1 Samuel 25


1 Samuel 25 is the twenty-fifth chapter of the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the first part of the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan, but modern scholars view it as a composition of a number of independent texts of various ages from c. 630–540 BCE. This chapter contains the account of David's escape from Saul's repeated attempts to kill him. This is within a section comprising 1 [Samuel 16] to 2 Samuel 5 which records the rise of David as the king of Israel.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 22 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis. Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls including 4Q51 with extant verses 3–12, 20–21, 25–27, 38–40 and 4Q53 with extant verses 30–31.
Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

Places

Death of Samuel (verse 1)

Samuel's death was at a time when Saul had acknowledged the issue of succession and that David, the one anointed by Samuel, would come to the throne.

David, Nabal, and Abigail (verses 2–44)

The accounts in 1 Samuel 24 and 26 report David's refusal to kill Saul as God's anointed, but in this chapter, he was almost guilty of killing many innocent people in the household of Nabal and Abigail who lived in Maon. Nabal was a 'surly and mean' man, but his wife Abigail was 'clever and beautiful', personifying the fool and the virtuous wife in wisdom literature. The first part of the narrative detailed how Nabal foolishly refused David's request for provision, which was carefully structured in verses 5–8:
  1. the offer of peace and friendship to Nabal and his house
  2. a reminder that Nabal's shepherds were not harmed when they were with David's men
  3. there is a request for supplies, as a compensation for David's protection to Nabal's shepherds.
Nabal behaved arrogantly with his two questions in verse 10 dismissing David as a nonentity and providing hints that he knew about David's breach with Saul. The reference to Nabal as ben blliya'al in verse 17 may classify him with those who despised Saul when he was king-elect and suggest that Nabal also was rejecting a king-elect and refusing to pay him tribute. In anger of the humiliation, David was in danger of taking matters in his own hand and not relying on YHWH, but he was saved from taking foolish action through the interference of Abigail, Nabal's wife, who was informed of the situation by one of Nabal's servants, who liked David and was critical of his own master's rash response. Abigail intercepted David as he was on his way to annihilate the house of Nabal, without consulting her husband, who she counted as a fool. She carried provisions to David and his men, among which were bread, wine, clusters of raisins and cakes of figs, which assuaged the wrath of David's men. Without Abigail's intervention David would have become guilty of 'blood-guilt' and would have 'taken vengeance' with his own hand instead of restraining himself and trusting God, as detailed in Abigail's words and David's response. When Nabal died of sickness, David remembered Abigail and decided to take her as his wife, which also gave David another advantage, for the house of Nabal was a prominent member of the Calebite clan and had control over Hebron, so marrying Nabal's widow would give David control of that particular territory, that would also be significant when David later was declared king at Hebron.

Verse 5

  • "Carmel": was the same place where Saul built a monument for himself, so Nabal could actually be a supporter of Saul.

Verse 39

General

*