Here we see beautiful the foothills of Mt Carmel. This is where David fed his flocks, and here Nabal also fed his flocks as recorded in 1 Samuel 25. David's men protected Nabal's flocks from predators and robbers. At the end of the shearing season, David asked his men to approach Nabal for payment. Nabal was a fool and refused to pay David's men and treated them rudely and sent them away. David was so upset that he decided to wipe out Nabal and all that he had. He prepared and armed his men for war.
Abigail heard what her husband had done, from one of the servants who hurried to tell her what Nabal had done and what might happen to their family because of his rudeness. Abigail quickly prepared a feast of 200 loaves of bread, 2 sheep skin bottles of wine, 5 measures of parched corn, 100 clusters of raisins, 200 cakes of figs and 5 sheep prepared for cooking. She loaded all these on donkeys and sent her men to meet David and his men on the road and let them know that she was coming
As she came in sight of David she got off her donkey and fell on her knees with her face to the ground at David's feet. She confessed that her husband had done foolishly and she, Abigail, took responsibility for her husband's folly. Abigail said that had SHE seen the young men she would have sent them away laden with the food that she now had with her. She begged David to receive her gift and forgive HER for the oversight. Then she did something even more incredible. She told David that she knew that the Lord was with him, rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies and shouldn't David trust that the Lord would take care of his problems? She was worried that if David should take action that it would ruin his political career, so to speak. David was stopped in his tracks. He confessed "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me; And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand." The Lord took care of this problem in a far better way than David could have. When Abigail told Nabal, the next day, what had almost happened to him and what she had done, his heart froze in him and he died some days later. David ended up taking Abigail as his wife
I am sorry for the misplaced periods. I had to do this with Hebrew instructions and it is writing everything backwards...cheesh .
