Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 25-27.

As I was reading the story of David and Nabal again, it struck me that, while the passage does not spell it out, David had an agreement with Nabal for David to provide security for Nabal’s men and Nabal’s property.  Nabal’s response to David’s men makes more sense if he had some sort of agreement with David beforehand, even if the agreement was more or less unspoken,  David’s anger at Nabal’s response also makes more sense.  Finally, the fear clearly expressed by Nabal’s servants when they went to Abigail makes more sense.  If there was no agreement of some type between Nabal and David, why didn’t Nabal just ignore David’s messengers?  On the other hand, if there was some sort of agreement, Nabal’s answer would seem to be, “I am not going to pay you.  What are you going to do, appeal to the government over breach of contract? Sure, go ahead and appeal to King Saul’s government.  Hasn’t the king put a price on your head?”  Nabal’s servants would have quickly seen the problem with Nabal’s response.  Sure, David could not appeal to King Saul over Nabal’s failure to keep his end of the bargain, but Nabal had entered into the agreement with David in the first place because King Saul was unable to protect him from raiders and bandits…and David’s men, who had provided protection from those raiders, could easily take that which they had prevented others from taking.   We see a little later in this passage that when David took his men over the the Philistines they became raiders (although exclusively against non-Israelites).  It could be that Abigail’s good business sense was the reason David chose to marry her after the death of Nabal.

I also want to write a bit about David sneaking into King Saul’s camp and taking his spear and water jug.  This story is the first account we have of David’s contentious relationship with the three sons of Zeruiah, who were his nephews.   On the one hand, Abishai volunteers to go with David to infiltrate King Saul’s camp.  On the other hand, he also suggests that David allow him to kill King Saul, despite the fact that David had declined to kill Saul when he had previously had the opportunity.  In fact, on that previous occasion David had expressed feeling guilt about the threat implied by cutting the hem off of Saul’s cloak.  So, we see that Abishai was loyal to David, but failed to share David’s reluctance to kill his fellow Israelites (even when he might have been justified in doing so).  I am not sure what lessons we should take from this passage, but we see here the first indication that while Abishai and his brothers were fiercely loyal to David, they did not fully share his values.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.