1 Samuel 25:18-22

18 Abigail acted quickly. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs[a] of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.
19 Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
20 As she came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, there were David and his men descending toward her, and she met them.
21 David had just said, “It’s been useless—all my watching over this fellow’s property in the wilderness so that nothing of his was missing. He has paid me back evil for good.
22 May God deal with David,[b] be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to him!”

1 Samuel 25:18-22 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 25

This chapter gives an account of the death of Samuel, and of the ill treatment David met with from Nabal; it begins with the death of Samuel, which was greatly lamented in Israel, 1Sa 25:1; it draws the character of Nabal, and his wife, 1Sa 25:2,3; records a message of David to him, by his young men, desiring he would send him some of his provisions made for his sheep shearers, 1Sa 25:4-9; and Nabal's ill-natured answer to him reported by the young men, which provoked David to arm against him, 1Sa 25:10-13,21,22; and this being told Abigail, the wife of Nabal, and a good character given of David and his men, and of the advantage Nabal's shepherds had received from them, and the danger his family was in through his ingratitude, 1Sa 25:14-17; she prepared a present to pacify David, went with it herself, and addressed him in a very handsome, affectionate, and prudent manner, 1Sa 25:18-31; and met with a kind reception, 1Sa 25:32-35; and the chapter is closed with an account of the death of Nabal, and of the marriage of Abigail to David, 1Sa 25:32-44.

Cross References 10

  • 1. S Leviticus 23:14; S 1 Samuel 17:17
  • 2. 1 Chronicles 12:40
  • 3. S Genesis 42:26; 2 Samuel 16:1; Isaiah 30:6
  • 4. Genesis 32:20
  • 5. ver 36
  • 6. ver 15
  • 7. Psalms 109:5
  • 8. S 1 Samuel 19:4
  • 9. S Ruth 1:17; 1 Samuel 3:17; 1 Samuel 20:13
  • 10. 1 Kings 14:10; 1 Kings 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. That is, probably about 60 pounds or about 27 kilograms
  • [b]. Some Septuagint manuscripts; Hebrew "with David’s enemies"
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