This is a story about a strong and resourceful woman. This is a tale of a foolish and worthless man. And this is about a wise young man who’d soon be king. But underneath, it’s a study on what discernment is and how it should be employed. In other words, it’s a lesson on knowing the right thing to do and doing it.
Nabal was filthy rich, as they say. He had his three thousand sheep in Carmel to be sheared. These sheep grazed in the nearby wilderness of Maon where David and his 600 mighty men were in hiding from King Saul. While there, Nabal’s shepherds and David’s men coexisted, with David’s soldiers informally protecting his valuable assets. As described, they were “like a wall” (v. 16) or hedge around the herds. Parenthetically, we learn that the “harsh and evil” Nabal was married to the “intelligent and beautiful” Abigail.
Now, it was a time when the people feasted, so David, thinking of his men, sent ten representatives to Carmel to ask Nabal for some provisions in return for his protection services, but Nabal rebuffed them. In fact, he insulted God’s anointed. When told, the future king sought vengeance, like most future kings would. He commanded 400 of his band to strap on their swords and vowed that not a male would be left in Nabal’s household when he was through with him.
Abigail caught wind of this ominous plan and hastily put together a bountiful banquet meal—including wine, roasted grain, raisin clusters, and date cakes—and shipped it via donkey to Maon. She followed on their heels on her own mount. It’s important to note that all Nabal had in mind was water, bread and meat, at the most.
On this journey she encountered David and his men. In the ensuing exchange are huge lessons on discernment.
Abigail knew that her husband lived up to he his name (could be translated “fool”), and that he was “worthless.” (v. 17) Nonetheless, she still had to afford him respect or David would find her unbecoming. So she accepted blame for his actions and deeds.
While Nabal probably knew something about David, he considered him only a runaway servant. Abigail on the other hand was astute. She knew David’s future national role, and was aware of his eschatological importance. As such, she looked forward to see the ramifications of David’s intentions and appealed to him on that basis.
She closed her case by appealing to David’s conscience. The king would not want to carry the weight of this massacre in his mind going forward. In the end, David was prohibited from constructing the temple because he had blood on his hands, but not on her watch. (1 Chronicles 28:3)
Finally, Abigail had the good sense to wait until Nabal sobered up to tell him of her encounter with David when she got back. He needed to be sitting down when his heart went to “stone.”
So God exacted David’s revenge for him by stopping Nabal’s heart, and David received a classy, courageous, beautiful, resourceful, intelligent and God-fearing wife in return.
May her tribe increase.
Difficult Times Will Come
It’s important to understand the gravity of what Paul is telling his disciple Timothy here. It was obvious to Paul that his time was near, and that Timothy would carry on in his footsteps in the years to come. These were Paul’s final instructions. You hang on a dying man’s last words and Paul was uttering them. He’d just finished urging Timothy to be cleansed and useful for service, to be patient and kind and focused and persistent in persuading the lost to follow the Lord.
But then came a dire warning. You could just sense a deep sigh, a foreboding finger, and moist eyes. “But realize this, that in the last days difficult days will come.” Now Paul’s days had been perilous, and they were about to get worse. “But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” So Timothy could expect much harder times than what he saw his mentor suffer through, if you could believe it. That must have been sobering. And Paul felt these days were imminent, likely within Timothy’s lifetime.
Times did change with emperor Nero fixating on Christians, but looking back, a couple of thousand years have elapsed since that time. Some would exclaim its always been terrible for believers! Others might still be seeing darkest days around the corner. What we learn for sure from this dire prediction is that there has to be a noticeable uptick in difficulty in the last days and that there will be last days.
The last days before what? Since Paul was “pre-trib” he was talking about the rapture. As an aside, they’ll be no one but the bad people Paul describes in the 7-year tribulation, outside of those who convert under those harsh circumstances. The restraining influence of millions of spirit-filled believers will be gone. The “restrictor plate” on evil will be removed.
In the Greek, you can make the meaning of a word opposite with an “alpha.” In Paul’s litany in verses 2-5, you have all the bad actors, and many alphas. Today with social media so pervasive we clearly see the evil in people’s souls (in this case, due to a lack of self “without self-control”). It’s an ugly window in. And seeing all the “selfies” taken and all the self-indulgences, is there any doubt that the love of self is preeminent in today’s society. And that’s just two of this cast of characters.
It’s in this context Paul commissions his son, with the prescience of a prophet to sense it will not end well. But for us it does.
The one admonition that’s apparently counter to our Christian calling is “avoid such men as these,” or keep shunning people like these. Are we to be in the world but not of it? Are we to stiff arm the unsavory sorts, or like Christ dine with them? Since Paul tells Timothy to avoid these kinds of people, I’ll err on the side of avoidance. Nevertheless, life throws us into inescapable encounters with these kinds, just like Daniel in the lion’s den.
Our objective in these interactions is to handle them as Christ did. He was a compelling magnetic figure. So should we be!