Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

We're back in First Samuel today, and the last thing that happened in this storyline was that

David spared Saul's life. Then Saul acknowledged that David would be the next king. So the timing

is right for Samuel to die, which is how our reading opens today. Then we cut to David and his people,

who had protected a rich man's flocks while he was out of town. The rich man's name is Nabil, which means

foolish. They've done Nabil a service, so David sends his men to ask Nabal for provisions so they can

keep the feast, but he refuses and even insults David. So they decide to attack his estate and

take what he refuses to give. David makes a vow to kill all the males in Nabal's household.

It's interesting to see how differently David responds here than how he was responding

to Saul in the past. One of Nabal's servants takes word of all of this back to Nabal's wife, Abigail,

letting her know how honorable and helpful David and his men have been to them. The servant knows

his life is at stake, but he can't appeal to Nabal because he's an unreasonable man, so he goes to

Abigail instead.

She gets some food and wine together, a lot of it, like she clears the aisles at the Israeli

Costco and takes it to David without mentioning it to her husband. And she has a beautiful approach

when she drops off all the shopping carts. She humbles herself before him and accepts the blame for everything

that has gone wrong, even though it's not her fault. This helps to diffuse David's anger. Then she

reasons with him and wishes him well. She also seems to indicate that she knows both David's past

and future. Unlike Nabal who insulted David, she seems to know that he killed Goliath with a slingshot

because she references it, and she seems to know that he'll be the next king of Israel,

but she seems to really believe in him as well. And it calms David down. He relents. This means

he's breaking his vow to God, but we've learned by now that it's better to break a vow than to take a life.

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