Abigail: 'Help melt' to 'Help meet'

David and his unique band of men were on the run from Saul for a while. It was a precarious lifestyle and required help from others from time to time. David escaped to the wilderness of Paran and learned about a wealthy man named Nabal from Maon who was having his sheep sheared in Carmel. David sent ten men to approach Nabal's sheep herders and insure them that they were friendly and not enemies and actually could help them in return for supplies. Nabal was described as churlish and mean spirited. He lived up to this description in his response. He was very surly to the ten men. When this was reported to David, he told his men to arm themselves for a fight. Some of Nabal's sheep shearers went to Nabal's wife, Abigail, and told her what was going on and enlisted her aid. This says a lot about the quality of her life and the respect they had for her.

Abigail is described as beautiful and full of understanding. Without her husband knowing it, she took the initiative to gather a large amount of supplies and food and made her way to David to ease the tension.  David listened to her wise admonitions and left. In this patriarchal culture, she must have been a bold, courageous woman. David obviously was impressed with her. When she returned home, her husband was drunk, so she wisely waited to talk to him when he was sober. When he heard what she had done, he 'became as stone' and died 10 days later. David upon hearing of Nabal's death sent for her to become his wife.

This woman recognized the future of David as king and saw it as a point of reasoning with him. There were some interesting things she said to him:

28 I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid: for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days. 29 Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling. 30 And it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel; 31 That this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself: but when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid. I Samuel 25:28-31

When people traveled in this culture, they wrapped their valuables in a bundle to be kept in a safe place where they could diligently watch over them. Abigail was implying that God would keep him near and diligently watch over him. As for David's enemies, they would be like a stone which is put in a sling at its center and hurled out and away.

A person becomes as a stone out of hardness of heart. It involves  a way of thinking in reaction to life. There's an old saying I think of when I see hardness of heart:'The same sun that melts butter, hardens clay'. We are all susceptible to varying amounts of this type of attitude, but being reminded of 'being bound in the bundle of life with God' changes our perspective.

Samuel, the prophet of Israel, had recently died just prior to this whole incident. Saul was still king but was not walking with God.  David must have been so comforted to be reminded of what God saw in his future. Throughout this time in his life, he had faced pressures, constant threats and tough situations. Life is not always easy. It melted his heart when Abigail spoke. The Word can work that way for all of us; only sometimes it just takes a few gentle warm words, other times it may take a blow torch.

Abigail acting quickly (made haste in verses 18, 23 and 34) and confidently with grace, averted something that could have been deleterious for David.  What she said to David is the second longest (Deborah has the longest) record of any woman in the Old Testament.  As a woman, she is an  example with great strength, wisdom and an encouraging heart. Her words made a great impact on David and history for that matter. Like Sarah, Deborah, Ruth and Hannah, Esther and other great women, she is an example of how a woman of God can walk with great power to influence and help melt (reminds of the words 'helpmeet" in Genesis 2) critical situations that might have had different outcomes.