When we read the bible about women, Abigail, is a good example of a woman of faith.

Abigail was Nabal's wife who latter became David's. In this Bible study, the scripture narative unfolds a God loving character and an example of prudence. As we will read the Bible together we will let it open up to us the character of Abigail and the lessons we can learn from this woman of faith in the Bible. Abigail is mentioned at 1 Samuel chapter 25. Please read the whole chapter once, to get the whole story first.

Facts:

The main characters of the story are:

Abigail, David and his men and Nabal and his men.

The story occurs after Samuel's death, while Saul is still King and David is a fugitive.

Definition of names:

Abigail: her name in the Hebrew means "the father's joy" you can check it at the wikipedia entry for Abigail

Nabal: his name means 'a fool'

David: his name means 'beloved'

Now, let us read the story together.

1SAM 25:2 And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.

The first thing the story tells us is that he was a rich man. Let us remember the words of our Lord at Mth 19:23 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. Note that He does not say it is impossible, He just says 'hardly'. Why? Because rich men trust in their riches more than they trust God.

In the times and lands of the Bible, to have 3000 sheep and 1000 goats made you extremely wealthy, a big stock keeper and not only that, the Word says 'he was very great', implying he was well-known as well.

1SAM 25:3 Now the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail: and she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance: but the man was churlish and evil in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb.

Now we get the names of both and a small but precise characterisation from the Book itself. What is the first thing we know about Abigail? That she had good understanding. Understanding of what you may ask? One thing is for sure, she had understanding of the laws and Word of God, as we will see later. The Bible also tells us that she was a beautiful lady. What a great combination, nice, beautiful and smart!

But… and whenever we see a ‘but’ it always contradicts the previous statement, Nabal was churlish. What does that mean? It means he was rude and boorish. He had a bad disposition, and he was inclined to anger or bad feelings with overtones of menace. Also it says that he was evil in his doings. In a word, a bad man with bad manners, as bad outwardly as he was inwardly. What does this tell us about Abigail? The exact opposite, that she was good with good manners.

Nabal was of the house of Caleb, a disgrace to his family heritage, but true to the meaning of the word "Caleb" which sometimes signifies a dog. The Septuagint version renders it, a doggish man, 'Kunikos - Κυνικός' in the Greek, which is what cynic literally means.

1SAM 25:4 And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep.

5 And David sent out ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name:

6 And thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast.

7 And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not, neither was there ought missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel.

8 Ask thy young men, and they will show thee. Wherefore let the young men find favor in thine eyes: for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David.

David pleads to have the same kindness Nabal's shepherds had received from him. The shepherds know David and his men. We can think that not only David's men did not harm those shepherds but that they protected them in the wilderness also. David is so polite and so submissive; he calls his men Nabal's servants and himself his son. He does not ask for anything specific neither demands it. Just by being an oriental and obeying simple hospitality rules, Nabal was supposed to feed the strangers.

1SAM 25:9 And when David's young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all those words in the name of David, and ceased.

10 And Nabal answered David's servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master.

Look at this man's answer! He dares to ask 'who is David', as if he did not know. Imagine me claiming I do not even know you and at the same time knowing even your father’s name. All Israel knew David. He does not only insult them by implying that they are runaways but he personally attacks David by being ironic, implying his relationship with Saul. Being arrogant is the least I can say for this man.

1SAM 25:11 Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?

Nabal makes such a big deal on the property he had in the provisions of his table. He sounds like many today ‘May I not do what I want with my own?’ It reminds me of 1Co 4:7 For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

Nabal uses 3 times the word ‘I’ and 4 times the word ‘my’ in one sentence, overemphasizing his possessive attitude. He thinks he is the lord of all he has, like we do, many times today. He forgot that he is nothing but a steward and he definitely glories like he did not receive it, rather as thought he earned it.

Once again he states that he does not know them.

1SAM 25:12 So David's young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings.

What I like both in this verse and in verse 9 is the fact that David’s men carry the message verbatim, with no comments of their own, not their own version of the story but the truth.

1SAM 25:13 And David said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword: and there went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the stuff.

Now David is pissed, reasoably we may say. But is he really right? We know from Rom 12:19 Dearly beloved, avenge1 not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Even if that was written centuries after, David knew Deu 32:35a To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense...

Years later he understood it and wrote it in the book of Psalms, Psa 94:1a O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth;...

Now we must bear in mind that David like all other Israelites knew the law. He knew that he was not supposed to get angry that fast.

He proved he knew it by not killing Saul when he had the chance. In 1Sa 24:4-22, we read in the previous chapter that he withheld his wrath, but now he cannot. Wars start like that even in our days, between nations, companies, friends, and even couples. People rush into being judges and executors of judgment instead of letting God do it.

1SAM 25:14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he railed on them.

Now Abigail gets into the picture. One of Nabal’s men tells her what happened, one of her own employees. Could she know on her own? No way, she was a woman, and in those times she could not interfere, neither would David’s men address her.

Stop and think for a moment why this young man went to her. He wouldn’t dare to go to Nabal. Let’s bring the story to the 21st century for a while. You work in a company and you know your boss is nasty and short tempered and just lost a deal that can cost him the company’s existence. But you know his wife, you know she is good and she cares about the future and maybe she can make it up. You must be sure she will hear you and must have faith in her; otherwise you would not go, right?

It might be a silly example, but put yourself in the young man’s shoes or in Abigail’s and expand the parable to any situation you might be, into the rest of the story.

 
1SAM 25:15 But the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we any thing, as long as we were conversant with them, when we were in the fields:

16 They were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.

He further explains all the background of the time they were together with David’s army. Abigail, as the rest of Israel knew who David was, but even she might wonder what happened and Saul chases him like a fugitive. She might wonder if his heart is still straight with God, so the young man’s words assure her.

1SAM 25:17 Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household: for he is such a son of Belial, that a man cannot speak to him.

Now the young man makes a suggestion and explains the threat. ‘All his household’ includes Abigail too. Here we see another characteristic of Nabal, ‘a man cannot speak to him’.

I bet his wife already knew that well. It might not be ‘politically correct’ for the young man to accuse his boss or to suggest to the wife to take action on her own, and if the Pharisees were around they would accuse him for breaking the law and making evil suggestions.

What a lesson for us to learn to see the spirit of the Word more than the letter. Calling a Hebrew an idolater was a heavy accusation and even more so to his own wife.

Let us see what Abigail did. Did she accuse the young man? Did she say ‘how dare you?’ Did she say ‘well that’s none of my business’. Did she go straight ahead to file a complain for her employee, or went to ‘straighten things out’ with Nabal? She knew very well what kind of a man her husband was, so what did she do?

1SAM 25:18 Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses.

She did not argue at all, she did not talk about it, neither did she panic. She went straight into action. She took 5 sheep out of 3000. I don’t think Nabal even noticed that. Stop and do a little counting, think about it in today’s terms.

That was a lot of stuff she prepared. If you think the two bottles of wine were not much, they were not our type of bottles but usually from goatskins, capable of holding a great quantity. Just the fact that they needed more than one donkey to carry all this means that it was not sufficient enough to carry all this provision, so they needed many. I wonder when she prepared all that!

It makes me think that she had provisions for guests, just in case. That fact alone shows us how thoughtful she was. A great sign of the kind of manager, planner and organizer she was.

1SAM 25:19 And she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But she told not her husband Nabal.

Now if we want to be legalistic we will find fault with her. We will call her disobedient, secretive, not submissive, and furtive. It is so easy to accuse when we don’t see the whole picture and when we are not in the other person’s shoes. We might even attribute to Abigail evil motives.

Somebody might even quote Exo 23:8 And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous. It is so easy to judge by ‘chapter and verse’, so easy to be legalistic. Thank God she wasn’t.

It is the same Bible that says at Pro 18:16 A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men. Abigail’s provisions arrived before her, so they made some room for her.

It is easy to find contradictions in the Bible, if you search for them, but there really aren’t any. Like Peter said at 2Pe 3:16b in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction. The Bible itself claims not to be an easy book, but not an incomprehensible one either.

Pro 17:23 A wicked man taketh a gift out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment. We need a holistic perspective of the Bible, and to read between the lines sometimes in order to see the truth. Neither Abigail nor David was wicked but Abigail was surely prudent.

She is about to atone for Nabal's denial of David's request.

1SAM 25:20 And it was so, as she rode on the ass, that she came down by the covert on the hill, and, behold, David and his men came down against her; and she met them.

Let’s see what David was thinking in the meantime.

1SAM 25:21 Now David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him: and he hath requited me evil for good.

How many times have you felt like that? ‘In vain’, ‘for nothing’, unfair, unjust… put yourself in his place for a moment.

1SAM 25:22 So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

He is determined to kill all of them. He even thinks he will accomplish God’s will. You know, the Pharisees thought exactly the same thing when they planned to kill Jesus, so did the crusaders when they killed ‘the infidels’. We can see however from the remaining of the story that oaths cannot bind us to that which is sinful.

David indeed solemnly vows the death of Nabal. He did evil to make such a vow, but he would have done worse if he had actually performed it. I know some people teach that we should be careful of what we say; they preach about ‘blessings and curses’; about the power of our own words. Yes, words do have power but they are not bigger than God nor the devil.

We should be careful not to attribute more power to our own words than they are worth.

1SAM 25:23 And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground,

Right at this point of our story I found an old painting I’d like you to see.

"Image copyright History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries."

She fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground. This behavior is very submissive and very humble, a petitioner's place. Just by looking at her posture we see respect and reverence to the person of David.

At those times dismounting in presence of a superior was the highest token of respect that could be given; and it is still an act of homage to the great. You are going to get out of your car if you are going to meet the president aren’t you?

Both her attitude and her body language makes the fullest amend for the disrespect her husband had shown. Many times we should think whether our body language and the carrying of ourselves are appropriate to the different situations we encounter.

1SAM 25:24 And fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid.

What are her first words? “Upon me let this iniquity be”. Impressive by all means. She and her husband are one flesh, so from one viewpoint it is her iniquity as well. On the other hand as Eze 18:20 says The soul that sinneth, it shall die.

She acts just like Jesus, she gets in the sinner’s place. Isn't that Christian? To love the sinner but hate the sin! She acknowledges the fact as iniquity and she accepts both the guilt and the punishment. She surrenders. She asks just for one thing, to be heard and she calls her self his handmaid.

She humbly begs of David that he will give her the hearing. A chance to speak. Not to say excuses (otherwise she wouldn't admit it was a wrongdoing) neither to blame anyone else.

1SAM 25:25 Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send.

Now what would you say? Oh, she is accusing her husband! Oh, she calls him a fool! Is that what you are saying or that she just states the facts? How many times have you seen women (and men too) speaking plain lies so that they sound more biblical?

Women being abused, women living with alcoholic husbands or brutal ones, women living in ‘hell’ and not daring to say a word, for the fear of sinning. It is not a sin to say the truth, it is not a sin to state the facts. If you never acknowledge a problem how will you ever be helped?

By the same means, if I never accept the fact that I am a sinner, how will I get saved? If I don’t confess my sin how will it be forgiven?

What else does Abigail say? She did not see them. What does this mean? If she saw them, this wouldn’t have happened. She mentions her own ignorance of the matter. She does not excuse her husband's conduct, she imputes it to his natural weakness and lack of understanding. She does not blame him, she just tells the truth.

1SAM 25:26 Now therefore, my lord, as the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the LORD hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal.

She does not depend upon her own reasoning, but on God's mercy and grace, to soften David. She speaks as if it has already been done. Isn’t that faith? Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. She takes it for granted that she has gained her point already; and she thanks God for it!

She slightly reproves him too by saying that he would avenge with his own hand; and she offers comfort by saying that David's enemies might be as unable to resist him as Nabal was; and that they be fools too. Pro 18:7 A fool's mouth {is} his destruction, and his lips {are} the snare of his soul.

1SAM 25:27 And now this blessing which thine handmaid hath brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young men that follow my lord.

She presents her offer and she calls the gifts a blessing, but speaks of them as unworthy of David's acceptance, and therefore she suggests they may be given to the young men that followed him. Let us not forget that this is the food they asked in the first place.

1SAM 25:28 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.

Once more she accepts the blame, she does not say 'forgive Nabal' but 'forgive me'. And then what she says sounds like prophecy. Some may say flattering or compliments, but faith sounds just like that sometimes.

Foretelling the ‘sure house’ of David and attributing to God, thus reminding him again that it is God who makes it and not us. A remembrance of the promise that God had made to David and which God himself later confirms by the prophet Ahijah speaking to Jeroboam 1Ki 11:38 And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.

She goes on to say that David fights the battles of the Lord at a time he was persecuted as a traitor, thus acknowledging his anointing from God. It is interesting that by saying 'evil hath not been found in thee all thy days' she once again implies that doing what he had in mind was going to be evil. It is like saying 'since you have never done evil before, why do it now?' Up to that moment we also know that 1Ki 15:5 David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord

Now we will see how much she understood about what was going on with his life.

1SAM 25:29 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.

She knows all about Saul. She knows David is persecuted and his life is in danger. Once again her words are words of faith. She does not say 'I wish God...' but '...shall be'. She speaks with assurance and confidence and what a nice, vivid, mind picture she uses. David bundled with God and his enemies vanished away; reminding him that with a sling and a stone he smote the Philistine giant.

No wonder David wrote years latter in Psa 66:9 Which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved.

She continues with the same assurance.

1SAM 25:30 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;

She knows very well what God had said about David and that He is responsible for bringing it to pass.

1SAM 25:31 That this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offense 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. She lists some of the consequences of sinning; not only for David but for us as well:

"Grief" - bad conscience, remorse, regret and all the like and "offense of heart"

[(Βδελυγμός και σκάνδαλον- bdeligmos and skandalo in the Greek.) The first word is usually translated as abomination and the second as scandal]

How interesting that the Christian today has available the cleansing of his conscious via Jesus' blood, as stated in Heb 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

The very mentioning of what he was about to do, namely to shed blood and to avenge himself, would be enough. Later by his reply, we see that it affected him.

If we avenge ourselves it would afterwards be a grief and an offence of heart to us. Many times we do things in the heat of the moment which we wish could be be undone; and it just does not happen! The sweetness of revenge is soon turned into bitterness. Her words warn him exactly of that and of the sin he was about to commit.

She also asks for remembrance. Doesn’t this remind you of the thief dying next to Jesus?

Lu 23:42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom

She implies that it was below him to take vengeance on so weak and despicable an enemy as Nabal. She once again foretells the glorious end of David's present troubles.

She says "when", again with words of faith and not "if". The Lord will preserve your life; therefore it will be both unjustly and unnecessary to take away the lives of any, especially of the people of God, Israelites.

When we are tempted to sin, we should consider how it will appear when we think upon it afterwards. That is enough to stop us ;)

1SAM 25:32 And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me:

He thanks God. Isn't that good of David? Meek, humble and thankful. He attributes it to her coming to God not to her own wit.

1SAM 25:33 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.

Years later David writes in Psalms: Pro 25:12 As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.

He first acknowledges the advice, not the gift. He confesses his sin (or about to do sin) and he admits that her advice kept him from sinning. I wonder how many of us would say that today... You hear so many people afterwards saying 'Oh, God kept me from doing this, Oh I managed to make it with God's help' and never mention the human, by which God worked. "God gets the credit but I get the glory" type of attitude. Thanks God neither Abigail nor David did that; and thank God the Bible is full of examples both to follow and to avoid.

1SAM 25:34 For in very deed, as the LORD God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

He knows that if it wasn’t for Abigail’s intervention he would be a murderer. He didn't mind the reproof and as he grew older he even seeks it. Psa 141:5 Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities. The instance was one of his prayers later in the Psalms. Psa 51:14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

After all that he finally accepts the gifts.

 
1SAM 25:35 So David received of her hand that which she had brought him, and said unto her, Go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person.

Abigail gets her first request: to be heard and even more than that, she was accepted.

When and if we trust God we have a wonderful promise to claim.

Eph 3:20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us

And God surely did more than what Abigail asked or thought as we will see later.

Now the story shifts to her again.

1SAM 25:36 And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.

 
Nabal was dead drunk and had a party at the same time his life and all his belongings were at stake. Who knows? maybe he was also celebrating how well he sent David's men away, how big he was, how clever he was that he managed not to give them a thing and so on.

Abigail comes home and it is so strange that all this time he neither missed her nor the provisions she took to David; the scriptures don't even mention if he searched for her. He did not even bother to see where his wife was. What a husband :(

By the time she arrives home he had little thinking how near he was to ruin by David, whom he had foolishly made his enemy. Like all sinners, he is most secure when he is most in danger and destruction is at the door. No wonder Paul centuries later says to the Thessalonian believers :1Th 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

 
Once again Abigail shows how wise she is. To give good advice to those that are in drink is to cast pearls before swine; it is better to stay till they are sober. I do not know how many times you tried to talk to a drunken person, but they don't listen to a thing nor do they remember.

 
1SAM 25:37 But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.

I am amazed how fast the alcohol got out of him! Now that he is sober he hears the news and he has a heart attack or maybe a stroke. I do not know what the medical diagnosis was, neither do the Holy scriptures tell us.

No wonder. Was it from terror, from gladness that he was spared, who knows? Did he repent? No way. Was he full of sorrow? Yes he was, but what kind of sorrow was that?

2Co 7:10 For godly, sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of:but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

A few days later he died.

1SAM 25:38 And it came to pass about ten days after, that the LORD smote Nabal, that he died.

Many people do not like this verse and all others that say things like that, but the fact still remains that this is what it is written, whether we like it or not. David did not kill him, but God brought it to pass.

 
1SAM 25:39 And when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be the LORD, that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil: for the LORD hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife.

Here, there is no lamentation made for Nabal. He departed without being lamented. David, when he heard the news of his death, gave God thanks for it. Can you imagine! You die and people thank God for it!

He once again remembers that revenge is in God's hands and not ours. 'The LORD hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head', is something we should remember. If we trust God and not avenge ourselves the evil our enemies plan will turn against them.

David surely remembered Abigail. He asks her to be his wife.

1SAM 25:40 And when the servants of David were come to Abigail to Carmel, they spake unto her, saying, David sent us unto thee, to take thee to him to wife.

1SAM 25:41 And she arose, and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.

Now, with no Nabal between them, we can see her true humble spirit and the kind of treatment David’s men would have had the first time. No hypocrisy for her.

She received the offer with great modesty and humility, thinking herself unworthy of the honor, yet having such a respect for David that she would gladly be one of the servants, to wash the feet of the other servants.

None is so fit to be preferred as those that can humble themselves this way, as our Lord said: Mar 10:43b but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister.

And once again she is fast.

1SAM 25:42 And Abigail hasted, and arose and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that went after her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife.

She married him in faith. He had no house of his own, she left the fortune she had from Nabal and beleived all that God promised to David. She was willing to live in the wilderness with him.

Like those who join themselves to Christ we must be willing now to suffer with him, believing that we shall reign with him after. 2Ti 2:12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him:

And this is the end of the scriptural story.

What can we conclude about this bible woman, Abigail, in this bible study?

When we face sudden evil, or any situation in which we do not have the time to prepare, our true self surfaces; and the self we see from Abigail is a remarkable one. A true woman of faith.

She loved God and His word.

She knew the spirit of the law and not just the letter.

She was prudent and caring.

She was hospitable.

She had respect for leadership.

She had hope and faith in the Lord God of Israel.

She cared so that her ‘brother’ did not commit evil.

In a word, She loved.

Jam 5:20 Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

If you want to download this bible study on 'Abigail - the woman in the Bible' as a pdf file to print or read on your own pc, click on the top right corner of this article and choose the icon to print or pdf-it. 

There are two excelent books named Her Name Is Woman, by Gien Karssen which mention Abigail too, along other noted women of the Bible.