And when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be Jehovah, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and has kept back his servant from evil; but Jehovah has returned Nabal's evil upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her as his wife.
David's men had drawn their swords against Nabal's household. Only Abigail stopped them. Ten days later the man who insulted David is dead, and David never touched him. His response is not a victory cry but a blessing of God's name — and then a message sent to the widow.
David had set out to fight. The news of Nabal's death found him with nothing left to fight for.
The danger was past and his needs were met. David's heart was now so full of a sense of the goodness of the Lord that he could only worship where he had thought to fight.
Notice which of the two things David blesses God for first. It is not Nabal's death but his own escape.
When David hears the news (v.39) he is afresh reminded of the great mercy of the Lord that had kept him back from the evil of avenging himself. He blessed God for taking this matter into His own capable hand. God rewarded the evil-doer himself and did not punish the men of his household, as David was ready to do.
Another writer points to how quickly God acted:
A few days are enough to show that there is never any need for someone to avenge himself. God strikes Nabal, and his lamp of life goes out in hopeless gloom.
David says God "returned the evil of Nabal on his own head." The hand that returned it was God's own.
The rest of the chapter sets out the judgment that fell on Nabal at once. No judgment is as solemn as when a man falls into the hand of the living God.
Nabal had two chances, and he let both go.
He neither showed kindness to David when he had it in his power, nor did he repent of his follies when the chance to repent came. Can we wonder that God at last took up the matter with him? The Lord struck him, and he died. His time of testing was over, and nothing could change his future now. Nabal might have been remembered as a man who served the Lord's anointed in the days when he was hunted. Instead he stands out on the page of history as a harsh man, a worthless man, and a fool.
The second half of the verse answers Abigail's one request: that David would remember her when things went well for him. She asked to be remembered, and received a marriage.
This request is remarkably like the one the dying thief made to the Lord Jesus. It teaches us much, especially when we remember that, as far as sight went, neither of them had anything to build a hope on. In both cases too, the answer went far beyond the request. In about ten days the Lord struck Nabal so that he died, and David took Abigail to be his wife, to suffer with him and to reign.
Abigail leaves before David's fortunes have changed.
There is no delay. She hurries to meet the one who loves her, the king of grace. She does not wait for better times, when David's throne would be secure. She leaves everything without a thought for what she was leaving behind.
Writers read this marriage as a picture of something later, and they differ on how far to press it. One sees the church in it:
Death sets Abigail free from the chain of such a marriage. David then brings her into his own household and links her with himself. It may picture the Church — sinners who recognised our Lord in the time of His rejection. Set free from the bondage of sin, they are brought into bridal relationship with the Lord in glory.
Another writer stops short of naming her the church, but keeps the principle:
Nabal (Israel) is set aside, the man who rejected David; and Abigail becomes the wife of the despised one while he is in the wilderness. She is not the church itself, but she stands on the principle of the church.
- Restraint. David's first praise is for what God stopped him doing. His escape from his own vengeance mattered more to him than his enemy's death.
- Vindication. He left his case with God, and God took it up. Only the guilty man fell, not the household David would have destroyed.
- Forfeit. Nabal had two chances: to serve the Lord's anointed, then to repent. He let both go, and his time of testing ran out.
- Freedom. The judgment that ended Nabal set Abigail free. Her plea to be remembered became a place at David's side.
- Reign. She left everything behind to follow a rejected king. She suffered with him first, and shared his throne after.
And the servants of David came to Abigail to Carmel, and spoke to her, saying, David has sent us to thee, to take thee as his wife.
Nabal is dead, and from the wilderness the rejected king sends word to the widow at Carmel. His offer raises one hard question: what does it cost to marry a king before his kingdom comes?
Abigail could not be David's wife while Nabal lived. Commentators read her release as a picture of how a believer is freed for Christ.
She sees in David God's anointed king. Death sets her free from Nabal, that harsh and mean man, and she becomes the wife of David's wilderness wanderings. Believers, too, are set free from sin and the law by death, so that they may be married to another, to Christ. For now they share His rejection. When they have suffered a while, they will also "reign with Him."
David's messengers ask, and Abigail does not weigh the offer. One writer links her quick answer to her faith in God's promise that David would reign.
There was no hesitation on Abigail's part. She was willing to leave her former wealth and identify herself with David in exile and danger. We know the reason. She had already expressed her unquestioning faith in God's promise to David that he would reign over Israel (vv. 29-30). Because of this, she feels herself worthy only of the lowliest service in David's household: "a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord" (v. 41). True faith and humility always go together.
Haste marks Abigail all through this chapter, and it marks her here too. Another writer notes that the honour offered to her does not lift her up. It bends her down.
This is when David calls her to be his companion in suffering, and later to share his reign… There is no delay. She hurries to meet the one who loves her, the king of grace. She does not put off leaving until better times, when David's throne would be secure. She leaves everything without thinking for an instant of what she was leaving behind. She even calls herself unworthy of such an honour, for hers is the most humble place… She understands the pattern. If the king's favour calls her to share his sufferings, and so raise her afterwards to the highest place, then serving the king must humble her to take the lowest place. What humility in the wife of a king! Only fellowship with grace, with Jesus, will enable us to humble ourselves in the dust like this. But as Abigail humbles herself, the king grows in dignity and majesty. That is what his wife's heart desires.
Abigail was a rich man's widow. Set beside Ruth, who married into wealth, her move runs the opposite way.
Ruth was poor, and she left her poverty to share the wealth of the "mighty man of wealth." Abigail did the opposite. She left the house of a very rich man, who had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, to share David's rejection, poverty and wandering. The church leaves her poverty in this world to have a part in the glorious inheritance she has "in Christ" (Eph. 1:11). But it is also her privilege to give up this world, with the wealth and glory it offers, and to share Christ's place outside — not to be rich where He was poor.
Jonathan loved David, yet stayed with Saul to the end. That contrast sets off what Abigail does here.
Jonathan never separated from the system he stood in. He loved David, but he never joined himself to David, and he never shared his sufferings. But Abigail identifies herself with him. Her existing ties do not stop her from acknowledging David, and she joins him after her husband's death… Jonathan does not suffer with David, and he does not reign with him. He stays with Saul, and in that position his career ends with Saul.
One writer carries the picture past David. Christ also has a companion in His rejection, and she has a name.
His own special portion is in her. As Abigail was to David, so she is the companion of His rejection. She is the brightest jewel of redemption, and she is known as "the Bride of the Lamb" (Rev. 21:9).
- Freed. Death ended her tie to Nabal. Only then could the king's messengers come — a soul set free by death, to be married to another.
- Called. The call reaches her while David is still hunted; she answers a king who has messengers but no throne yet.
- Ready. She does not hesitate, and she does not wait for better times. She already believed God's promise that David would reign.
- Lowly. Raised to be his wife, she asks only to wash his servants' feet — faith and humility travel together.
- Sharing. Jonathan loved David but stayed with Saul. Abigail shares the rejection first, and the reign afterward.
And she arose and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thy handmaid be a bondwoman to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.
David has just asked Abigail to marry him. He is still a hunted man with no throne. Her answer is not a celebration. She offers to take the lowest job in his household. Why would a wealthy widow, called to be a king's wife, ask to wash the feet of his servants?
Her words name a job, not a feeling. One writer ties that choice to what she already believed about David's future.
There was no hesitation on Abigail's part. She was willing to leave her former wealth and identify herself with David in exile and danger. We know why. She had already expressed her unquestioning faith in God's promise that David would reign over Israel. Because of this she feels worthy only of the lowest service in David's household — "a maid to wash the feet of my lord's servants." True faith and humility always go together.
The honour could have fed her pride. Instead it pushed her lower.
Such a destiny cannot fill her with pride. She understands the reason. If the king's favour calls her to share his sufferings, and then to raise her to the highest place, serving the king must humble her to take the lowest place. What humility in this wife of the king! Only fellowship with grace, with Jesus, will let us humble ourselves in the dust like this. But as Abigail lowers herself, the king grows in dignity and in majesty, and this is what his wife's heart desires.
Her modest words were no excuse to hold back. The next verse shows her acting on David's word at once.
This was true humility. It fit exactly with the complete obedience she gave to David's word. She acted in a way suited to one who was to be his wife, for she "hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife."
Another writer notes how fast she moved, and what she did not wait for.
She does not delay. She hurries to meet the one who loves her, to meet the king of grace. She does not put off her departure until better times, when David's throne would be made firm. She leaves everything without thinking for a moment about what she was leaving behind.
One writer sets her words beside the foot washing in John 13.
She bows to the earth before his messengers, and speaks the most perfect expression of a truly humble heart. (Compare John 13:5, 14.)
Another writer measures her humility against Jonathan, who loved David but kept his own position.
Jonathan loved David as his own soul, and yet did not sacrifice his position for him. Abigail's love was just the sense that such a man could love her — she who was only "a servant to wash the feet of the servants of her lord."
The contrast runs deeper than feeling.
Jonathan never separated from the system he stood in. He loved David, but he never joined himself to David and never shared his sufferings. But Abigail identifies herself with him... Jonathan does not suffer with David, and does not reign with him.
Taking the servant's place meant real loss before any reward arrived.
She leaves her high position, and the ease and comfort that a wealthy woman would normally enjoy. She joins herself to David in his sufferings and wanderings. On this new path she will know suffering and hardship. David's enemies will even carry her off captive in the day of Ziklag. But she will also share his throne in the day of his reign at Hebron.
Commentators differ on how far to press the picture. One stops short of calling her the church.
Nabal (Israel) is set aside, he who rejected David; and Abigail becomes the wife of the despised one, while he is in the wilderness. This is not exactly the church, but she is on the principle of the church.
Another states it more plainly:
Abigail, like Rebecca, is one of the rare types in the Old Testament who prefigures the Church; she is the Bride, David's voluntary, humble, joyful associate during the days of his rejection.
- Faith first. She already believed God's promise that David would reign. The lowest place is what such faith produces — "true faith and humility always go together."
- Place chosen. Called to the highest honour, she asks for the lowest job. Serving the king means taking the servant's place.
- King exalted. Her going down is not loss: as she lowers herself, the king grows in dignity and majesty.
- Obedience follows. Lowly words did not delay her; she rose, followed the messengers, and became his wife.
- Throne shared. Jonathan loved David but kept his position. He neither suffered nor reigned with him. Abigail left hers, shared the wilderness and the captivity, and shared his throne at Hebron.
And Abigail hasted, and arose, and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that followed her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife.
Nabal is dead, and David — still an outcast, still waiting for the throne God had called him to — sends servants to ask Abigail to be his wife. Her answer is not a word but a journey: she leaves a wealthy household to follow a despised man she knew God had chosen.
The verse opens with haste, and that haste is the point. She did not wait for a better moment.
There is no delay. She hurries to meet the one who loves her, the king of grace. She does not put off leaving until better times, when David's throne would stand firm. She leaves everything without thinking for an instant of what she was leaving behind. And she even declares herself unworthy of such an honour; for hers is the most humble place. On the other hand, such a destiny cannot fill her with pride. She understands this: if the king's favour is calling her to share his sufferings, and then to raise her to the highest place, the service of the king must humble her to take the lowest place.
The same writer draws a line between two kinds of hurry — one belongs to faith, the other does not.
Let us not forget, dear Christian readers, that one of faith's characteristics is to hasten. Abraham made haste when it was a matter of the Lord's service (Gen. 18:6-8). Zacchaeus did the same when the Saviour invited him to receive Him into his house (Luke 19:6). So did Mary, when the Lord called her to come to Him (John 11:29). If it is a matter of Him and of His Person, can we ever hasten enough? But should we not also guard against the haste that so often marks the flesh and the old man?
Her decision rested on a view of David that her husband never shared.
All these things Abigail knew — knew as matters of faith. She knew David, and knew his high destinies. By faith she recognised in the despised outcast the future king of Israel. Nabal did not know David. He was a man of the world, swallowed up with present things. Nothing mattered more to him, nothing weighed more with him, than "my bread, my meat, my shearers." It was all self. There was no room for David or his claims.
Marrying David meant trading security for hardship. One writer traces where that road led — through loss first, then honour.
Having obtained her freedom by death, Abigail becomes the wife of David. She leaves her high position, and the ease and comfort that belonged to a wealthy woman, to join David in his sufferings and wanderings. On this new path she will know suffering and hardship. David's enemies will even take her captive in the day of Ziklag. But she will also share his throne in the day of his reign at Hebron (1 Sam. 30:5; 2 Samuel 2:2).
Writers read this marriage as a picture of something later. One is careful to say what kind of picture it is.
She is not a picture of the whole church, but she seems to picture the church's position during this present time. In her we see those of the remnant who, as a kind of firstfruits, were joined to the Lord and added to the church (Acts 2). They will soon share as the Bride in the exaltation and glory of the Bridegroom, though for now, for a season, they are despised. She renounces her own position, whatever it was after Nabal's death, to share in the sorrows of David, whom Nabal (Israel) despised, but whom she knew to be chosen of God. David's present circumstances had no weight with her. He was suffering because God had called him to the throne, and that was enough for Abigail's faith.
Her ride is not only history. What Abigail did with David, this writer says, faith still does with Jesus.
Blessed be God, there are some who have ears to hear. They hear the testimony about the kindness and grace of Jesus, and about His coming judgement too. So it was with Abigail. She believed the truth about David, and acted on it. And all who believe the truth about Jesus will separate themselves in earnest from this present world.
- Hurry. Faith hurries toward the one who calls it. Abigail did not wait for David's throne to be secure.
- Leave. She walked away from ease and wealth without one thought for what she left behind.
- Stoop. Called to the highest place, she asked for the lowest. The king's favour humbled her.
- Share. Her marriage brought her into his wanderings first, including capture at Ziklag. His reign at Hebron came after.
- Follow. She believed the truth about a rejected king and acted on it. That is what separates a believer from this present world.
David had also taken Ahinoam of Jizreel; and they became, even both of them, his wives.
David has just married Abigail. Then one short line adds a second wife, Ahinoam of Jezreel. Who was she? And why does Scripture record a step that cuts across God's own instruction for a king?
Ahinoam arrives with no background, yet her name returns again and again in David's story. One reference work traces her path:
David's wife, a woman of Jezreel. She went with David when he fled from Saul. While she was living at Ziklag, the Amalekites burned the city and carried her off. But she was brought back. She was with David when he came to the throne, and at Hebron she gave birth to Amnon, David's firstborn.
Her town was probably in Judah, near where these events happened. The sons of David's two wives went very different ways:
David now married, and had two wives. Both were probably of the tribe of Judah. There was a town named Jezreel in Judah, not far from Maon and Carmel (Joshua 15:55-56), and it is likely Ahinoam came from there. By her he had Amnon, whose history is bound up with the sorrows of his house. By Abigail he had Daniel, or Chileab, of whom we read nothing... The Lord did build David a sure house, but Abigail had no share in the building of it.
Commentators differ over how sharply to judge the step. One reads it as plain disobedience to a command aimed at the king himself:
Now God had clearly warned the king He would choose: "he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away" (Deut. 17:15, 17, ESV). David knew well that God had chosen him to be king... But in deliberate disobedience to the clear command of God, addressed especially to himself, David began to multiply wives.
Another puts it more mildly, and carries the thread forward to the wife Saul had taken away:
Verse 43 tells us that David took another wife also, Ahinoam of Jezreel. The Old Testament did not forbid this, though it was never God's intention. His intention was that a man should hold fast to his wife, not his wives (Gen. 2:24). As to Michal, Saul had unrighteously taken her from David and given her to another man. Later David demanded that Ish-bosheth give her back to him (2 Sam. 3:14), and he did. But this was a mistake on David's part: why should he add her to those he already had?
As David went on adding wives, he already held everything needed to settle the question. The family history shows what his choices cost:
Had he asked the Lord before doing so, what would the Lord have answered? Read my Word! Dependence on God and dependence on His Word are one and the same thing. David had the books of the law in hand, and he needed only to think them over to see his path... By human thinking he might have all sorts of good reasons for doing as he did — to secure a royal line, and so on. But this was not according to God. To be convinced of this we need only trace the descendants of his wives. Suppose godly Abigail had been his only companion. Would he then have seen an Amnon bring shame and dishonour on his house? Would he have seen an Absalom rebel against his own father, or an Adonijah try to seize control of the kingdom?
One writer asks why the Holy Spirit kept such a small domestic note, and answers by looking past David to Christ:
Two facts are now given (1 Sam. 25:43-44). If the Holy Spirit had only meant to show how wonderfully God delivered David from all his foes, He could have left them out with no loss to the record of God's grace and loving-kindness. But the primary object of the Holy Spirit is not David but Christ. And every event must be brought into His life if we would learn the thoughts of God... Abigail and her attendants may represent the remnant of Israel that held to the Lord before the church began. What then is Ahinoam, for she also was wife to David? I judge that the two of them together point to the remnant in the days of our Lord, and to those converted by Peter's preaching, before the special position of the church was declared.
The name of her town carries its own weight in that reading, pointing forward to Israel's restoration:
David's failure seems clear, even to the end. The double marriage at the close cannot leave a good impression of him. Yet the type here is not affected by it. Ahinoam the Jezreelitess may in this way, as in other double types, confirm the meaning... Jezreel reminds us of the promise then to be fulfilled: "I will sow her for myself in the land." This promise could hardly apply to the Christian Church.
- Named. Ahinoam of Jezreel shared David's exile. The Amalekites carried her off at Ziklag, she was brought back, and she bore Amnon, David's firstborn.
- Chosen. David acted without asking God, though the law in his hands told a king not to multiply wives. Commentators differ: was it outright disobedience, or a step short of God's intention?
- Reaped. Trace the children of these marriages: Amnon, Absalom, Adonijah — sorrow after sorrow in David's own house.
- Repeated. He later took Michal back too — one writer calls that a further mistake, not a repair.
- Recorded. The Spirit kept these small details because the story's true subject is Christ. Even Jezreel's name points to the promise: Israel sown again in her land.