A Wise Woman’s Words

When Abigail meets David marching toward her home, she quickly dismounts from her donkey and bows before him. Her husband asked, “Who is David?” but Abigail addresses him, quite properly, as “my lord.” She then makes a startling request: “On me let this iniquity be.” She is volunteering to take Nabal’s place in the crosshairs of David’s wrath, asking that he would regard her as the guilty party in order that her household may be spared. But then, begging David’s leave to speak further, she presses on in hopes of persuading him to bear with Nabal’s insult.

First, Abigail makes an appeal for Nabal; a scoundrel he may be, but he is her husband. She asks that David consider the type of man who has insulted him. Nabal is just what his name implies, she says—a man full of folly. She goes on to say that if she had been the one to receive David’s emissaries, their reception would have been very different. Then she begs that David will treat Nabal like his other enemy, Saul, leaving it to God to deal with him.

Second, she presents David with the provisions she has prepared for his men, then asks his forgiveness for her (Nabal’s) sin. She is not simply begging David to overlook the insult; she is making restitution for it by giving him provisions that are probably better than what he was hoping to receive from Nabal.

Third, Abigail expresses unshakeable confidence that God will put David on the throne and establish his dynasty. Though Saul seeks David’s life, he shall not succeed, for David is a man after God’s heart, fighting God’s battles and living righteously.

Fourth and finally, Abigail urges David to consider the value of a clean conscience. She asks him to think of the day when his present troubles will be ended and he will sit on the throne. And she asks him to consider how he wants to remember this day. Will he look back with regret, having shed Nabal’s blood “without cause” in order to take his own vengeance for a simple insult? Or will he rejoice that he heeded her plea as the instrument of God’s providence to keep David from overreacting as Saul might have done? Abigail hopes David will resolve not to do something he will regret. And if he does, she hopes he will remember her role in God’s work of sparing him from sin.