Imitate Their Faith

She Acted With Discretion

ABIGAIL saw the panic in the young man’s eyes. He was terrified​—and for good reason. Grave danger loomed. Right at that moment, some 400 warriors were on the way, determined to kill off every male in the household of Nabal, Abigail’s husband. Why?

It had all started with Nabal. He had acted cruelly and insolently, as usual. This time, though, he had insulted the wrong man​—the beloved commander of a loyal and well-trained band of warriors. Now, one of Nabal’s young workmen, perhaps a shepherd, came to Abigail, trusting that she would come up with a plan to save them. But what could one woman do against an army?

“He Screamed Rebukes at Them”

Nabal had just made Abigail’s situation harder than ever. The man he insulted was none other than David. This was the faithful servant of Jehovah whom Samuel the prophet had anointed, revealing David as God’s choice to succeed Saul as king. (1 Samuel 16:1, 2, 11-13) On the run from the jealous and murderous King Saul, David was dwelling in the wilderness with his 600 loyal warriors.

He was outraged! “He screamed rebukes at them” is how the young man mentioned at the outset described the scene to Abigail. Miserly Nabal complained loudly about his precious bread, water, and slaughtered meat. He ridiculed David as inconsequential and compared him to a runaway servant. Nabal’s view may have been similar to that of Saul, who hated David. Neither man had Jehovah’s view. God loved David and saw him, not as a rebellious slave, but as the future king of Israel.​—1 Samuel 25:10, 11, 14.

In a sense, we have already seen Abigail take the first step toward righting this terrible wrong. Unlike her husband, Nabal, she proved willing to listen. The young servant said of Nabal: “He is too much of a good-for-nothing fellow to speak to him.”c (1 Samuel 25:17) Tragically, Nabal’s sense of his own importance rendered him unwilling to listen. Such arrogance is all too common to this day. But the young man knew Abigail to be different, which is no doubt why he approached her with this problem.