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Introduction

In this story, when Nabal was done with his drinking bout, it says that “the wine was gone out of ” him (v. 7). The Hebrew word for wineskin (what wine goes out of) is nebel. Nabal is a nebel, a deflated wineskin. God deals with him after David refrains from taking matters into his own hands, and God placed this story in the Bible as a cautionary tale—on many fronts. Nabal is a stand-in for Saul in this section—we have already seen how Saul is a Laban figure, and Nabal is Laban spelled backwards, in both Hebrew and English.

The Text

“And Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah . . .” (1 Sam. 25:1-44).

Summary of the Text

This is a fascinating story, masterfully told. The chapter begins with the death and burial of Samuel (v. 1). There was a man in the region of Carmel (not the mountain in the north), and he was very rich (v. 2). His name was Nabal (which means fool), which probably means that it was his nickname (v. 3). His wife was intelligent and beautiful, and her name was Abigail. David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep (v. 4), and so he instructed ten young men to go to Nabal and to respectfully ask for sustenance, based on their respectful treatment of Nabal’s shepherds (vv. 5-8). This the young men did (v. 9). But Nabal answered true to form (v. 10), with a reply full of me-my-mine (v. 11). The young men returned to David with Nabal’s taunting reply (v. 12). David mustered 400 of his men, and they all strapped on their swords (v. 13). But one of Nabal’s servants told Abigail the story, and we learn more details about “the son of Belial” (vv. 14-17). So Abigail loaded up some donkeys with many provisions, sent them ahead of her (like Jacob with Esau), and she came after (v. 18). She did not tell her husband (v. 19), and then she came to meet David—one woman against 400 men with swords (v. 20). Now David had stated his complaint and vowed that he would slaughter any “that pisseth against the wall” (vv. 21-22). When Abigail saw David, she hurried, and bowed down to him (v. 23).

She took the blame for the whole thing (v. 24), and said that her husband’s name was about as appropriate as it gets (v. 25). She pleads with David to spare her husband, while at the same time pronouncing an imprecation on him (v. 26). Let her gift of provisions be accepted (v. 27). She states that the Lord will give David “a sure house” (v. 28)—he will be blessed and his enemies not (v. 29). And when he is king (v. 30), let him have no cause to regret at the top what he did to get to the top (v. 31). She asks to be remembered (v. 31). David blesses her and her wisdom, and received her gift (vv. 32-35). Abigail returned to Nabal, who was feasting and very drunk (v. 36). But in the morning, when the wine was gone out of him (remember he is a wineskin), she told him. His heart died, and he became like a stone (v. 37). Ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died (v. 38). And so David blessed God who had vindicated him (v. 39), and he summoned Abigail to become his wife (vv. 39-40). She comes to David and marries him (vv. 41-42). David was apparently already married to Ahinoam (v. 43), and Saul had given Michal to another man (v. 44).

The Heart of this Story

Remember that in the previous chapter, David had identified himself as a son of Saul (1 Sam. 24:11). Saul had reciprocated (1 Sam. 24:16). Here he calls himself a son of Nabal (v. 8), but Nabal responds by contemptuously referring to him as the “son of Jesse” (v. 10). Lots of breakaway servants nowadays.

Abigail was both beautiful and wise (v. 3) and, as the event will show, decisive and courageous as well (v. 23). She simultaneously saves her current husband from the consequences of supreme doltishness and she saves her future husband from bloodguilt, saving two men at once. She knows David will be on the throne, and she knows that tormented consciences and thrones don’t go well together. When she bows (v. 23), and calls herself a “handmaid” (v. 24), and asks to be forgiven for her “trespass” (v. 28), don’t be fooled. She is using what God gave her with cunning and mastery. She works it, and is in complete control of the situation.

Miscellaneous Applications

There are a number of applications we can take away from this passage.

· The authority of a husband is not absolute. No human authority is. There is nothing here to indicate that Abigail was in the wrong, and much to show that she was in the right. She honored the lawful authority of her husband in much the same way that David honored the lawful authority of Saul—while knowing that God was going to change everything shortly. She honored Nabal more than Nabal did, which is how David treated Saul. She is a feminine counterpart to David. Biblical submission prohibits rendering to any creature the absolute submission that belongs only to God. And beware of men who demand absolute submission beneath them, and are scofflaws toward the authorities above. There are many men who want to reserve to themselves the right to be blockheads, and they also think biblical submission means that their wives are required to not notice.

· David vowed to slaughter Nabal and all the males of his house, and Abigail persuaded him to break that vow. It would have been a sin to keep that sinful vow. It is no sin to repent of having made one, provided the repentance includes the sinfulness of taking the vow. David repents of his sinful vow with another vow (v. 34).

· The law of God prohibits a king from multiplying wives (Dt. 17: 17), and David is moving toward a real problem here. He never takes as many wives as Solomon does, but he begets more sons than he can be a father to. By the time he became king in Hebron, he had six sons, all with different mothers (2 Sam. 3:2-5). Polygamous marriages are recognized as real marriages in Scripture, but they are nevertheless sub-creational (Gen. 2:18) and sub-Christian (Eph. 5:23; 1 Tim. 3:2), not to mention substandard. David was living below the creational norm, but I don’t believe this was a violation of Dt. 17 standard yet (2 Sam. 12:8-9).

· We are told that Abigail was beautiful and intelligent—but we are not given a photo of her, or her SAT scores. But the fact that we are told this means that relativism is out—this includes aesthetic relativism.

A Prophetic Warning

This story is not placed here as a romantic interlude. The chapter serves as a prophetic warning. David narrowly missed incurring bloodguilt in the previous chapter, and he misses it even more narrowly in this chapter. He is teetering dangerously. Previously, he stopped his men from killing Saul. Here Abigail stops him from killing the proxy stand-in for Saul. She becomes David, and he becomes his men. Abigail manages to prevent the death of Nabal from being a grief to David while on the throne—but she sadly does not prevent the death of Uriah from being a grief to David while on the throne. Uriah was another inconvenient husband who got between David and an attractive woman.

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Introduction

God has made it plain in many diverse ways that Saul has lost it, and what Saul has lost, David has been given. But all Saul does is double down in his disobedience. The irony is that, even after the Spirit had departed from him, and come upon David, the Spirit was still there at Saul’s court—until Saul drove him away with a spear.

The Text

“And it came to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines, that it was told him, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi . . .” (1 Sam. 24:1-22).

Summary of the Text

When Saul returned from chasing (not fighting) the Philistines, he was told that David was in the wilderness of Engedi (v. 1) So Saul took three thousand men to hunt for David (v. 2). They came to a cave, which Saul needed to use for a bathroom. But David and his men were in the cave (v. 3). David’s men said that it was an invitation from God to kill Saul, but David only cut off a part of his robe (v. 4). His conscience then smote him that he had done even that much (v. 5), and he told his men this (v. 6). David kept his men from killing Saul, and Saul departed (v. 7). David called out after Saul, and bowed down to him (v. 8). David has as great a heart as Jonathan did. He asks why Saul listens to the slanders of men (v. 9). He recounts how some had wanted him to kill the king (v. 10). He proves his words by producing the piece of the robe he had cut off (v. 11). He calls Saul his father. May the Lord judge, but David will not judge (v. 12). David then cites an ancient proverb against the king (v. 13). Who are you chasing? David asks (v. 14). He again invites the Lord to judge between them (v. 15). Saul temporarily softened, calls David his son and weeps (v. 16). He acknowledges that David is in the right (vv. 17-19), and asks the Lord to reward David. Saul tells David openly that he knows that David will have the throne (v. 20). He seeks and obtains from David a promise that he will not cut off his seed (v. 21), which is much the same thing that David has promised Jonathan. David swears this oath, and they part company (v. 22).

A Divided Robe

Back in 1 Samuel 15, the tearing of Samuel’s robe was interpreted by the prophet as meaning that the kingdom was taken from Saul. How much more was it significant that Saul’s robe was “cut off ” by David? The robe was a symbol of royal authority, and to cut the robe was to symbolically attack the throne. This is why David’s conscience smites him for having done even this much. At the same time, he uses the piece of the robe he cut off to prove that he had no intention against the king’s person.

David’s rebuke of his men was fierce (v. 7). The verb for rebuke is actually a very strong one, meaning “to tear apart.” David lit into his men—self-appointed assassins—because he would not light into the king. When Saul tore Samuel’s robe, the result was that he lost the kingdom. He did not repent, but was rather trying to save face. When David cut Saul’s robe, he would have faced the same ignominious fate if he had not repented. But he did repent, and God still used that small piece of cloth.

A High Humility

When David comes out of the cave, he calls Saul his father. When David calls out to Saul, he bows himself to the ground—for Saul is his king. This is true humility. But humility is not craven. David respects Saul’s office (far more than Saul does, actually), but is more than willing to deliver a much needed rebuke. Twice he invites the Lord to judge between the two them, indicating that it will not go well for Saul if the Lord does so. Saul himself in this encounter acknowledges it. David receives this, but knows that Saul is still unreliable.

This situation is one that we should use to help us understand the apostle Paul’s teaching in Romans 13. Remember that he teaches us there that all authorities are established by God, and that the one who resists that authority is resisting God (Rom. 13: 2). Now let us ask this question. Did David respect the authority that God had established in Israel? The biblical answer would have to be absolutely, yes. He respected the Lord’s anointed in ways that stagger us whenever we think carefully about it. Now here is another question. Did David do whatever Saul wanted him to do? Did he stop running? Stop hiding? Did he turn himself in? Put those two answers together and you will see that respecting the authorities that God has established does not mean accepting their narrative of what is going on.

So David has to stand against two kinds of bloodthirstiness. He stands against Saul’s, obviously, by his singular lack of cooperation. And he also stands against his men, those who want to fight Saul with Saul-like tactics. They could read the story (perhaps with a degree of plausibility) as a story right out of Judges. Did not Ehud kill the king of Moab, a man named Eglon, and did not his servants think he was covering his feet? Why can’t we do the same? David knows—he sees the tyranny of Saul and he sees the wrong-headedness of some in the Adullam Militia. And, at the same time, he is identified with Saul (father), and he is identified with his men. He is not criticizing everybody from some very spiritual balcony seat.

The Glory Grab

Do not grab if God has not promised it—this was Saul’s problem. He was trying to grab what was not his to hold. When there is no promise, grabbing is futile. Do not grab if God has promised it—this was David’s great temptation. When there is a promise, grabbing is unnecessary—and counterproductive. When you grab tyranny away from tyrants, the result is just a name change, and not a category change. We get the red tyrant instead of the blue tyrant. Great. But what we want is for the throne to be established in righteousness (Prov. 16:12).

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Introduction

Harry Truman once said that if you want to find loyalty in Washington, then you should get a dog. In this chapter we see the reasons for thinking this way—the thin loyalty of Keilah and Ziph. But there is also an exception to this way of the world, and it is the staggering loyalty, the against-all-odds loyalty, of Jonathan.

The Text

“Then they told David, saying, Behold, the Philistines fight against Keilah, and they rob the threshing floors . . .” (1 Sam. 23:1-29).

Summary of the Text

David heard that the Israelite city of Keilah was afflicted by the Philistines (v. 1). David inquired of the Lord, and was told to save Keilah (v. 2). David’s men said, “are you serious?” (v. 3). So David inquired again and received a positive answer again (v. 4). So they went and defeated the Philistines decisively (v. 5). It was at this point that Abiathar joined David, bringing the ephod with him (v. 6). Saul heard where David was, and assumed wrongly that God was being kind to him (v. 7). Saul gathered his troops to besiege Keilah (v. 8). David knew what was up and called for Abiathar (v. 9). David asks the Lord two questions—will Saul come down, and will Keilah give David up? The Lord answers yes to both questions (vv. 10-12). So David abandoned Keilah (v. 13).

David took refuge in the wilderness of Ziph, and Saul hunted him (vv. 14-15). Jonathan hunted David down in a way quite different than his father was doing (v. 16). Jonathan encouraged David greatly, telling David what he and Saul both knew (v. 17). The two men made another covenant (v. 18). It was after this that the Ziphites betrayed David (vv. 19-20). Saul is glad that someone has finally identified the true object of compassion around here (v. 21). Saul tells them that David is really sneaky (v. 22), and to spy out his movements (v. 23). They went ahead of Saul, but David had moved (v. 24). Saul came down with his men (v. 25), and got really close (v. 26). Just then Saul heard of a Philistine invasion (v. 27), and had to pull away from his pursuit (v. 28). And so David went to Engedi (v. 29).

A Stark Contrast

The contrasts between the kingly David and the tyrant Saul just continue to grow. The fact that Abiathar reaches David after the defeat of the Philistines (v. 6) means that the fall of Keilah and the destruction of Nob are happening at around the same time. David is attacking Philistines, as a Israelite king ought to, while the Israelite king is using an Edomite to wipe out an Israelite city. On top of that, Saul didn’t mobilize against Keilah when Philistines were there—but he did when he heard that David was there.

Saul the Self-Absorbed

When Saul is told that David was in Keilah, his conclusion was that God is favoring him (v. 7). But he is reading the story through the lens of his own desires, instead of reading his desires through the lens of the story. When the Ziphites come to him with their betrayal of David, what Saul says is unbelievable—“Blessed be ye of the Lord.” He honors them for having compassion on poor Saul (v. 21). Saul’s world is by this point a photo-negative of the world as God made it.

Reading Loyalties

When evaluating the characters in stories (and you are a character in a story, are you not?), those characters can be divided into two categories. The Lord is with them, or the Lord is not with them. Those are the options. But both kinds of characters believe “the Lord” is with them. Both kinds of characters think what they think. Psalm 54 records David’s assessment of the Ziphites—“they have not set God before them” (Ps. 54:3). But would they be utterly without arguments? Could they not say, “Hey, we are just being loyal to the anointed king.” No, there were two kings anointed with oil, and only one king anointed with the Spirit.

Jonathan had far greater external reasons to act like the Ziphites. He was heir to the throne. He had filial duties toward his father. But he is loyal in just the way he ought to have been loyal. The fact that his father regarded him as a treacherous idiot did not overthrow his glorious loyalty. He died alongside his father in battle—which is loyalty enough—but he owed no loyalty whatever to the evil spirit from the Lord that afflicted his father. He was loyal to the work of the Spirit of God, and loyal to the covenants he had made with David.

Encouragement in God

Saul was pursuing David while he was in the wood (v. 15). At that very moment of crisis, Jonathan also pursued David in the wood, but did so in order to bring encouragement to him (v. 16). It says that he “strengthened his hand in God.” God brings encouragement through actions like this one. God didn’t send spiritual happy vibes into the wood, He sent Jonathan.

Jonathan encouraged David with his convictions of faith (v. 17). He said first that Saul would not find David. Secondly, he said that David was going to be the next king of Israel. In the third place, he said that he (Jonathan) would be second to David, a prince honored. And last, he said that this was something that Saul knew as well as Jonathan did. But Saul responded to this knowledge of his by rebelling against it.

The fact that Jonathan encouraged David means that David was (not surprisingly) in great need of it. In Psalm 54, we can see that the trouble was very real. David was a man of faith, but men of faith can have their faith assailed. We can see that David does not fight Keilah, but leaves to keep peace. He does not fight Saul, but flees to keep peace. At some point, might this not get old? In the next chapter, we will see that David has a clean opportunity to take Saul’s life, which he does not use. At the very least we can say that Jonathan encouraged David in all his good deeds—and the very next good deed in David’s hand was the sparing of Saul’s life. We should not be surprised if Jonathan was an unrecognized blessing to his father in this.

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Introduction

In the Gospel of Mark, we read the account of Jesus feeding the five thousand (Mark 6), but this occurs immediately after John the Baptist’s head was brought before Herod, at a banquet, and it was brought out on a platter. There are two kinds of kings, two kinds of rulers—those who feed the people and those who eat the people. There is no middle way.

The Text

“David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down hither to him . . .” (1 Sam. 22:1-23).

Summary of the Text

David escaped to Adullam, a place halfway between Gath and Bethlehem (v. 1). Those who were in various kinds of trouble gathered to him there, until he had a force of about 400 men (v. 2). David took the time to situate his aging parents in Moab (vv. 3-4), where his great-grandmother Ruth was from. The prophet Gad, apparently with him, tells him leave an unnamed stronghold, and to return to Judah (v. 5). Saul hears about David’s whereabouts while he is holding open air court at Ramah (v. 6). He there upbraids his men for not being informants against Jonathan and against David (vv. 7-8). At this point Doeg reports on what he saw at Nob (vv. 9-10). Saul then summons Ahimelech and all the priests, and they come (vv. 11-12). Saul accuses Ahimelech of treason (v. 13), which Ahimelech ably denies (vv. 14-15). Saul then pronounces a death sentence (v. 16), and commands his men to kill the priests. They refuse, which was to their credit (v. 17). He then gives the command to Doeg, and so he kills 85 priests (v. 18). He then attacks the priestly city of Nob, killing everyone and everything there (v. 19). Only one of the priests managed to escape, a man named Abiathar (v. 20), and he escaped with the ephod (1 Sam. 23:6). Abiathar told David of the slaughter of the priests (v. 21). David says that he was afraid of that—he had noticed Doeg there (v. 22). He invites Abiathar to stay with him (v. 23), which Abiathar does.

A Motley Start

David eventually succeeds in establishing a powerful force, with an impressive array of mighty men (2 Sam. 23: 8-39). But initially the materials were not really promising. He gathers 400 men right away, but they are the ones in distress, in debt, or discontented. A bit later he has 600 men (1 Sam. 25:13). It looks as though David took all comers. For those who are curious, this place in Scripture is where the feature of Credenda magazine entitled the “Cave of Adullam” comes from—comments offered on life in the Israelite mainstream, and offered from our offices in the back of the cave.

When men come in distress, or in debt, or discontented, the basic problem can either be theirs or somebody else’s. Sometimes people get in distress themselves, and sometimes it is done to them. Sometimes people get into bad debt themselves, and other times it is done to them. Sometimes the discontent comes from within, and other times it is imposed. But even when it comes from without, the person to whom it is done must guard against internalizing it, against owning it somehow. As Thomas Watson said, it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. But sometimes men suffer wrong, and then, because they process it wrongly, begin to do wrong in their hearts. But as someone once wisely said, becoming bitter is like eating a box of rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.

So David’s forming army sounds like the problem that many church planters have—trying to build a fresh, joyful community out of a group of people who are still seething. Everyone who comes that first Sunday has a history. But as we learn here, God is not stumped by this kind of thing.

A Glorious Start

We have noted before that the Spirit has come upon David, which means that he is blessed by God even though he has to live in a cave. Saul sits on a throne, abandoned by God. David sits on a rock outside his cave, accompanied by God. A new Israel starts to form around him, and though it looks like a bunch of losers, this is just the kind of situation God loves to work with. The Lord Jesus, as we know, is our prophet, priest, and king. Here with David, on the run from Saul, we have the prophet (Gad, v. 5), we have the priest (Abiathar, v. 23), and we have the king (David, v. 1). David has been finally exiled from Saul’s court, and we are just a few weeks into it—and already the shape of the future kingdom was beginning to appear. Abiathar stays with David for the rest of David’s life. Gad lives to see the Temple built, and even helped to regulate its worship (2 Chron. 29:25). Gad was also one of the chroniclers of David’s life (1 Chron. 29:29). All of this started to come together right away.

An Inescapable Choice

The holy war which Saul refused to carry out against the Amalekites (1 Sam. 15:9), and which cost him his dynasty, was a war which he then carried out against a priestly city of Israel (vv. 18-19). This was an ungodly action, but God was using it as the penultimate stage of His judgment against the house of Eli (1 Sam. 3:12-13). The final stage of that judgment occurred when Solomon finally exiled Abiathar (1 Kings 2:26). So what we see here is a striking example of the “no neutrality” principle. You either gather or scatter (Luke 11:23). You either feed or devour. You will wage holy war (total war) on sin or on righteousness. An Israelite city could be the object of a holy war, but it had to be a city that had gone after other gods (Dt. 13:12-18). This was the great sin. What Saul would not do to the Amalekites, he was willing to do to a faithful city in Israel. Muddle and compromise are always seeking to carve out a third way. They want a neutral zone. They want a place to hide from decisive choices. But, as you have heard, not to decide is to decide. Not to decide decisively is to decide decisively. Dithering is deciding. Why? Because that is how God writes His stories.

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