Increasing Maturity

David’s sparing of Saul’s life a second time (1 Samuel 26) was by far the more extraordinary. The first demonstrated David’s willingness to allow God to judge between Saul and David, but the second demonstrated how far David’s faith was willing to run in seeing it come to pass. Recall that the first time Saul inadvertently wandered into David’s camp. The second time, David deliberately walked into Saul’s! In fact, David’s confidence in God’s vindication is evident in his interpreting the second incident as a divinely provided opportunity to demonstrate his righteousness (Cf.1 Samuel 26:23). I would suggest that David understood the encounter as (to use American evangelical parlance) “a God thing.” What we the readers know, and which apparently David did not, was that his ability to secure the trophies of his righteousness, Saul’s spear and water jug, was indeed a “God thing;” the Lord had caused a deep sleep to fall upon Saul and his army.

In Saul’s camp, David demonstrated that he had learned something from the Nabal affair, the one in which he purposed to wipe out Nabal and his household in an act of vengeance until Nabals’ wife, Abigail, intervened. God would be both his vindication and his vengeance. That lesson (a “God thing” in its own right) he applied to this God-given opportunity. God will determine when Saul’s life would be over, not David. And implicit in that understanding is that Saul’s death, like Nabal’s, would prove David’s righteousness. As is seen at the end of 1 Samuel, that will prove to be the case.

Something of importance to note is the progress of David in this vengeance triptych. David’s initial pious motives in sparing Saul (1 Samuel 24) matured after being brought through the Nabal affair (1 Samuel 25) so that he can say, “As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish” (1 Samuel 26).  Such growth is meant to be the fruit of God’s dealings with us. Too often we ask God to reconstruct his character in the face of each new trial: Does he see what’s going on? Does he care? Will he be faithful? Let’s learn from God’s previous grace to trust him for present grace.

Divine Defense

After encountering her in 1 Samuel 25, I’m persuaded that Abigail has not gotten the recognition she deserves. Maybe I’m showing my ignorance, but I don’t recall her being referenced as one of the exemplary characters of the Old Testament. This seems an injustice when we consider how she interposed herself, Esther-like, between a potentially deadly force and the life of others. In addition, her intervention stayed the hand of David from wrongfully shedding blood and bringing guilt upon his head.

David was bent upon avenging the offense that Nabal had committed against him. But the Lord used Abigail to intervene. She saved David from himself. One might assert that she was motivated by self-preservation, but the text reveals much more. Her greatest concern was for David, the Lord’s anointed, the one who was sure to become the “prince” of Israel, and how this wrongful act would weigh upon his soul and reputation. Her wisdom and faith impressed itself upon the David and his wrath was turned away (Cf. Proverbs 15:1).

Of the several lessons one could take away from this incident the foremost is the necessity of allowing God to be the arbiter of justice (this is a surprisingly prominent theme in scripture). God alone is capable of perfect judgment and justice and we are not to usurp his place by taking matters into our own hands. On the contrary we are to “never avenge” ourselves. Rather we are to “leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19).

David had understood this when just prior to this incident he had the opportunity to strike down Saul and he would not do it. Instead, like the “Greater David” whom he foreshadowed, he entrusted “himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23; 1 Samuel 24:15). God be praised that David, hot from the injustice perpetrated by foolish Nabal and no longer governed by the knowledge of God’s just judgment, was restrained by the actions and words of a courageous woman. May the Lord be as gracious to us that we might be kept from that which would “cause . . . grief or pangs of conscience” because we had foolishly taken matters into our own hands.