Joel M Bradshaw

27And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. 29If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the LORD your God. And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. 30And when the LORD has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince over Israel, 31my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.”

32And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! 33Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand! 34For as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.”–1 Samuel 25

1. Samuel had died. I guess there went David’s moral mentor?
2. A man named Nabal (means ‘fool’ and probably was redacted and renamed by the narrator for dramatic effect) wanted to mistreat David and his men.
3. David turned into a hothead and almost followed his heart.
4. Abigail, the wife of Nabal, intervened and influenced David to not be himself a ‘nabal’.
5. David recognized how God used Abigail.

Abigail maximized her influence for the good of her husband and for that of David. David who refused to kill Saul for a serious reason was ready to kill Nabal for a petty one. It would have been a tremendous lowpoint in David’s life and a stain that would have stayed with him. Abigail influenced David to not turn into Saul. Don’t follow your hearts, my friends. It will deceive you every time. Be a peacemaker and show grace in your messy situations. Both men in the story were basically fools without Abigail’s influence. Listen to biblical counsel when you are given it. Be humble and teachable.–JMB