Abigail could have taught a master class on communication.
If you’re using Finding Faithfulness to read through the Bible this year, you may find yourself—like me—reflecting on Abigail as portrayed in the 1 Samuel 25 text of today’s readings (Week 23/Day 5, p 173).
This engaging narrative relates David’s interactions with foolish Nabal and his wise wife, Abigail. Nabal was very rich, but harsh and badly behaved. In contrast, Abigail is described as discerning and beautiful (1 Samuel 15:3, ESV). The setting is a feast day, when Nabal is sheering sheep.
David, whose men have protected Nabal’s shepherds in the wilderness, sends ten young men to bring a message of peace to Nabal, recounting that protection and asking politely for any portion of the feast that Nabal is willing to share with David and his men.
Nabal responds to the legitimate request with arrogance. He begins his rant by asking, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?” His questions and comments indicate that he has heard all about David, but he chooses to denigrate God’s chosen anointed.
One can imagine the ten young men hearing Nabal’s verbal assault on their beloved leader with tightening lips and tensing muscles as indication of their growing disbelief and anger. Perhaps their departure was a sudden turning-on-their heels exit.
But their emotions pale in the face of David’s anger. He and his men strap on their swords, and he threatens to leave no male alive by morning. The King James Version uses far more colorful language for “male” in 1 Samuel 25:22 & 34.
Meanwhile, back at the Nabal ranch, a servant (who seems to have been one of the protected shepherds as well as a witness to the encounter between Nabal and David’s men) informs Abigail of what had happened and warns about the inevitable consequence of impending doom.
Wise Abigail wastes no time cooking meat or consulting her husband, but hastily commands servants to load donkeys with prepared foods that exactly fulfill David’s request. She follows them on her own donkey.
When they meet David and his men, she immediately dismounts and prostrates herself before David, apologizing for the fiasco and taking the blame (even though it is definitely not hers to own). She refers to the load borne by the donkeys not as payment or appeasement, but as a present. After her humble and apologetic approach has stopped David in his destructive tracks and—very likely—begun to diffuse his anger, Abigail employs her exceptional communication skills.
More than mere discernment and external beauty, Abigail evidences true faith and exercises biblical wisdom. Her awareness of David’s history and God’s promises to him find expression in her speech. She probably knows David is a poet and musician (surely his playing to soothe Saul is no secret) and uses figurative language that appeals to his poetic soul. She declares, “If 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.” That “bound in the bundle of the living” is beautiful. Then, in a master stroke of communication genius, she employs a more personal figurative phrase. “And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling” (verse 29). The reference to a sling must resonate in David’s heart as it clearly alludes to his victory over Goliath.
Abigail believes God will install David as king over Israel. She declares, “And 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” (verse 30). Then she adds a gentle admonition, couched in terms of the benefit to David, “my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation for himself.” She concludes her conciliatory speech with a humble request, “And when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant” (verse 31).
Was she simply expressing a hope for favor under David’s rule or asking for something more? Most likely she just said what the Lord led her to say. Who could possibly have foreseen how quickly and definitively God would judge Nabal? Ten days later, he’s dead. And Abigail almost immediately becomes David’s wife. As one of several wives in a fairly dysfunctional household, which suffered displacement at the time of Absalom’s rebellion, Abigail’s subsequent life couldn’t have been perfect. But it most likely surpassed whatever fate awaited her as a widow in that culture. And in addition to her stellar communication skills, God blessed her with a husband who was a man after God’s own heart.
Glenda Faye Mathes 