David the shake down artist...

Hey all, we have more David this week. Today, I decided that I wanted to write about 1 Samuel Chapter 25. This is the chapter in the Bible that poisoned me against David. It’s the foundation upon which all of my other distaste for him is based.

So as a quick recap, at the point in time during which 1 Sam 25 is taking place, Samuel just died. David is still in the middle of operation “Don’t Get Killed By Saul”, so he’s actually out in the Desert of Paran. As the story goes, out in this area, a man named Nabal had property there at Carmel. Nabal was very wealthy. He had 1,000 goats and 3,000 sheep. A quick Google puts the price of a goat at $175 and a sheep at around $200. I’m not sure why goats would be cheaper than sheep. But at any rate, based on this alone, Nabal has a modern net worth of at least $775k. The median for the US is $192.9k using 2022 numbers. So, he’s pretty well off.

The Bible notes that Nabal was shearing his sheep in Carmel. It also notes that he has a wife named Abigail who was an intelligent and beautiful woman. Additionally, it is kind enough to add that Nabal was surly and mean in his dealings. Apparently surly means bad-tempered and meanspirited. So basically, the Bible is telling us that Nabal was a bit of an asshole. At any rate, David caught wind that Nabal was shearing sheep so he sent ten young men and said to them, “Go up to Nabal at Carmel and greet him in my name. Say to him: ‘Long life to you! Good health to you and your household! And good health to all that is yours! Now I hear that it is sheep-shearing time. When your shepherds were with us, we did not mistreat them, and the whole time they were at Carmel nothing of theirs was missing. As your own servants and they will tell you. Therefore be favorable toward my men, since we come at a festive time. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can find for them.’”

Upon receiving this message, Nabal replies, “Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants are breaking away from their masters these days. Why should I take my bread and water, and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men coming from who knows where?”

So, David’s servants headed home empty-handed. When they arrive and tell David they didn’t get anything, David responds by saying, “Each of you strap on your sword!” David put on his sword too and he along with 400 men head off to find Nabal.

Now, fortunately, Abigail hears about this. One of the servants tells her, “David sent messengers from the wilderness to give our master his greeting, but he hurled insults at them. Yet these men were very good to us. They did not mistreat us, and the whole time we were out in the field near them nothing was missing. Night and day they were a wall around us the whole time we were herding our sheep near them. Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our master and his whole household. He is such a wicked man that no one can talk to him.”

Acting quickly, she pulls together two hundred loves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs. She gets this loaded onto a donkey and she goes out to meet David and the angry boys. The math on this is kind of tricky, but my best guess is that all of this food was probably a couple thousand dollars in today’s money.

Meanwhile, David and the angry boys are on their way to cause trouble. David is thinking to himself, “It’s been useless, all my watching over this fellow’s property in the wilderness so that nothing of his was missing. He has paid me back evil for good. May God deal with David, be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to him!” If that’s not murderous intent, I don’t know what is.

Abigail catches David and gives him the food. She throws Nabal under the bus by revealing that his name means “Fool”. Then she proceeds to stroke David’s ego by saying, “Please forgive your servant’s presumption. The Lord your God will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my lord, because you fight the Lord’s battles, and no wrongdoing will be found in you as long as you live…” I had to laugh at this part because we obviously know that David goes and finds himself plenty of wrongdoing just a bit later down the road.

David accepts Abigail’s apology. They both part company and head home. When Abigail makes it back to her camp, she informs Nabal of what transpired. He doesn’t take it well. The Bible says, “About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died.”

When David hears about this, he says, “Praise be to the Lord, who has upheld my case against Nabal for treating me with contempt. He has kept his servant from doing wrong and has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing down on his own head.” Right after that, David sends word to Abigail, asking if she wants to be his wife. She agrees and joins David’s band of merry men. The text closes the chapter by noting that David also married Ahinoam of Jezreel.

In summary, Nabal has sheep in the wilderness. David’s men protect the sheep and don’t mistreat the shepherds taking care of the sheep. When the harvest comes about, David wants a cut of the profits. Nabal refuses to give David a cut of the profits. David feels entitled to the profits, so he decides to go kill Nabal’s whole family. Abigail hears about this and pays David a bribe to not murder everyone. David accepts the bribe and leaves them alone. Nabal dies. Abigail then marries David.

So why exactly does this story make me think David is a scoundrel? Mostly because it reads a lot like a protection racket. The Bible paints Nabal as a piece of work. So, I’m not disputing what happened to Nabal. Evidently, God himself decided to kill the poor guy. That said, unless David made an agreement with Nabal to protect the sheep on the front end, I don’t think David can really have an expectation for a share in the loot. The main question I have is from who David was protecting the sheep. Let’s circle back to the protection racket. It sounds like David wants a reward simply because he and his men didn’t steal from the shepherds.

This is laughable because it’s like me demanding a reward for not being an asshole. It would be like me demanding $100 from everyone I see out in public as payment for not punching them in the face during our encounter. If the text presented the story as Nabal breaking an agreement between him and David, I’m all for David being painted as the good guy. However, the text doesn’t provide that. Nothing even remotely close. Instead, it looks like David and his guys just happened to be in the area and they just happened to act like decent people and now they want a reward from it.

Now you, the reader, might look at me, the writer here, and say, “Well Chandler, how on Earth can you sit here judging David? You’ve been attacking him for literally months. I don’t see your name anywhere in the Bible. I don’t see God saying that you’re a man after his own heart. How dare you!” Admittedly, that is a good question. The answer to that question is, “I’m not the standard for what is true, just, and good.”

When I look at this story, I ask myself, “What would Jesus do if he were David?” Immediately, the Holy Spirit or my conscience, or the voice inside my head, whatever you want to call it, answers, “Jesus, The King of Kings, The Lord of Lords, God of the Universe, Greatest of the Great, would have provided the protection to Nabal’s shepherds without asking for anything in return. Jesus would have done it solely because it was the right thing to do and not because he had any positive expectation of a return later down the road. After all, he said, ‘…Love your neighbor as yourself.’ This makes the standard pretty darn clear. You would protect your own sheep from theft so naturally you should do the same for your neighbor.”

That’s the answer to the question. It’s upon Jesus’ authority that I’m basing my criticism of David. He was ready to go murder a man’s whole family just because he didn’t get tribute. That’s the behavior of a tyrant or a dictatorial king, not a good person.

So yeah, with all of that said, that would be the foundational reason I dislike David. His behavior here in this instance is not becoming of the Lord’s anointed one. All of the other crap he pulls just adds to this foundational layer of paint.

Not wanting to end on a low note, I want to take this final moment to mention Abigail. She’s one of the most underrated women in the Bible. Throughout the course of the whole story, she handles everything perfectly and with skillful tact. She stops David from killing everyone and she tells Nabal the day after his party. She does all of this under her own initiative. Essentially, she’s a doer. She makes things happen and she’s an active agent. I think she is the one most deserving of praise out of everyone in this story.