1 Samuel 25
David asks provision from Nabal. Nabal refuses and insults him. His wife Abigail rides out alone with food and stops a massacre.
Summary
Chapter 25 inserts a significant narrative about a near-catastrophe and the woman who prevents it. The chapter opens with Samuel's death and his burial at Ramah — a single verse, mourned by all Israel. Then it turns to a scene in the Carmel district. David has been protecting Nabal's shepherds in the wilderness — an informal arrangement of mutual security. At sheep-shearing time, a feast of plenty, David sends ten men to Nabal to ask for provision, citing the protection his men have offered. The request is reasonable; the refusal is gratuitous. Nabal asks who David is and why he should provide for runaway servants. David, hearing the answer, tells his men to strap on their swords.
Abigail, Nabal's wife, is described in the chapter's opening line as intelligent and beautiful — her husband as boorish and mean. A servant tells her what Nabal has done: David's men have been a wall around them night and day; now Nabal has insulted them. She acts without telling her husband. She loads donkeys with provision — an abundance of it — and rides to intercept David. Her speech, when she meets him, is one of the finest pieces of rhetoric in the book: she takes the blame on herself, asks David not to pay attention to Nabal (the name means fool), rehearses David's destiny as king, and argues that killing Nabal would create a staggering of conscience and a stumbling block — bloodguilt David will not want when he is on the throne. David immediately recognizes her good sense and blesses her. He accepts the provision and turns back. When she tells Nabal the next morning what she did, he has what the text calls a stroke — his heart dies within him. Ten days later the Lord strikes him and he dies. David sends to Abigail and takes her as his wife.
- 1 Samuel 1Chapter 1 opens at the sanctuary at Shiloh, where Elkanah of Ephraim brings his household each year to worship.
- 1 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens with the Song of Hannah, one of the most influential poems in the Hebrew Bible — my heart exults in the Lord, the mighty brought low, the hungry fed, the barren bearing seven.
- 1 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most carefully paced call narratives in the Hebrew Bible.
- 1 Samuel 4Chapter 4 is the disaster that the previous chapters have been building toward.
- 1 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the ark narrative in Philistine territory, told with something close to sardonic comedy.
- 1 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is the ark's return to Israel, engineered by Philistine priests who want to know whether their afflictions are the Lord's doing or mere coincidence.
- 1 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the closing movement of the Samuel-as-judge arc.
- 1 Samuel 8Chapter 8 is the pivot of the entire book.
- 1 Samuel 9Chapter 9 introduces Saul, and the introduction is built on irony.
- 1 Samuel 10Chapter 10 is Saul's anointing and public selection.
- 1 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is Saul's first military action and the only chapter of his reign where he functions without any reservation or failure.
- 1 Samuel 12Chapter 12 is Samuel's formal farewell as Israel's judge, a speech that occupies the whole chapter.
- 1 Samuel 13Chapter 13 begins the decline.
- 1 Samuel 14Chapter 14 is a chapter of action and its costs.
- 1 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the final disqualification.
- 1 Samuel 16Chapter 16 is the introduction of David and one of the most carefully constructed scenes of divine election in the Hebrew Bible.
- 1 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the book's most famous chapter.
- 1 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is where the book's two great relationships crystallize.
- 1 Samuel 19Chapter 19 is the escalation from hostility to overt murderous intent.
- 1 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the central scene of the David-Jonathan friendship and one of the great parting scenes in ancient literature.
- 1 Samuel 21Chapter 21 is a chapter of disguise and desperation.
- 1 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is one of the darkest chapters in the book.
- 1 Samuel 23Chapter 23 is a chapter of pursuit and one extraordinary meeting.
- 1 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the first of two episodes in which David has Saul's life in his hands and refuses to take it.
- 1 Samuel 25Chapter 25 opens with Samuel's death — mourned by all Israel — and then turns to a story of David's near loss of self-control and the woman who stops it.
- 1 Samuel 26Chapter 26 is the second episode in which David refuses to kill Saul and, like chapter 24, it is structured to make the refusal as emphatic as possible.
- 1 Samuel 27Chapter 27 is the chapter of David's double game among the Philistines.
- 1 Samuel 28Chapter 28 is one of the strangest and most debated passages in the Hebrew Bible.
- 1 Samuel 29Chapter 29 is the resolution of a problem the narrative has been building toward: David, marching with Achish and the Philistine forces to fight against Israel.
- 1 Samuel 30Chapter 30 is the crisis of David's time among the Philistines.
- 1 Samuel 31Chapter 31 is the last chapter of 1 Samuel and the end of Saul's story.