1 Samuel 25-27

New Living Translation

The Death of Samuel

25 Now Samuel died, and all Israel gathered for his funeral. They buried him at his house in Ramah.

Nabal Angers David

Then David moved down to the wilderness of Maon.^{[a] 2} There was a wealthy man from Maon who owned property near the town of Carmel. He had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats, and it was sheep-shearing time. ³ This man’s name was Nabal, and his wife, Abigail, was a sensible and beautiful woman. But Nabal, a descendant of Caleb, was crude and mean in all his dealings.

⁴ When David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep, ⁵ he sent ten of his young men to Carmel with this message for Nabal: ⁶ “Peace and prosperity to you, your family, and everything you own! ⁷ I am told that it is sheep-shearing time. While your shepherds stayed among us near Carmel, we never harmed them, and nothing was ever stolen from them. ⁸ Ask your own men, and they will tell you this is true. So would you be kind to us, since we have come at a time of celebration? Please share any provisions you might have on hand with us and with your friend David.” ⁹ David’s young men gave this message to Nabal in David’s name, and they waited for a reply.

¹⁰ “Who is this fellow David?” Nabal sneered to the young men. “Who does this son of Jesse think he is? There are lots of servants these days who run away from their masters. ¹¹ Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I’ve slaughtered for my shearers and give it to a band of outlaws who come from who knows where?”

¹² So David’s young men returned and told him what Nabal had said. ¹³ “Get your swords!” was David’s reply as he strapped on his own. Then 400 men started off with David, and 200 remained behind to guard their equipment.

¹⁴ Meanwhile, one of Nabal’s servants went to Abigail and told her, “David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed insults at them. ¹⁵ These men have been very good to us, and we never suffered any harm from them. Nothing was stolen from us the whole time they were with us. ¹⁶ In fact, day and night they were like a wall of protection to us and the sheep. ¹⁷ You need to know this and figure out what to do, for there is going to be trouble for our master and his whole family. He’s so ill-tempered that no one can even talk to him!”

¹⁸ Abigail wasted no time. She quickly gathered 200 loaves of bread, two wineskins full of wine, five sheep that had been slaughtered, nearly a bushel^[b] of roasted grain, 100 clusters of raisins, and 200 fig cakes. She packed them on donkeys ¹⁹ and said to her servants, “Go on ahead. I will follow you shortly.” But she didn’t tell her husband Nabal what she was doing.

²⁰ As she was riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, she saw David and his men coming toward her. ²¹ David had just been saying, “A lot of good it did to help this fellow. We protected his flocks in the wilderness, and nothing he owned was lost or stolen. But he has repaid me evil for good. ²² May God strike me and kill me^[c] if even one man of his household is still alive tomorrow morning!”

Abigail Intercedes for Nabal

²³ When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed low before him. ²⁴ She fell at his feet and said, “I accept all blame in this matter, my lord. Please listen to what I have to say. ²⁵ I know Nabal is a wicked and ill-tempered man; please don’t pay any attention to him. He is a fool, just as his name suggests.^[d] But I never even saw the young men you sent.

²⁶ “Now, my lord, as surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, since the Lord has kept you from murdering and taking vengeance into your own hands, let all your enemies and those who try to harm you be as cursed as Nabal is. ²⁷ And here is a present that I, your servant, have brought to you and your young men. ²⁸ Please forgive me if I have offended you in any way. The Lord will surely reward you with a lasting dynasty, for you are fighting the Lord’s battles. And you have not done wrong throughout your entire life.

²⁹ “Even when you are chased by those who seek to kill you, your life is safe in the care of the Lord your God, secure in his treasure pouch! But the lives of your enemies will disappear like stones shot from a sling! ³⁰ When the Lord has done all he promised and has made you leader of Israel, ³¹ don’t let this be a blemish on your record. Then your conscience won’t have to bear the staggering burden of needless bloodshed and vengeance. And when the Lord has done these great things for you, please remember me, your servant!”

³² David replied to Abigail, “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you to meet me today! ³³ Thank God for your good sense! Bless you for keeping me from murder and from carrying out vengeance with my own hands. ³⁴ For I swear by the Lord, the God of Israel, who has kept me from hurting you, that if you had not hurried out to meet me, not one of Nabal’s men would still be alive tomorrow morning.” ³⁵ Then David accepted her present and told her, “Return home in peace. I have heard what you said. We will not kill your husband.”

³⁶ When Abigail arrived home, she found that Nabal was throwing a big party and was celebrating like a king. He was very drunk, so she didn’t tell him anything about her meeting with David until dawn the next day. ³⁷ In the morning when Nabal was sober, his wife told him what had happened. As a result he had a stroke,^[e] and he lay paralyzed on his bed like a stone. ³⁸ About ten days later, the Lord struck him, and he died.

David Marries Abigail

³⁹ When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Praise the Lord, who has avenged the insult I received from Nabal and has kept me from doing it myself. Nabal has received the punishment for his sin.” Then David sent messengers to Abigail to ask her to become his wife.

⁴⁰ When the messengers arrived at Carmel, they told Abigail, “David has sent us to take you back to marry him.”

⁴¹ She bowed low to the ground and responded, “I, your servant, would be happy to marry David. I would even be willing to become a slave, washing the feet of his servants!” ⁴² Quickly getting ready, she took along five of her servant girls as attendants, mounted her donkey, and went with David’s messengers. And so she became his wife. ⁴³ David also married Ahinoam from Jezreel, making both of them his wives. ⁴⁴ Saul, meanwhile, had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to a man from Gallim named Palti son of Laish.

David Spares Saul Again

26 Now some men from Ziph came to Saul at Gibeah to tell him, “David is hiding on the hill of Hakilah, which overlooks Jeshimon.”

² So Saul took 3,000 of Israel’s elite troops and went to hunt him down in the wilderness of Ziph. ³ Saul camped along the road beside the hill of Hakilah, near Jeshimon, where David was hiding. When David learned that Saul had come after him into the wilderness, ⁴ he sent out spies to verify the report of Saul’s arrival.

⁵ David slipped over to Saul’s camp one night to look around. Saul and Abner son of Ner, the commander of his army, were sleeping inside a ring formed by the slumbering warriors. ⁶ “Who will volunteer to go in there with me?” David asked Ahimelech the Hittite and Abishai son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother.

“I’ll go with you,” Abishai replied. ⁷ So David and Abishai went right into Saul’s camp and found him asleep, with his spear stuck in the ground beside his head. Abner and the soldiers were lying asleep around him.

⁸ “God has surely handed your enemy over to you this time!” Abishai whispered to David. “Let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I won’t need to strike twice!”

⁹ “No!” David said. “Don’t kill him. For who can remain innocent after attacking the Lord’s anointed one? ¹⁰ Surely the Lord will strike Saul down someday, or he will die of old age or in battle. ¹¹ The Lord forbid that I should kill the one he has anointed! But take his spear and that jug of water beside his head, and then let’s get out of here!”

¹² So David took the spear and jug of water that were near Saul’s head. Then he and Abishai got away without anyone seeing them or even waking up, because the Lord had put Saul’s men into a deep sleep.

¹³ David climbed the hill opposite the camp until he was at a safe distance. ¹⁴ Then he shouted down to the soldiers and to Abner son of Ner, “Wake up, Abner!”

“Who is it?” Abner demanded.

¹⁵ “Well, Abner, you’re a great man, aren’t you?” David taunted. “Where in all Israel is there anyone as mighty? So why haven’t you guarded your master the king when someone came to kill him? ¹⁶ This isn’t good at all! I swear by the Lord that you and your men deserve to die, because you failed to protect your master, the Lord’s anointed! Look around! Where are the king’s spear and the jug of water that were beside his head?”

¹⁷ Saul recognized David’s voice and called out, “Is that you, my son David?”

And David replied, “Yes, my lord the king. ¹⁸ Why are you chasing me? What have I done? What is my crime? ¹⁹ But now let my lord the king listen to his servant. If the Lord has stirred you up against me, then let him accept my offering. But if this is simply a human scheme, then may those involved be cursed by the Lord. For they have driven me from my home, so I can no longer live among the Lord’s people, and they have said, ‘Go, worship pagan gods.’ ²⁰ Must I die on foreign soil, far from the presence of the Lord? Why has the king of Israel come out to search for a single flea? Why does he hunt me down like a partridge on the mountains?”

²¹ Then Saul confessed, “I have sinned. Come back home, my son, and I will no longer try to harm you, for you valued my life today. I have been a fool and very, very wrong.”

²² “Here is your spear, O king,” David replied. “Let one of your young men come over and get it. ²³ The Lord gives his own reward for doing good and for being loyal, and I refused to kill you even when the Lord placed you in my power, for you are the Lord’s anointed one. ²⁴ Now may the Lord value my life, even as I have valued yours today. May he rescue me from all my troubles.”

²⁵ And Saul said to David, “Blessings on you, my son David. You will do many heroic deeds, and you will surely succeed.” Then David went away, and Saul returned home.

David among the Philistines

27 But David kept thinking to himself, “Someday Saul is going to get me. The best thing I can do is escape to the Philistines. Then Saul will stop hunting for me in Israelite territory, and I will finally be safe.”

² So David took his 600 men and went over and joined Achish son of Maoch, the king of Gath. ³ David and his men and their families settled there with Achish at Gath. David brought his two wives along with him—Ahinoam from Jezreel and Abigail, Nabal’s widow from Carmel. ⁴ Word soon reached Saul that David had fled to Gath, so he stopped hunting for him.

⁵ One day David said to Achish, “If it is all right with you, we would rather live in one of the country towns instead of here in the royal city.”

⁶ So Achish gave him the town of Ziklag (which still belongs to the kings of Judah to this day), ⁷ and they lived there among the Philistines for a year and four months.

⁸ David and his men spent their time raiding the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites—people who had lived near Shur, toward the land of Egypt, since ancient times. ⁹ David did not leave one person alive in the villages he attacked. He took the sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys, camels, and clothing before returning home to see King Achish.

¹⁰ “Where did you make your raid today?” Achish would ask.

And David would reply, “Against the south of Judah, the Jerahmeelites, and the Kenites.”

¹¹ No one was left alive to come to Gath and tell where he had really been. This happened again and again while he was living among the Philistines. ¹² Achish believed David and thought to himself, “By now the people of Israel must hate him bitterly. Now he will have to stay here and serve me forever!”