1 Samuel 25:32

25:32-39 David gives God thanks for sending him this happy check in a sinful way. Whoever meet us with counsel, direction, comfort, caution, or seasonable reproof, we must see God sending them. We ought to be very thankful for those happy providences which are the means of keeping us from sinning. Most people think it enough, if they take reproof patiently; but few will take it thankfully, and commend those who give it, and accept it as a favour. The nearer we are to committing sin, the greater is the mercy of a seasonable restraint. Sinners are often most secure when most in danger. He was very drunk. A sign he was Nabal, a fool, that could not use plenty without abusing it; who could not be pleasant with his friends without making a beast of himself. There is not a surer sign that a man has but little wisdom, nor a surer way to destroy the little he has, than drinking to excess. Next morning, how he is changed! His heart overnight merry with wine, next morning heavy as a stone; so deceitful are carnal pleasures, so soon passes the laughter of the fool; the end of that mirth is heaviness. Drunkards are sad, when they reflect upon their own folly. About ten days after, the Lord smote Nabal, that he died. David blessed God that he had been kept from killing Nabal.

And David said to Abigail,.... Having heard her out, and being overcome with her rhetoric and powerful arguments: blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me; who put it into her heart to come out and meet him, and endeavour to avert him from his bad design, which his heart was set upon; he saw plainly the hand of God in it, and in the first place acknowledges the goodness of divine Providence, in directing her to take the step she did.

1 Samuel 25:32-33 . Blessed be the Lord, &c. — Who, by his gracious providence, so disposed matters that thou shouldst come to me. He rightly begins at the fountain of this deliverance; and then proceeds to the instruments. Who hast kept me from coming, &c. — Which I had sworn to do. Hereby it plainly appears, that oaths, whereby men bind themselves to any sin, are null and void; and, as it was a sin to make them, so it is adding sin to sin to perform them.

Verses 32-35. - David, in his thankful acknowledgment of Abigail's remonstrance, sees in it the hand of Jehovah the God of Israel, who had sent her, i.e. stirred her up to come. He commends also her advice , literally, her "taste," i.e. wisdom, discretion. It is the word rendered behaviour in 1 Samuel 21:13 . But for this prudent conduct on her part in thus coming to meet him on the way, he solemnly assures her on oath that nothing could have saved Nabal and every male in his household from death. Finally, he accepts her present and dismisses her with the assurance that all was forgiven. DEATH OF NABAL AND MARRIAGE OF DAVID AND ABIGAIL (vers. 36-42). 1 Samuel 25:32

32–35. David’s favourable answer 32 . Blessed be the Lord ] David rightly recognises that the intervention of Providence has saved him from a foolish and wicked revenge. Compare his prayer in Psalm 19:13 . There is no lack of faults in David’s life, and this outburst of passion was one of them; but with all his faults he had that spirit of genuine repentance which makes it possible for men “To rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.”

In the bundle - Rather, "the bag," in which anything precious, or important to be preserved, was put, and the bag was then tied up (compare Genesis 42:35 ). The souls ... shall he sling out - The comparison is especially appropriate as addressed to David, whose feat with his sling was so celebrated 1 Samuel 17:49.

32-35. David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord—Transported by passion and blinded by revenge, he was on the eve of perpetrating a great injury. Doubtless, the timely appearance and prudent address of Abigail were greatly instrumental in changing his purpose. At all events, it was the means of opening his eyes to the moral character of the course on which he had been impetuously rushing; and in accepting her present, he speaks with lively satisfaction as well as gratitude to Abigail, for having relieved him from bloodshed.

His and his wife Abigail’s nature and condition, 1 Samuel 25:3. David requesteth of Nabal some relief for his camp: he entreateth David’s messengers scornfully. David is provoked, and mindeth to destroy him, 1 Samuel 25:4-13. Abigail understands it, 1 Samuel 25:14-17; taketh a present, 1 Samuel 25:18-22; and by her wisdom, 1 Samuel 25:23-31, pacifieth David, 1 Samuel 25:32-35. Nabal hearing of this, dieth, 1 Samuel 25:36-38. David taketh Abigail and Ahinoam to be his wives, 1 Samuel 25:39-43; Saul having given Michal to Phalti, 1 Samuel 25:44. Buried him in his house, according to the manner of those times. See Genesis 23:9 50:5 Matthew 27:60. The wilderness of Paran, in the southern borders of the land of Judah, that so when occasion served, he might retire out of Saul’s dominions.

These words could not fail to appease David's wrath. In his reply he praised the Lord for having sent Abigail to meet him ( 1 Samuel 25:32 ), and then congratulated Abigail upon her understanding and her actions, that she had kept him from bloodshed ( 1 Samuel 25:33 ); otherwise he would certainly have carried out the revenge which he had resolved to take upon Nabal ( 1 Samuel 25:34 ). ואוּלם is strongly adversative: nevertheless. מהרע, inf. constr. Hiph. of רעע. כּי, ὅτι, introduces the substance of the affirmation, and is repeated before the oath: אם כּי ... לוּלי כּי, (that) if thou hadst not, etc., (that) truly there would not have been left (cf. 2 Samuel 2:27 ). The very unusual form תּבאתי, an imperfect with the termination of the perfect, might indeed possibly be a copyist's error for תּבאי (Olsh. Gr. pp. 452, 525), but in all probability it is only an intensified form of the second pers. fem. imperf., like תּבואתה ( Deuteronomy 33:16 ; cf. Ewald, 191, c.).