File:Abigail Pleads for Life of Her Husband.jpg

Summary
Saul tears the robe of Samuel.

I Samuel 25:14-35

25:14. But one of the servants told, Abigail, the wife of Nabal, saying: Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness, to salute our master: and he rejected them.

25:15. These men were very good to us, and gave us no trouble: Neither did we ever lose any thing all the time that we conversed with them in the desert.

25:16. They were a wall unto us, both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.

25:17. Wherefore consider, and think what you have to do: for evil is determined against your husband, and against your house, and he is a son of Belial, so that no man can speak to him.

25:18. Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves, and two vessels of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of dry figs, and laid them upon donkeys:

25:19. and she said to her servants: Go before me: behold, I will follow after you: but she told not her husband, Nabal.

25:20. When she had gotten upon a donkey, and was coming down to the foot of the mountain, David and his men came down over against her, and she met them.

25:21. David said: Truly in vain have I kept all that belonged to this fellow in the wilderness, and nothing was lost of all that pertained unto him: and he has returned me evil for good.

25:22. May God do so and so, and add more to the foes of David, if I leave any male of all that belong to him till the morning!

If I leave, etc. . .David certainly sinned in his designs against Nabal and his family, as he himself was afterwards sensible, when he blessed God for hindering him from executing the revenge he had proposed.

25:23. When Abigail saw David, she made haste and lighted off the ass, and fell before David, on her face, and adored upon the ground.

25:24. She fell at his feet, and said: Upon me let this iniquity be, my lord: let your handmaid speak, I beseech you, in your ears, and hear the words of your servant.

25:25. Let not my lord the king, I pray you, regard this naughty man, Nabal: for according to his name, he is a fool, and folly is with him: but I, your handmaid, did not see your servants, my lord, whom you sentest.

His name. . .Nabal, in Hebrew, signifies a fool.

25:26. Now therefore, my lord, the Lord lives, and your soul lives, who has withholden you from coming to blood, and has saved your hand to you: and now let your enemies be as Nabal, and all they that seek evil to my lord.

25:27. Wherefore receive this blessing, which your handmaid has brought to you, my lord: and give it to the young men that follow you, my lord.

25:28. Forgive the iniquity of your handmaid: for the Lord will surely make for my lord a faithful house, because you, my lord, fightest the battles of the Lord: let not evil therefore be found in you all the days of your life.

25:29. For if a man at any time shall rise, and persecute you, and seek your life, the soul of my lord shall be kept, as in the bundle of the living, with the Lord your God: but the souls of your enemies shall be whirled, as with the violence and whirling of a sling.

25:30. When the Lord shall have done to you, my lord, all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and shall have made you prince over Israel,

25:31. This shall not be an occasion of grief to you, and a scruple of heart to my lord, that you have shed innocent blood, or have revenged yourself: and when the Lord shall have done well by my lord, you shall remember your handmaid.

25:32. David said to Abigail: Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me, and blessed be your speech:

25:33. and blessed be you, who have kept me today from coming to blood, and revenging me with my own hand.

25:34. Otherwise, as the Lord lives, the God of Israel, who has withholden me from doing you any evil, if you hadst not quickly come to meet me, by the morning light not a single male belonging to Nabal would have been left.

25:35. David received at her hand all that she had brought him, and said to her: Go in peace into your house, behold I have heard your voice, and honored your face.