Samuel died. The whole country came to his funeral. Everyone grieved over his death, and he was buried in his hometown of Ramah. Meanwhile, David moved again, this time to the wilderness of Maon.
There was a certain man in Maon who carried on his business in the region of Carmel. He was very prosperous--three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and it was sheep-shearing time in Carmel.
I heard that it's sheep-shearing time. Here's the point: When your shepherds were camped near us we didn't take advantage of them. They didn't lose a thing all the time they were with us in Carmel.
Ask your young men--they'll tell you. What I'm asking is that you be generous with my men--share the feast! Give whatever your heart tells you to your servants and to me, David your son.'"
Do you think I'm going to take good bread and wine and meat freshly butchered for my sheepshearers and give it to men I've never laid eyes on? Who knows where they've come from?"
David said, "Strap on your swords!" They all strapped on their swords, David and his men, and set out, four hundred of them. Two hundred stayed behind to guard the camp.
Meanwhile, one of the young shepherds told Abigail, Nabal's wife, what had happened: "David sent messengers from the backcountry to salute our master, but he tore into them with insults.
Abigail flew into action. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep dressed out and ready for cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, and she had it all loaded on some donkeys.
David had just said, "That sure was a waste, guarding everything this man had out in the wild so that nothing he had was lost--and now he rewards me with insults. A real slap in the face!
Don't dwell on what that brute Nabal did. He acts out the meaning of his name: Nabal, Fool. Foolishness oozes from him. "I wasn't there when the young men my master sent arrived. I didn't see them.
And now, my master, as GOD lives and as you live, GOD has kept you from this avenging murder--and may your enemies, all who seek my master's harm, end up like Nabal!
"Forgive my presumption! But GOD is at work in my master, developing a rule solid and dependable. My master fights GOD's battles! As long as you live no evil will stick to you.
If anyone stands in your way, if anyone tries to get you out of the way, Know this: Your God-honored life is tightly bound in the bundle of God-protected life; But the lives of your enemies will be hurled aside as a stone is thrown from a sling.
my master will not have this dead weight in his heart, the guilt of an avenging murder. And when GOD has worked things for good for my master, remember me."
A close call! As GOD lives, the God of Israel who kept me from hurting you, if you had not come as quickly as you did, stopping me in my tracks, by morning there would have been nothing left of Nabal but dead meat."
When Abigail got home she found Nabal presiding over a huge banquet. He was in high spirits--and very, very drunk. So she didn't tell him anything of what she'd done until morning.
When David heard that Nabal was dead he said, "Blessed be GOD who has stood up for me against Nabal's insults, kept me from an evil act, and let Nabal's evil boomerang back on him." Then David sent for Abigail to tell her that he wanted her for his wife.
She got up, and then bowed down, face to the ground, saying, "I'm your servant, ready to do anything you want. I'll even wash the feet of my master's servants!"