Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

REFLECTION ON SAMUEL 3: 23-44

There are few stories in the Bible where the hero is a woman.  Abigail’s husband is Nabal, a Calebite.  His race is what she uses to excuse his rude behaviour towards David’s servants.  Who knows why she trashes Calebites, but they must have been nasty people.  Abigail also claims her husband’s name means ‘FOOL’. Already I like her.  Basically, Abigail saves her husband’s household from death.

The story is a classic! David is in the wilderness of Paran.  He sends servants to Nabal at Carmel during sheep shearing season, when there’s lots of food to feed the hired help.  Nabal trash talks David and sends the servants away empty handed. David’s is outraged based on the fact that he treated Nabel’s men well when his rebel army last came to Carmel.  He’s only asking for a favour in return. And as we learned so graphically on “Game of Thrones” this season, you NEVER trash talk someone who is about to become the king.  So, David musters over 400 troops and marches on Carmel, determined to kill all the males on Nabel’s estate. Hearing of this, Abigail packs 200 loaves of bread, 2 wineskins, 5 dressed sheep, 5 sheaves of roasted grain, 100 cakes of raisins and 200 cakes of pressed figs.  She saddles up her donkey and meets David half way. 

She begs for her husband’s life, implying that if she had seen David’s servants, they would have been treated well. She reminds David that he should not shed blood needlessly and prophesies that he will produce a ‘lasting dynasty’. Impressed, David turns away from war. This wise woman has made him realize that Nabal is not the enemy. His anger is against Saul, not this clown. Abigail returns home to find Nabel drunk at a kingly party in his own honour. Waiting until morning when he’s sober, she tells him the news. He immediately has a heart attack and dies 10 days later.  Nice timing, Abigail! 

David gets news of this.  And he’s no idiot.  This lady is smart, brave, resourceful, independent thinking AND the Bible says she was intelligent and beautiful. (Usually, the Bible does not take time to mention a woman’s beauty unless she’s amazingly gorgeous.) Well, not wanting to let a good woman go to waste, David sends to Carmel and brings Abigail to be his wife.  The Bible says she came with her own entourage of 5 servants and she bowed down face to the ground in front of David – a good start to an unequal patriarchal relationship, but still, a better match than the jerk she was married to before.  Happy endings … or sort of.

The chapter ends with two dark notes.  Abigail has to share David with another wife, Ahinoam of Jezreel.  And we also learn that David’s wife Michel, Saul’s daughter, David’s first wife and most likely his original true love, was given by Saul to some other man.  Michel had helped David escape down a rope.  She loved him enough to risk her life.  So, David in rebellion against Saul, away from the court, has his heartbreaks as well as his joys.  

Abigail comes out with full marks in this adventure.  She does everything right and gets a much better deal in a land ruled by men and in a time of war, when women had very little leverage to get anything they want – just like today.  She’s a match for David.  Both are attractive – and likely attracted to each other.  Both have diplomatic skills and both are prepared to become leaders of the nation, when David becomes the king.  She calculates the risk and chooses the cool ‘outlaw’ over her sour tempered drunken husband.  And, in the end, she brings all his wealth with her into the marriage.  Not bad.  Smart lady….

Is there a spiritual take-away from this story?  I’d like to think that God gives us brains to see situations and act on them when we need to. Prayer is good. Prayer plus action is better.  Abigail saves David from bloodshed he would not have to answer for to God.  In that sense, she is a minor prophet – the kind you might see every day in our time, moving God’s agenda towards good.  We may have such prophets in our midst and not even know it.

Peter Mansell  July 1, 2014.