1 Samuel 25

1 Samuel 25

The first prophet, Samuel, for whom two books of the Bible are named, died in 1 Samuel 25. God had used Samuel greatly from the time his mother offered Him to the Lord’s service to his death. He served under the priest Eli and gave him the news of his family’s death before it ever happened. God then used Samuel to find Israel their first king while warning Israel of the consequences of rejecting God for a human king. When Saul fell away from God and God removed His blessings from Saul, God had Samuel find another young man to be king. Samuel chose David, and God promised that David would one day be king, after Saul had died. Although Samuel never saw this promise come about, he died as faithful servant of God. He completed the tasks that God had given him faithfully and lived an obedient life. He not only delivered the good news to Israel, but he also delivered the bad news and warnings. Even when his job was hard, Samuel remained faithful.


The young man Samuel had appointed as king (whom God had chosen), David, had just had an almost deadly encounter with Saul. But instead of taking revenge on Saul after all the times that Saul had tried to kill him, David spared his life and the two men left in peace. Then David found himself in Maon where Nabal ruled. Apparently, David had already had some encounters in this area, and he had always dealt kindly with these people. We find out later in 1 Samuel 25 that David had never done anything against the people who lived in Maon (never took more than he deserved or cheated them out of anything). However, when David sent men to talk to Nabal, Nabal refused to listen. He said that he did not know who this “David” was and he felt like it was a scam. After all David had done for these people, he felt like he was being rejected by Nabal. So David prepared his men for battle.

But when Nabal’s wife Abigail found out how badly Nabal had treated David and his men, she prepared a gift for David and set out on her own to meet him. She asked David to reconsider and tried to reconcile things between her people and David. In that conversation, David realized that he was taking vengeance out on this man when it was not his place to do that. Instead of trying to reconcile the situation, David had prepared to kill Nabal and all his men. Because of Abigail, David took a moment to stop and reconsider. He realized the importance of giving the situation over to God, letting God have control. He had just seen how God took care of his situation with Saul, and now he was willing to let God work in His own way and His own time again.

In the end, God took care of Nabal and killed him. David had a good relationship with everyone else in the city and had not stirred up bad feelings between them and his men. Abigail became a widow in the process, but God gave her to David as a wife. He was previously married to Saul’s daughter Michal, but apparently Saul had given her away to another man. So in the end, David saw God at work again, taking care of the situation in His own way. In the same way, we can always trust that God knows what He is doing. In the heat of the moment, we may find ourselves ready to take revenge on someone or we might even say or do something that we would later regret. So we should give the situation over to God, sit back, and let Him work it out. He knows what He is doing, and while He may use us in resolving the situation, we must never try to live this life on our own strength. We cannot live this life alone, and God will always be there to help us every step of the way.

Matt