This week we’ll look at David for the last time. And the question is: how do you help a David when a David goes wrong?
Let’s recall what we know about his upbringing, because it’s vital background to today’s history. He grew up in Bethlehem; not the greatest place to grow up, as we noted in an earlier post. And his family was one where, when there’s a big celebration and the great Samuel himself is coming, David’s kicked out – onto the hills, where we know there are lions and bears. And those traditions of family behaviour get handed down through the clan; the way David’s kids treated each other says a lot about what they’d learnt from their dysfunctional family background. One of David’s sons rapes his half-sister, then his half-brother Absalom kills him. Absalom then goes after his dad David to murder him; civil war results, during which Absalom is stabbed through the heart by Joab David’s (probably) illegitimate nephew. David’s not pleased about that, takes away the army command from Joab, gives it to another nephew, the two meet in the street and one stabs the other. There is chaos sometimes even in the lives & immediate families of those `on the right side`; this is how things are, not how we’d like them to be.
And David’s wounds from this kind of stuff never entirely healed, and produced a personality that (for example) overreacts grossly in today’s chapter, ch25. Let’s remember this is before Pentecost; David is without the Spirit as we have Him now, with His colossal power to interrupt the evil in us. But we see how damaged David was, & how when David drifted away from God, and then was insulted, he became an unreformed thug. (`May God deal with David, be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to [Nabal]!’ (25:22).)
But as we’ve said: 1 Samuel’s story is how God takes this damaged, gifted but deeply mixed up person and turns him into someone who builds something massive for His glory. God uses people like this, & sorts us out bit by bit. So how does God develop David in this week’s chapter?
The first issue here is how we respond to pain and insult, like the insults David received in 25:10-11. Who do we trust to get us vindication (see Romans 12:19)? But if we’re already feeling hurt by other things it’s easy for our anger to explode in a disproportionate way. So here: David’s being hunted by Saul, his mentor Samuel has just died, he’s living in the wild when he could be living in a palace if he’d taken his chance to kill Saul in the previous chapter. And it’s good he didn’t, but the stress is building up; and he doesn’t think, he just explodes when Nabal insults him. `David said to his men, “Each of you strap on your sword!”’ (v13). It’s so easy in these situations to overreact in ways that have big, lasting, unintended results (eg families that stop speaking to each other because of an argument about where to spend Christmas). We overreact, and trigger a cycle of anger on both sides, that grows and rebounds and grows.
Abigail, Nabal’s wife, is the woman God uses to breaks the cycle. How? Five things. First, she takes good advice about what disastrous consequences Nabal’s insults may have (v17), and she obeys God’s prompting to move quickly (vv18,32,34). (We need to seek God’s guidance here; there are of course many conflict situations – the majority perhaps – where it’s better to be `slow to speak`(James 1:19).) Secondly, she’s remarkably humble: `When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground` (v23); humility (fuelled by God’s Spirit) can make a huge difference in conflicts like this. Thirdly, she brings God into the conversation & gets David to start thinking about the situation in God-categories (vv26-31). Have I got people in my life who can help me think in God-categories when I really don’t feel like doing so?
Fourthly, she’s wise in what she says: she doesn’t speak out to condemn David, but rather says in effect in vv30-31, `The vicious revenge you’re taking is beneath you`. James 1:5 tells us, if we lack wisdom, to ask God and it will definitely be given us; and that should give us courage when we don’t feel we’re capable of intervening effectively in a situation like this. And lastly, she helps David look seriously at the consequences; as C H Mackintosh says, a key lesson here is diverting David’s attention from his current hurt by pointing to the glorious future God nevertheless has for him, and challenging him to faith.
And all this bears fruit because David, in all his anger and even thuggishness, remains teachable. Faced with Abigail’s sensitive challenge, he publicly admits he’s got it wrong (vv32ff,39). (Has Abigail’s humility been infectious? Humility can be infectious, and it makes room for God to work. `God gives grace to the humble`, says 1 Peter, `Humble yourselves, therefore… that God may lift you up in due time.`) And as a result David steps back and leaves the situation to God. (‘Praise be to the LORD`, he will say later after God has intervened, `who has upheld my cause against Nabal for treating me with contempt. He has kept his servant [ie David himself] from doing wrong, and has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing down on his own head’ (v39)). And as a result of this training, a chapter later he’s able to trust the whole, much bigger Saul situation into God’s hand, restraining himself from vengeance: `Who can lay a hand on the LORD’s anointed and be guiltless? As surely as the LORD lives, the LORD himself will strike him, or his time will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish`- which is indeed what happens, with the result that David becomes king.
`Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom`, says Paul (Col 3:16). Abigail here has (sensitively, humbly, wisely) `admonished` and turned a damaged, revenge-driven thug into a man of faith; at least for now… Ch25 shows us how; may God enable us to learn these same skills…
(I owe a very great deal to my old colleague Andrew Waugh in understanding this episode.)
