1 Samuel 25:27

_AND NOW THIS BLESSING WHICH THINE HANDMAID HATH BROUGHT UNTO MY LORD, LET IT EVEN BE GIVEN UNTO THE YOUNG MEN THAT FOLLOW MY LORD._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

18-31 By a present Abigail atoned for Nabal's denial of David's request. Her behaviour was very submissive. Yielding pacifies great offences. She puts herself in the place of a penitent, and of a petitioner. She could not excuse her husband's conduct. She depends not upon her own reasonings, but on God's grace, to soften David, and expects that grace would work powerfully. She says that it was below him to take vengeance on so weak and despicable an enemy as Nabal, who, as he would do him no kindness, so he could do him no hurt. She foretells the glorious end of David's present troubles. God will preserve thy life; therefore it becomes not thee unjustly and unnecessarily to take away the lives of any, especially of the people of thy God and Saviour. Abigail keeps this argument for the last, as very powerful with so good a man; that the less he indulged his passion, the more he consulted...

EXPOSITION DEATH OF SAMUEL (1 Samuel 25:1). 1 SAMUEL 25:1 AND SAMUEL DIED. According to Josephus, Samuel had for eighteen years been contemporaneous with Saul's kingdom. If this calculation, which probably rests upon some Jewish tradition, be at all correct, we must include the years of Samuel's judgeship in the sum total of Saul's reign (see on 1 Samuel 13:1), as evidently his fall was now fast approaching. Samuel's life marked the beginning of the second age of Israelite history (Acts 3:24). Moses had given the people their law, but

AND NOW THIS BLESSING, WHICH THINE HANDMAID HATH BROUGHT UNTO MY LORD,.... The present, consisting of the things mentioned in 1 Samuel 25:18; which came as a blessing from God, and with good will from her: LET IT EVEN BE GIVEN UNTO THE YOUNG MEN THAT FOLLOW MY LORD; the servants of David: in the original it is, "that walk at the feet of my lord": and which the Targum paraphrases, "who minister before my lord"; and so Abigail's damsels are called "pedissequae", or "that walked at her feet", 1 Samuel 25:42; and with the Romans, in later times, servants were called a "pedibus" and "pedissequi" d. This also is very artfully said, as if the present was not good enough for David, and worthy of his acceptance; might be agreeable to his men, and of service to them....

CHAPTER 25 _ 1. The death of Samuel (1 Samuel 25:1)_ 2. Nabal and his refusal (1 Samuel 25:2) 3. Abigail's deed and her prayer (1 Samuel 25:14) 4. David's answer to Abigail (1 Samuel 25:32) 5. Nabal's death (1 Samuel 25:36) 6. Abigail becomes David's wife (1 Samuel 25:39) After the death of Samuel, briefly mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, David went still further south into the wil

1 SAMUEL 25:1 A. (TO RAMAH). DEATH AND BURIAL OF SAMUEL. (An editorial addition.) 1 SAMUEL 25:1. IN HIS HOUSE: in the grounds belonging to it. 1 SAMUEL 25:1 B - 1 SAMUEL 25:44. DAVID, NABAL AND ABIGAIL (J). From one of the oldest sources. The story is complete in itself, and has no obvious connexion with any of the other sections. 1 SAMUEL 25:1 B - 1 SAMUEL 25:13. David goes to the wilderness of Paran at the S. of the Araba

BLESSING. present. BROUGHT. Verb is masculine; and is so when women act in masculine way, and feminine when men act in feminine way....

Abigail's meeting with David 23. _lighted off the ass_ i.e. got down from, an old form of _alighted_. The Heb. word is different from that similarly translated in Joshua 15:18, and simply means "to descend....

WHEN ABIGAIL SAW DAVID, &C.— Abigail was a woman of distinguished merit. She had the advantage of a beautiful person, set off by an excellent understanding, a graceful address, and uncommon prudence; these are finely discovered in her speech to David, which is full of such humble, pathetic, natural, and for that reason powerful eloquence, as is not, I verily think, to be paralleled in antiquity. She begins by begging that the blame of this misconduct might rather light on her than on her husband; see 2 Samuel 14:9 but begs at the same time, that David would please to hear what she has to say in her own excuse. As for Nabal, he was below David's notice; a man, as his name implied, נבל _nabal,_ (which signifies _folly_ in the Hebrew,) of very mean understanding; and she excuses herself by assuring him, that she heard not a word of his message till his servants were sent away. Sh

_Abigail Appeals to David._ 1 Samuel 25:14-38 14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he railed on them. 15 But the men _were_ very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we any thing, as long as we were conversant with them, when we were in the fields: 16 They were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household: for he _is such_ a son of Belial, that _a man_ cannot speak to him. 18 Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched _corn,_ and an hundred clusters of raisins,