_DAVID AND NABAL._
1 SAMUEL xxv.
We should be forming far too low an estimate of the character of the
people of Israel if we did not believe that they were very profoundly
moved by the death of Samuel. Even admitting that but a small proportion
of them are likely to have been in warm sympathy with his ardent
godliness, he was too remarkable a man, and he had been too conspicuous
a figure in the history of the nation, not to be greatly missed, and
much spoken of and thought of, when he passed away.
Cast in the same mould with their great leader and legislator Moses, he
exerted an influence on the nation only second to that which stood
connected with the prophet of the Exodus. He had not been associated
with such stirring events in their history as Moses; neither had it been
his function to reveal to them the will of God, either so
systematically, or so comprehensively, or so supernaturally; but he was
marked by the same great spirituality, the same intense reverence for
the God of Israel, the same profound belief in the reality of the
covenant between Israel and God, and the same conviction of the
inseparable connection between a pure worship and flowing prosperity on
the one hand, and idolatrous defection and national calamity on the
other.
No man except Moses had ever done more to rivet this truth on the minds
and hearts of the people. It was the lifelong aim and effort of Samuel
to show that it made the greatest difference to them in every way how
they acted toward God, in the way of worship, trust, and obedience. He
made incessant war on that cold worldly spirit, so natural to us all,
that leaves God out of account as a force in our lives, and strives to
advance our interests simply by making the most of the conditions of
material prosperity.
No doubt with many minds the name of Samuel would be associated with a
severity and a spirituality and a want of worldliness that were
repulsive to them, as indicating one who carried the matter, to use a
common phrase, too far. But at Samuel's death even these men might be
visited with a somewhat remorseful conviction that, if Samuel had gone
too far, they had not gone half far enough. There might come from the
retrospect of his career a wholesome rebuke to their worldliness and
neglect of God; for surely, they would feel, if there be a God, we ought
to worship Him, and it cannot be well for us to neglect Him altogether.
On the other hand, the career of Samuel would be recalled with intense
admiration and gratitude by all the more earnest of the people. What an
impressive witness for all that was good and holy had they not had among
them! What a living temple, what a Divine epistle, written not in tables
of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart! What glory and honour had
not that man's life been to the nation,--so uniform, so consistent, so
high in tone! What a reproof it carried to low and selfish living, what
a splendid example it afforded to old and young of the true way and end
of life, and what a blessed impulse it was fitted to give them in the
same direction, showing so clearly "what is good, and what doth the Lord
require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God."
By a remarkable connection, though perhaps not by design, two names are
brought together in this chapter representing very opposite phases of
human character--Samuel and Nabal. In Samuel we have the high-minded
servant of God, trained from infancy to smother his own will and pay
unbounded regard to the will of his Father in heaven; in Nabal we see
the votary of the god of this world, enslaved to his worldly lusts,
grumbling and growling when he is compelled to submit to the will of
God. Samuel is the picture of the serene and holy believer, enjoying
unseen fellowship with God, and finding in that fellowship a blessed
balm for the griefs and trials of a wounded spirit; Nabal is the picture
of the rich but wretched worldling who cannot even enjoy the bounties of
his lot, and is thrown into such a panic by the mere dread of losing
them that he actually sinks into the grave. Under the one picture we
would place the words of the Apostle in the third chapter of
Philippians--"Whose god is their belly, whose glory is in their shame,
who mind earthly things;" under the other the immediately following
words, "Our conversation is in heaven." Such were the two men to whom
the summons to appear before God was sent about the same time; the one
ripe for glory, the other meet for destruction; the one removed to
Abraham's bosom, the other to the pit of woe; each to the master whom he
served, and each to the element in which he had lived. Look on this
picture and on that, and say which you would be like. And as you look
remember how true it is that as men sow so do they reap. The one sowed
to the flesh, and of the flesh he reaped corruption; the other sowed to
the Spirit, and of the Spirit he reaped life everlasting. The continuity
of men's lives in the world to come gives an awful solemnity to that
portion of their lives which they spend on earth:--"He that is unjust,
let him be unjust still: and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still:
and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is
holy, let him be holy still."
There is another lesson to be gathered from a matter of external order
before we proceed to the particulars of the narrative. This chapter,
recording David's collision with Nabal, and showing us how David lost
his temper, and became hot and impetuous and impatient in consequence of
Nabal's treatment, comes in between the narrative of his two great
victories over the spirit of revenge and impatience. It gives us a very
emphatic lesson--how the servant of God may conquer in a great fight and
yet be beaten in a small. The history of all spiritual warfare is full
of such cases. In the presence of a great enemy, the utmost vigilance is
maintained; every effort is strained, every stimulus is applied. In the
presence of a small foe, the spirit of confidence, the sense of
security, is liable to leave every avenue unguarded, and to pave the way
for signal defeat. When I am confronted with a great trial, I rally all
my resources to bear it, I realize the presence of God, I say, "Thou God
seest me"; but when it is a little trial, I am apt to meet it unarmed
and unguarded, and I experience a humiliating fall. Thus it is that men
who have in them the spirit of martyrs, and who would brave a dungeon
or death itself rather than renounce a testimony or falter in a duty,
often suffer defeat under the most ordinary temptations of everyday
life,--they lose their temper on the most trifling provocations; almost
without a figure, they are "crushed before the moth."
Whether the death of Samuel brought such a truce to David as to allow
him to join in the great national gathering at his funeral we do not
know with certainty; but immediately after we find him in a region
called "the wilderness of Paran," in the neighbourhood of the Judean
Carmel. It was here that Nabal dwelt. This Carmel is not to be
confounded with the famous promontory of that name in the tribe of
Asher, where Elijah and the priests of Baal afterwards had their
celebrated contest; it was a hill in the tribe of Judah, in the
neighbourhood of the place where David had his encampment. A descendant
of the lion-hearted Judah and of the courageous Caleb, this Nabal came
of a noble stock; but cursed with a narrow heart, a senseless head, and
a grovelling nature, he fell as far below average humanity as his great
ancestors had risen above it. With all his wealth and family connection,
he appears to us now as poor a creature as ever lived,--a sort of
"golden beast," as was said of the Emperor Caligula; and we cannot think
of him without reflecting how little true glory or greatness mere wealth
or worldly position confers,--how infinitely more worthy of honour are
the sterling qualities of a generous Christian heart. It is plain that
in an equitable point of view Nabal owed much to David; but what he owed
could not be enforced by an action at law, and Nabal was one of those
poor creatures that acknowledge no other obligation.
The studied courtesy and modesty with which David preferred his claim is
interesting; it could not but be against the grain to say anything on
the subject; if Nabal had not had his "understanding blinded" he would
have spared him this pain; the generous heart is ever thinking of the
services that others are rendering, and will never subject modesty to
the pain of urging its own. "Ye shall greet him in my name," said David
to his messengers; "and thus shall ye say to him that liveth in
prosperity, Peace be both to thee, and peace to thy house, and peace be
to all that thou hast" No envying of his prosperity--no grudging to him
his abundance; but only the Christian wish that he might have God's
blessing with it, and that it might all turn to good. It was the time of
sheep-shearing, when the flocks were probably counted and the increase
over last year ascertained; and by a fine old custom it was commonly the
season of liberality and kindness. A time of increase should always be
so; it is the time for helping poor relations (a duty often strangely
overlooked), for acknowledging ancient kindnesses, for relieving
distress, and for devising liberal things for the Church of Christ.
David gently reminded Nabal that he had come at this good time; then he
hinted at the services which he and his followers had done him; but to
show that he did not wish to press hard on him, he merely asked him to
give what might come to his hand; though, as the anointed king of
Israel, he might have assumed a more commanding title, he asked him to
give it to "thy son, David." So modest, gentle, and affectionate an
application, savouring so little of the persecuted, distracted outlaw,
savouring so much of the mild self-possessed Christian
gentleman,--deserved treatment very different from what it received.
The detestable niggardliness of Nabal's heart would not suffer him to
part with anything which he could find an excuse for retaining. But
greed so excessive, even in its own eyes, must find some cloak to cover
it; and one of the most common and most congenial to flinty hearts
is--the unworthiness of the applicant. The miser is not content in
simply refusing an application for the poor, he must add some abusive
charge to conceal his covetousness--they are lazy, improvident,
intemperate; or if it be a Christian object he is asked to
support,--these unreasonable people are always asking. Any excuse rather
than tell the naked truth, "We worship our money; and when we spend it,
we spend it on ourselves." Such was Nabal. "Who is David? and who is the
son of Jesse? There be many servants now-a-days that break away every
man from his master. Shall I then take _my_ bread, and _my_ water, and
_my_ flesh that I have killed for _my_ shearers, and give it unto men,
that I know not whence they be?"
As often happens, excessive selfishness overreached itself. Insult added
to injury was more than David chose to bear; for once, he lost
self-command, and was borne along by impetuous passion. Meek men, when
once their temper is roused, usually go to great extremes. And if
David's purpose had not been providentially arrested, Nabal and all that
belonged to him would have been swept before morning to destruction.
With the quickness and instinctive certainty of a clever woman's
judgment, Abigail, Nabal's wife, saw at once how things were going. With
more than the calmness and self-possession of many a clever woman, she
arranged and despatched the remedy almost instantaneously after the
infliction of the wrong. How so superior a woman could have got yoked
to so worthless a man we can scarcely conjecture, unless on the vulgar
and too common supposition that the churl's wealth and family had
something to do with the match. No doubt she had had her punishment. But
luxury had not impaired the energy of her spirit, and wealth had not
destroyed the regularity of her habits. Her promptness and her prudence
all must admire, her commissariat skill was wonderful in its way; and
the exquisite tact and cleverness with which she showed and checked the
intended crime of David--all the while seeming to pay him a
compliment--could not have been surpassed. "Now therefore, my lord, as
the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the Lord _hath
withholden thee_ from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself
with thine own hand, now let thine enemies and they that seek evil to my
lord be as Nabal." But the most remarkable of all her qualities is her
faith; it reminds us of the faith of Rahab of Jericho, or of the faith
of Jonathan; she had the firm persuasion that David was owned of God,
that he was to be the king of Israel, and that all the devices men might
use against him would fail; and she addressed him--poor outlaw though he
was--as one of whose elevation to sovereign power, after what God had
spoken, there could not be the shadow of a doubt. Her liberality, too,
was very great. And there was a truthful, honest tone about her. Perhaps
she spoke even too plainly of her husband, but the occasion admitted of
no sort of apology for him; there was no deceit about her, and as little
flattery. Her words had a wholesome honest air, and some of her
expressions were singularly happy. When she spoke of the soul of my lord
as "bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God," she seemed to
anticipate the very language in which the New Testament describes the
union of Christ and His people, "Your life is hid with Christ in God."
She had a clear conception of the "sure mercies of David," certainly in
the literal, and we may hope also in the spiritual sense.
The revengeful purpose and rash vow of David were not the result of
deliberate consideration; they were formed under the influence of
excitement,--most unlike the solemn and prayerful manner in which the
expedition at Keilah had been undertaken. God unacknowledged had left
David to misdirected paths. But if we blame David, as we must, for his
heedless passion, we must not less admire the readiness with which he
listens to the reasonable and pious counsel of Abigail. With the ready
instinct of a gracious heart he recognises the hand of God in Abigail's
coming,--this mercy had a heavenly origin; and cordially praises Him for
His restraining providence and restraining grace. He candidly admits
that he had formed a very sinful purpose; but he frankly abandons it,
accepts her offering, and sends her away in peace. "Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel, which sent thee this day to me; and blessed be thy
advice, and blessed be thou which hast kept me this day from coming to
shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand." It is a mark
of sincere and genuine godliness to be not less thankful for being kept
from sinning than from being rescued from suffering.
And it was not long before David had convincing proof that it is best to
leave vengeance in the hands of God. "It came to pass, about ten days
after, that the Lord smote Nabal that he died." Having abandoned himself
at his feast to the beastliest sensuality, his nervous system underwent
a depression corresponding to the excitement that had accompanied the
debauch. In this miserable state of collapse and weakness, the news of
what had happened gave him a fright from which he never recovered. A few
days of misery, and this wretched man went to his own place, there to
join the great crowd of selfish and godless men who said to God, "Depart
from us," and to whom God will but echo their own wish--"Depart from
Me!"
When David heard of his death, his satisfaction at the manifest
interposition of God on his behalf, and his thankfulness for having been
enabled to conquer his impetuosity, overcame for the time every other
consideration. Full of this view, he blessed God for Nabal's death,
rejoicing over his untimely end more perhaps than was altogether
becoming. We, at least, should have liked to see David dropping a tear
over the grave of one who had lived without grace and who died without
comfort. Perhaps, however, we are unable to sympathize with the
earnestness of the feeling produced by God's visible vindication of him;
a feeling that would be all the more fervent, because what had happened
to Nabal must have been viewed as a type of what was sure to happen to
Saul. In the death of Nabal, David by faith saw the destruction of all
his enemies--no wonder though his spirit was lifted up at the sight.
If it were not for a single expression, we should, without hesitation,
set down the thirty-seventh Psalm as written at this period. The
twenty-fifth verse seems to connect it with a later period; even then it
seems quite certain that, when David wrote it, the case of Nabal (among
other cases perhaps) was full in his view. The great fact in providence
on which the psalm turns is the sure and speedy destruction of the
wicked; and the great lesson of the psalm to God's servants is not to
fret because of their prosperity, but to rest patiently on the Lord, who
will cause the meek to inherit the earth. Many of the minor expressions
and remarks, too, are quite in harmony with this occasion: "Trust in the
Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily _thou
shalt be fed_." "Cease from _anger_, and forsake _wrath_; fret not
thyself in any wise to do evil." "The _meek_ shall inherit the earth."
"The mouth of the righteous speaketh _wisdom_,"--unlike Nabal, a fool by
name and a fool by nature. The great duty enforced is that of waiting on
the Lord; not merely because it is right in itself to do so, but because
"He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as
the noonday."
The chapter ends with Abigail's marriage to David. We are told, at the
same time, that he had another wife, Ahinoam the Jezreelite, and that
Michal, Saul's daughter, had been taken from him, and given to another.
These statements cannot but grate upon our ear, indicating a laxity in
matrimonial relations very far removed from our modern standard alike of
duty and of delicacy. We cannot acquit David of a want of patience and
self-restraint in these matters; undoubtedly it is a blot in his
character, and it is a blot that led to very serious results. It was an
element of coarseness in a nature that in most things was highly
refined. David missed the true ideal of family life, the true ideal of
love, the true ideal of purity. His polygamy was not indeed imputed to
him as a crime; it was tolerated in him, as it had been tolerated in
Jacob and in others; but its natural and indeed almost necessary effects
were not obviated. In his family it bred strife, animosity, division;
it bred fearful crimes among brothers and sisters; while, in his own
case, his unsubdued animalism stained his conscience with the deepest
sins, and rent his heart with terrible sorrows. How dangerous is even
one vulnerable spot--one unsubdued lust of evil! The fable represented
that the heel of Achilles, the only vulnerable part of his body, because
his mother held him by it when she dipped him in the Styx, was the spot
on which he received his fatal wound. It was through an unmortified lust
of the flesh that nearly all David's sorrows came. How emphatic in this
view the prayer of the Apostle--"I pray God that your whole spirit and
soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord." And
how necessary and appropriate the exhortation, "Put on the _whole_
armour of God"--girdle, breastplate, sandals, helmet, sword--all; leave
no part unprotected, "that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day,
and having done all to stand."
Thus, then, it appears, that for all that was beautiful in David he was
not a perfect character, and not without stains that seriously affected
the integrity and consistency of his life. In that most important part
of a young man's duty--to obtain full command of himself, yield to no
unlawful bodily indulgence, and do nothing that, directly or indirectly,
can tend to lower the character or impair the delicacy of women,--David,
instead of an example, is a beacon. Greatly though his early trials were
blessed in most things, they were not blessed in all things. We must
not, for this reason, turn from him as some do, with scorn. We are to
admire and imitate the qualities that were so fine, especially in early
life. Would that many of us were like him in his tenderness, his
godliness, and his attachment to his people! His name is one of the
embalmed names of Holy Writ,--all the more that when he did become
conscious of his sin, no man ever repented more bitterly; and no man's
spirit, when bruised and broken, ever sent more of the fragrance as "of
myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces."