And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
Nabal
נָבָ֡לna.Val
H5037
Nabal · proper noun, a man's name
feast
מִשְׁתֶּ֨הmish.Teh
H4960
drink · noun, common masculine singular absolute
house
בְּבֵית֜וֹbe.vei.To
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
feast
כְּמִשְׁתֵּ֣הke.mish.Teh
H4960
drink · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
king
הַמֶּ֗לֶךְha.Me.lekh
H4428
a king · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Nabal’s
נָבָל֙na.Val
H5037
Nabal · proper noun, a man's name
heart
וְלֵ֤בve.Lev
H3820
the heart · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
great (in any sense) · conjunction + adjective, masculine singular absolute
morning
הַבֹּֽקֶרha.Bo.ker
H1242
properly · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
light
א֥וֹר'or
H216
illumination or (concrete) luminary (in every sense · verb, qal infinitive construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Samuel 25:19 And she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But she told not her husband Nabal.
2 Samuel 13:23 And it came to pass after two full years, that Absalom had sheepshearers in Baal-hazor, which is beside Ephraim: and Absalom invited all the…
2 Samuel 13:28 Now Absalom had commanded his servants, saying, Mark ye now when Amnon’s heart is merry with wine, and when I say unto you, Smite Amnon; the…
Proverbs 20:1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
1 Thessalonians 5:7-8 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
Matthew 10:16 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
Romans 13:13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.
1 Kings 20:16 And they went out at noon. But Ben-hadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions, he and the kings, the thirty and two kings that helped…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 25:36–end
We are now to attend Nabal's funeral and Abigail's wedding.
I. Nabal's funeral. The apostle speaks of some that were twice dead, Jde 1:12. We have hare Nabal thrice dead, though but just now wonderfully rescued from the sword of David and delivered from so great a death; for the preservations of wicked men are but reservations for some further sorer strokes of divine wrath. Here is,
1. Nabal dead drunk, Sa1 25:36. Abigail came home, and, it should seem, he had so many people and so much plenty about him that he neither missed her nor the provisions she took to David; but she found him in the midst of his jollity, little thinking how near he was to ruin by one whom he had foolishly made his e…
NABAL'S DEATH. (Sa1 25:36-44)
he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king--The sheep-shearing season was always a very joyous occasion. Masters usually entertained their shepherds; and even Nabal, though of a most niggardly disposition, prepared festivities on a scale of sumptuous liberality. The modern Arabs celebrate the season with similar hilarity.
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 25:29
Shall be bound in the bundle of life - Thy life shall be precious in the sight of the Lord: it shall be found in the bundle of life; it shall be supported by Him who is the Spring and Fountain of life, and ever be found united to those who are most favored by the Almighty.
Them shall he sling out - Far from being bound and kept together in union with the Fountain of life, he will cast them off from himself as a stone is cast out from a sling. This betokens both force and violence.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 25:36
And Abigail came to Nabal,.... Having sped with David, and taken her leave of him, she returned home to her husband Nabal:
and, behold, he held a feast in his house like the feast of a king; both for the number of dishes on his table and of guests at it though only on the account of sheep shearing; but very probably there were others that were invited to this entertainment besides the shearers; covetous men are generally very profuse when they make feasts:
and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: which was a very ill example for the master of the feast to set, and was one instance among others of his folly, and of his conduct answering to his name:
wherefore she to…
The Church Fathers
But to a mind that is drunk with fury every right thing that is said appears wrong. Whence to Nabal when he was drunk Abigail laudably kept silence about his fault, but, when he had digested his wine, as laudably told him of it. For he could for this reason perceive the evil he had done, that he did not hear of it when drunk.
Moreover, Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, there was a feast in his house. After showing the Lord the affection of her devotion, the Synagogue of believers came to see the life and mind of the unbelievers, in case she might be able to call them to faith as well. But when she saw them satiated with the feasts of legal sacrifices, rejoicing that they were a royal race above other nations, and, what is worse, inflated with a mad intoxication against the word of the Gospel, she was silent for a while about the danger of the crime committed, until she herself, more and more confirmed by the light of the Holy Spirit, proceeded more freely to reprove and they, with the glory of Christ shining openly, would recognize the sin they had committed against Him more evidently, and recognizing, would lament, lamenting would cleanse themselves. However, they, recognizing their guilt, chose not to cleanse it with repentance, but to increase it with pride. For even the apostles and all who repented from the snares of the devil are believed to pertain to Abigail, that is, to the person of the Father's exultation, either as companions or as gifts.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Abigail — Father (i.e., “leader”) of the dance, or “of joy.” (1.) The sister of David, and wife of Jether an Ishmaelite (1 Chr. 2:16, 17). She was the mother of Amasa (2 Sam. 17:25). (2.) The wife of the…
Banquet — A feast provided for the entertainment of a company of guests (Esther 5; 7; 1 Pet. 4:3); such as was provided for our Lord by his friends in Bethany (Matt. 26:6; Mark 14:3; comp. John 12:2). These…
Booty — Captives or cattle or objects of value taken in war. In Canaan all that breathed were to be destroyed (Deut. 20: 16). The “pictures and images” of the Canaanites were to be destroyed also (Num.…
David — Beloved, the eighth and youngest son of Jesse, a citizen of Bethlehem. His father seems to have been a man in humble life. His mother’s name is not recorded. Some think she was the Nahash of 2 Sam.…
Nabal — Foolish, a descendant of Caleb who dwelt at Maon (1 Sam. 25), the modern Main, 7 miles south-east of Hebron. He was “very great, and he had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats...but the man was churlish and…
Sheep — Are of different varieties. Probably the flocks of Abraham and Isaac were of the wild species found still in the mountain regions of Persia and Kurdistan. After the Exodus, and as a result of…
Drunkenness · .Nabal — .Nabal
Entertainments · Given on occasions of: Sheep-shearing — Given on occasions of: Sheep-shearing
Feasts · Given by kings — Given by kings
Nabal · History of — History of
Sheep · Feasting at the time of shearing — Feasting at the time of shearing
The following history of Nabal's folly, and of the wise and generous behaviour of his pious and intelligent wife Abigail towards David, shows how Jehovah watched over His servant David, and not only preserved him from an act of passionate excitement, which might have endangered his calling to be king of Israel, but turned the trouble into which he had been brought into a source of prosperity and salvation.
Sa1 25:2-3
At Maon, i.e., Main or the mountains of Judah (see at Jos 15:55), there lived a rich man (גּדול, great through property and riches), who had his establishment at Carmel. מעשׂה, work, occupation, then establishment, possessions (vid., Exo 23:15). Carmel is not the promontory of t…
like a king: Nabal was like Saul (see study note on 25:1-44).
Rashi on 1 Samuel 25:33
Who prevented me. You stopped me, as in, 'You shall not stop [תִכְלָא] your mercy,'22Tehillim 40:12. [and] 'will not stop [יׅכְלֶה] you.'23Bereishis 23:6.
And from avenging myself with my own hand. This is connected with [the phrase], 'from coming into bloodshed.' The 'מ' [=from] of [מִבּוֹא] is connected to 'and avenging,' meaning, 'from coming into bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand.'
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
1 Samuel 25:36 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
