1 Samuel 25:36 - Meaning and Application

We are now to attend Nabal’s funeral and Abigail’s wedding.

First, Nabal’s funeral. The apostle speaks of some people as “twice dead” (Jude 1:12). Here we may say Nabal was dead three times, even though he had just been wonderfully rescued from David’s sword and spared from immediate death. The protection of wicked people is often only a delay, reserved for more painful judgments from God.

Nabal was first dead drunk (1 Samuel 25:36). Abigail came home, and it seems he had so many servants and so much food and drink that he did not even miss her or the supplies she had taken to David. She found him in the middle of his feast, with no thought that ruin was so near, brought on by the man he had foolishly made his enemy. Sinners are often most at ease when danger is closest and destruction is already at the door.

Notice how wasteful he was in entertaining his company. He held a feast like a king’s feast, rich and plentiful, even though his guests were only his sheep shearers. This abundance might have been right if he had remembered why God gave him wealth, not to make himself look great, but to do good with it. It is common for those who are stingy in acts of worship or charity to be generous only when feeding vanity or sin. They hold back a small gift from God and the poor, but pour out gold to impress others and please themselves.

If Nabal had lived up to his name, he would never have been so carefree and merry before checking whether David might still be angry. As Bishop Hall notes, worldly people are foolish in this way, giving themselves up to pleasure before making peace with God. Nabal was also foolish in his appetite. He was very drunk, which fit his name, Nabal, meaning fool. He could not use his plenty without abusing it, or enjoy company without making himself like a beast. There is no surer sign of little wisdom, or surer way to destroy even what wisdom a man has, than drinking to excess.

Nabal, who thought he could never give too little to charity, thought he could never give too much to luxury. Abigail found him in this state, and likely the rest of the house was little better, since the head of the feast had set such a bad example. She had enough to do to quiet the household and set things somewhat right. But she told Nabal nothing about what she had done for David, nothing about his own foolishness in provoking David, and nothing about the danger or the deliverance, because he was too drunk to hear reason. To give good advice to a drunk person is like casting pearls before pigs. It is better to wait until they are sober.

Second, Nabal was dead again through deep misery and despair (1 Samuel 25:37). The next morning, when he had recovered a little, his wife told him how close he had brought destruction on himself and his family by his own rudeness, and how hard she had worked to stop it. At this, his heart failed and he became like a stone. Some think the cost of the gift Abigail had brought David broke his heart, but it seems more likely that the fear of the danger he had narrowly escaped threw him into shock and left him unable to recover. He became sullen and quiet, ashamed of his own foolishness and humbled by his wife’s wisdom.

How changed he was. The night before, his heart was merry with wine. The next morning, it was heavy as a stone. Such is the false promise of worldly pleasure. The fool’s laughter is short-lived, and its end is sorrow. Drunkards are sometimes sad when they look back on their own foolishness. Joy in God keeps the heart light at all times. Abigail could not bring Nabal to repentance by her wise reasoning, but now, by her faithful rebuke, she brings him to despair.

At last, Nabal was dead in truth. About ten days later, after he had lain under this pressure and pain, the Lord struck him and he died (1 Samuel 25:38). It seems he never recovered. As Bishop Hall says, it is right with God that those who live without grace should die without comfort, and we cannot expect better if we keep going on in sin. No mourning is recorded for Nabal. He passed away without being lamented, and everyone likely felt the land was better off without him.

When David heard of Nabal’s death, he gave thanks to God (1 Samuel 25:39). He praised the Lord, first, for keeping him from killing Nabal himself: “Blessed be the Lord, who has kept his servant from evil.” He was glad Nabal died a natural death and not by David’s hand. We should take every chance to speak well of God’s goodness in keeping us from sin. David also thanked God that He had taken the matter into His own hands and defended David’s honor, not letting the man who insulted him go unpunished. This would strengthen David’s standing, because all would see that God fought for him. He also thanked God that this would encourage him and others to leave their wrongs in God’s hands, trusting that in His own time He will set things right if they patiently wait for Him.

Second, Abigail’s wedding. David was so taken with her beauty, and with the unusual wisdom of her conduct and words, that as soon as it was proper, after hearing that she was a widow, he sent word of his desire to marry her (1 Samuel 25:39). He was sure that the woman who had proved herself a good wife to such a bad husband as Nabal would be even more fit to be his wife. He had also noticed her respect for him and her confidence that he would one day come to the throne.

He courted her through a messenger, perhaps because his own affairs did not allow him to go in person. Abigail received the proposal with great modesty and humility (1 Samuel 25:41). She considered herself unworthy of the honor, yet she respected David so much that she would gladly have been the lowest servant in his household, even washing the feet of his servants. Those are most fit to be honored who can humble themselves like this.

She accepted the proposal, went with David’s messenger, took a fitting escort with her, and became David’s wife (1 Samuel 25:42). She did not reproach him for his present troubles or ask how he would support her. She valued him, first, because she knew he was a very good man, and second, because she believed he would, in time, become a very great man. She married him in faith, trusting that even though he had no settled home to bring her to then, God’s promise to him would at last come true. In the same way, those who join themselves to Christ must be willing now to suffer with him, believing that later they will also reign with him.

Lastly, on this occasion we are given some account of David’s wives.

David had lost one wife before he married Abigail. That was Michal, Saul’s daughter, David’s first wife and the wife of his youth. He would have stayed faithful to her if she had stayed faithful to him, but Saul gave her to another man (1 Samuel 25:44). Saul did this to show his anger against David and to break the bond of father-in-law and son-in-law.

David also married another woman besides Abigail, and it seems this happened before Abigail, since she is named first in (1 Samuel 27:3). David was influenced by the corrupt custom of that time, but that was never God’s design. It is also not the pattern now that the Messiah has come and the times of reformation have arrived (Matthew 19:4-5). Perhaps Saul’s unfair taking away of David’s only rightful wife led him into this wrong practice. When the bond of marriage affection is once loosened, it is hard to restore it fully.

When David could not keep his first wife, he may have thought that excused him from being faithful to his second. But we deceive ourselves if we use other people’s sins as a cover for our own.