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.