all this tallied
with her former pleas will be evident. In pursuance of her reasoning she continued:
"And (though) a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul, and (yet) the soul
of my lord is bound up in the bundle of life with Jehovah thy God; and the soul of
thine enemies shall He sling out from the hollow of the sling." Finally, she reminded
him that when God had fulfilled all His gracious promises, this would not become a
"stumbling-block" to him, nor yet be a burden on his conscience, that he had
needlessly shed blood and righted himself.
(^)