Enraged by an Insult

David’s men courteously carry out his instructions to ask Nabal for provisions, but Nabal refuses and insults David. “Who is David?” he asks. How could he not know? David is the anointed successor to Saul, a hero of Israel, and Nabal’s own benefactor. But Nabal is really asking “Who is David to me?” In his eyes, David is nothing more than a runaway servant who has only himself to blame for the distress that brings him begging for Nabal’s goods. But Nabal then goes on to speak of his possessions as “my bread and my water and my meat.” It isn’t so much that Nabal disapproves of David or that he fears retaliation by Saul if he helps David—he’s just stingy. Although he intimates that he might be willing to share his goods with men whose origins he knows (such as men of his own house), he wants nothing to do with David’s motley crew. And he lets David’s emissaries know it in the harshest terms. Our text says he “reviles” them (v. 14); the Hebrew verb used here actually means “to shriek” or “to fly at” like a bird of prey. In short, Nabal bites the men’s heads off.

David’s men humbly take their leave from Nabal and return to David. But when David hears their report, he explodes. His reaction is reported in verses 21–22. First, he declares that he protected Nabal’s property ” ‘in vain’ “—as if he did it with the expectation of repayment. But God, of course, calls his people to do good with no thought of return. Second, David is furious that Nabal repaid his good not just with indifference but with “evil”—namely, an insult—and he finds himself unable to bear with this reproach. Ironically, Saul confessed that he had repaid David evil for good (24:17), but David spared him. Now David says Nabal, too, has repaid him evil for good—and David is ready to kill him for it. Thus, he orders his men to prepare for battle and swears to slay all of Nabal’s men by morning. This is a vast overreaction, Saul-like in its proportions and injustice.

Despite his foolishness, Nabal has two things going for him—a prudent servant and a wise wife. The servant reports these events to Nabal’s wife, Abigail, for he cannot talk sense to his “scoundrel” of a master. He is appealing to her to intervene and save the household, and she responds. Hastily loading provisions on donkeys, she heads out to meet David. But she does not tell Nabal.