5/23/11
1 Samuel 25-27
Death of Samuel
1 Samuel 25:1 Now Samuel died; and all Israel assembled and mourned for him. They buried him at his home in Ramah.
Then David got up and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
David and the Wife of Nabal
2 There was a man in Maon, whose property was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was clever and beautiful, but the man was surly and mean; he was a Calebite. 4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5 So David sent ten young men; and David said to the young men, "Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. 6 Thus you shall salute him: 'Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. 7 I hear that you have shearers; now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing, all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your sight; for we have come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.' "
9 When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David; and then they waited. 10 But Nabal answered David's servants, "Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are breaking away from their masters. 11 Shall I take my bread and my water and the meat that I have butchered for my shearers, and give it to men who come from I do not know where?" 12 So David's young men turned away, and came back and told him all this. 13 David said to his men, "Every man strap on his sword!" And every one of them strapped on his sword; David also strapped on his sword; and about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.
14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, "David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he shouted insults at them. 15 Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we never missed anything when we were in the fields, as long as we were with them; 16 they were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. 17 Now therefore know this and consider what you should do; for evil has been decided against our master and against all his house; he is so ill-natured that no one can speak to him."
18 Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, five sheep ready dressed, five measures of parched grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys 19 and said to her young men, "Go on ahead of me; I am coming after you." But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20 As she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, David and his men came down toward her; and she met them. 21 Now David had said, "Surely it was in vain that I protected all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; but he has returned me evil for good. 22 God do so to David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him."
23 When Abigail saw David, she hurried and alighted from the donkey, and fell before David on her face, bowing to the ground. 24 She fell at his feet and said, "Upon me alone, my lord, be the guilt; please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. 25 My lord, do not take seriously this ill-natured fellow, Nabal; for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him; but I, your servant, did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent.
26 "Now then, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, since the Lord has restrained you from bloodguilt and from taking vengeance with your own hand, now let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be like Nabal. 27 And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28 Please forgive the trespass of your servant; for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the Lord; and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. 29 If anyone should rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living under the care of the Lord your God; but the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. 30 When the Lord has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and has appointed you prince over Israel, 31 my lord shall have no cause of grief, or pangs of conscience, for having shed blood without cause or for having saved himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant."
32 David said to Abigail, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me today! 33 Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, who have kept me today from bloodguilt and from avenging myself by my own hand! 34 For as surely as the Lord the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there would not have been left to Nabal so much as one male." 35 Then David received from her hand what she had brought him; he said to her, "Go up to your house in peace; see, I have heeded your voice, and I have granted your petition."
36 Abigail came to Nabal; he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk; so she told him nothing at all until the morning light. 37 In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him; he became like a stone. 38 About ten days later the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.
39 When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Blessed be the Lord who has judged the case of Nabal's insult to me, and has kept back his servant from evil; the Lord has returned the evildoing of Nabal upon his own head." Then David sent and wooed Abigail, to make her his wife.
40 When David's servants came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, "David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife." 41 She rose and bowed down, with her face to the ground, and said, "Your servant is a slave to wash the feet of the servants of my lord." 42 Abigail got up hurriedly and rode away on a donkey; her five maids attended her. She went after the messengers of David and became his wife.
43 David also married Ahinoam of Jezreel; both of them became his wives. 44 Saul had given his daughter Michal, David's wife, to Palti son of Laish, who was from Gallim.
David Spares Saul's Life a Second Time
26 Then the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah, saying, "David is in hiding on the hill of Hachilah, which is opposite Jeshimon." 2 So Saul rose and went down to the Wilderness of Ziph, with three thousand chosen men of Israel, to seek David in the Wilderness of Ziph. 3 Saul encamped on the hill of Hachilah, which is opposite Jeshimon beside the road. But David remained in the wilderness. When he learned that Saul had come after him into the wilderness, 4 David sent out spies, and learned that Saul had indeed arrived. 5 Then David set out and came to the place where Saul had encamped; and David saw the place where Saul lay, with Abner son of Ner, the commander of his army. Saul was lying within the encampment, while the army was encamped around him.
6 Then David said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Joab's brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, "Who will go down with me into the camp to Saul?" Abishai said, "I will go down with you." 7 So David and Abishai went to the army by night; there Saul lay sleeping within the encampment, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head; and Abner and the army lay around him. 8 Abishai said to David, "God has given your enemy into your hand today; now therefore let me pin him to the ground with one stroke of the spear; I will not strike him twice." 9 But David said to Abishai, "Do not destroy him; for who can raise his hand against the Lord's anointed, and be guiltless?" 10 David said, "As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him down; or his day will come to die; or he will go down into battle and perish. 11 The Lord forbid that I should raise my hand against the Lord's anointed; but now take the spear that is at his head, and the water jar, and let us go." 12 So David took the spear that was at Saul's head and the water jar, and they went away. No one saw it, or knew it, nor did anyone awake; for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the Lord had fallen upon them.
13 Then David went over to the other side, and stood on top of a hill far away, with a great distance between them. 14 David called to the army and to Abner son of Ner, saying, "Abner! Will you not answer?" Then Abner replied, "Who are you that calls to the king?" 15 David said to Abner, "Are you not a man? Who is like you in Israel? Why then have you not kept watch over your lord the king? For one of the people came in to destroy your lord the king. 16 This thing that you have done is not good. As the Lord lives, you deserve to die, because you have not kept watch over your lord, the Lord's anointed. See now, where is the king's spear, or the water jar that was at his head?"
17 Saul recognized David's voice, and said, "Is this your voice, my son David?" David said, "It is my voice, my lord, O king." 18 And he added, "Why does my lord pursue his servant? For what have I done? What guilt is on my hands? 19 Now therefore let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering; but if it is mortals, may they be cursed before the Lord, for they have driven me out today from my share in the heritage of the Lord, saying, 'Go, serve other gods.' 20 Now therefore, do not let my blood fall to the ground, away from the presence of the Lord; for the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea, like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains."
21 Then Saul said, "I have done wrong; come back, my son David, for I will never harm you again, because my life was precious in your sight today; I have been a fool, and have made a great mistake." 22 David replied, "Here is the spear, O king! Let one of the young men come over and get it. 23 The Lord rewards everyone for his righteousness and his faithfulness; for the Lord gave you into my hand today, but I would not raise my hand against the Lord's anointed. 24 As your life was precious today in my sight, so may my life be precious in the sight of the Lord, and may he rescue me from all tribulation." 25 Then Saul said to David, "Blessed be you, my son David! You will do many things and will succeed in them." So David went his way, and Saul returned to his place.
David Serves King Achish of Gath
1 Samuel 27:1 David said in his heart, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul; there is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines; then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand." 2 So David set out and went over, he and the six hundred men who were with him, to King Achish son of Maoch of Gath. 3 David stayed with Achish at Gath, he and his troops, every man with his household, and David with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail of Carmel, Nabal's widow. 4 When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he no longer sought for him.
5 Then David said to Achish, "If I have found favor in your sight, let a place be given me in one of the country towns, so that I may live there; for why should your servant live in the royal city with you?" 6 So that day Achish gave him Ziklag; therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. 7 The length of time that David lived in the country of the Philistines was one year and four months.
8 Now David and his men went up and made raids on the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites; for these were the landed settlements from Telam on the way to Shur and on to the land of Egypt. 9 David struck the land, leaving neither man nor woman alive, but took away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the clothing, and came back to Achish. 10 When Achish asked, "Against whom have you made a raid today?" David would say, "Against the Negeb of Judah," or "Against the Negeb of the Jerahmeelites," or, "Against the Negeb of the Kenites." 11 David left neither man nor woman alive to be brought back to Gath, thinking, "They might tell about us, and say, 'David has done so and so.' " Such was his practice all the time he lived in the country of the Philistines. 12 Achish trusted David, thinking, "He has made himself utterly abhorrent to his people Israel; therefore he shall always be my servant."
Devotionals, Videos and more ...
by Bill Federer
Fur trapper, Indian agent, and soldier; this was Kit Carson, who died this day, May 23, 1868. Carson's exploits west of the Mississippi were as famous as Daniel Boone's east. While bringing Indian chiefs to New York to meet American leaders, Kit Carson almost died. Kit stated: "I felt my head swell and my breath leaving… Then, I woke up… My face and head were all wet. I was on the floor and the chief was holding my head on his arm… He was crying. He said, 'I thought you were dead. You called on your Lord Jesus, then shut your eyes and couldn't speak.' "
Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.
by whoever
There are two kinds of people:
those who say to God, "Thy will be done,"
and those to whom God says,
"All right, then, have it your way."
--- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 1943
We need not join the mad rush
to purchase an earthly fallout shelter.
God is our eternal fallout shelter.
--- Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963
... from here, there and everywhere
by D.H. Stern
If there's no wood, the fire goes out;
if nobody gossips, contention stops.
As coals are to embers and wood to fire
is a quarrelsome person to kindling strife.
A slanderer's words are tasty morsels;
they slide right down into the belly.
Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.
A Daily Devotional by Oswald Chambers
Careful infidelity
Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. --- Matthew 6:25.
Jesus sums up commonsense carefulness in a disciple as infidelity. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will press through and say—‘Now where does God come in in this relationship, in this mapped-out holiday, in these new books?’ He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.
“Take no thought …”—don’t take the pressure of forethought upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is infidelity, because worrying means that we do not think that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything else that worries us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the word He puts in? The devil? No, the cares of this world. It is the little worries always. I will not trust where I cannot see, that is where infidelity begins. The only cure for infidelity is obedience to the Spirit.
The great word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon.
Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest
the Poetry of R.S. Thomas
Threshold
I emerge from the mind’s
cave into the worse darkness
outside, where things pass and
the Lord is in none of them.
I have heard the still, small voice
and it was that of the bacteria
demolishing my cosmos. I
have lingered too long on
this threshold, but where can I go?
To look back is to lose the soul
I was leading upwards towards
the light. To look forward? Ah,
what balance is needed at
the edges of such an abyss.
I am alone on the surface
of a turning planet. What
to do but, like Michelangelo’s
Adam, put my hand
out into unknown space,
hoping for the reciprocating touch?
Thomas, R. S. Selected Poems, 1946-68
Horayot 13a
The National Football League record for most points scored in a lifetime is held by George Blanda. The kicker broke into the sport in 1949, with the Chicago Bears, and retired after the 1975 season with Oakland. Over the course of twenty-six years in the game, Blanda scored 2,002 points. This incredible number was composed of 9 touchdowns, 335 field goals, and 943 points after touchdown.
Roger Bannister is also listed in the sports record book, in the category of track and field. On May 6, 1954, Bannister achieved sports immortality by being the first person to break the "four-minute mile." His record time was 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.
One man achieves fame after more than a quarter of a century; the other, in just a few minutes. The same thing happens off the sports field all the time. One man spends his entire life working hard to support his family, twelve hours a day, six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, for almost fifty years. Only upon retirement is he able to relax and begin to enjoy the remaining few years of his life. Another man goes into a store, pays a dollar for a lottery ticket, and wins ten million dollars the next day. One person achieves his world after many years, another in a single hour.
Like Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi, perhaps we too want to cry when we are confronted by the quick success of others, while we struggle and work hard just to get by. In an ideal world, fame, fortune, and success would be available to anyone willing to work hard. But our experience teaches us that we do not live in an ideal world. It is not within our power to explain these discrepancies and why they occur.
The comforting part of our story, however, is the teaching that it is never too late to achieve something important. It is possible, even in a single hour, to accomplish what is vital and crucial. And it is never too late to turn our lives around.
A mamzer who is a scholar takes precedence over a High Priest who is an ignoramus.
Text / Mishnah (3:8): A kohen takes precedence over a Levite, a Levite over an Israelite, and an Israelite over a mamzer, and a mamzer over a netin, and a netin over a proselyte, and a proselyte over a freed slave. When? When they are all equal. But if the mamzer was a scholar and the High Priest was an ignoramus, a mamzer who is a scholar takes precedence over a High Priest who is an ignoramus.
Gemara: "When? When they are all equal." From where do we derive this? Rabbi Aḥa son of Rabbi Ḥanina said: "As it says in Scripture: 'She is more precious than rubies [mip'ninim]' [Proverbs 3:15], more precious than the High Priest who enters the Innermost [lifnei v'lifnim]."
Context / The Bible describes the kohen as follows: "Aaron was set apart, he and his sons, forever, to be consecrated as most holy, to make burnt offerings to the Lord and serve Him and pronounce blessings in His name forever" (1 Chronicles 23:13). Thus, one is a kohen if his father was a kohen before him, tracing the lineage back to Aaron and his sons.
Context / The Levite is mentioned in the Torah often: "At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Lord's Covenant, to stand in attendance upon the Lord, and to bless in His name, as is still the case" (Deuteronomy 10:8). The Levites trace their lineage back to Moses.
Context / Unfortunately, there are many confusing translations of Hebrew terms, and this Mishnah has two words that are commonly translated in English terms that do not reflect Hebrew concepts. Kohen has often been translated as "priest," a word with a very different meaning in the Christian religion.
Context / Similarly confusing is mamzer, often translated as "bastard." The term does not mean what the English word denotes. A mamzer is the offspring of a forbidden relationship, that is, an incestuous or adulterous one (as opposed to an illegitimate child, a concept not known in Jewish law). The mamzer bears a strong stigma and may marry only another mamzer.
Context / An aliyah, from the root meaning "to go up," is the honor of being "called up" to the Torah.
This Mishnah—the last in the Order Nezikin—is speaking of matters of honor and rescue. Who should be honored first? And in the case of an emergency, who should be rescued first? In other words, who has the highest status in the community? The Mishnah then lists an order—kohen, Levite, Israelite, mamzer, netin, proselyte, freed slave. Before we can understand the Mishnah, we must define a few terms: kohen is one descended from Aaron. The kohanim (plural of kohen) functioned in the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, in special public roles. For this reason, they are given special status in the Mishnah. Today, we still follow this practice by giving a kohen the first aliyah to the Torah. The levi or Levite was the helper in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple. The plural is levi'im, or Levites in English. They sang the Temple liturgy as well. These are next in order of honor. Israelites refers to the common people at that time, the majority of the people who were neither kohanim nor Levites. A mamzer is the offspring of an incestuous or adulterous relationship; his honor would be even less.
Netin is traditionally understood as a descendent of the Gibeonites, a nation described in the book of Joshua, chapter 9: The Gibeonites disguised themselves as foreigners to avoid attack by the Israelites. Upon learning of this ruse, Joshua spared their lives but made them "hewers of wood and drawers of water … for the community and for the altar of the Lord." That is, they accepted a low status in the Israelite community in exchange for their lives. Their low status is reflected in their coming after kohen, levi and Israelite.
"Scholar" and "ignoramus" are general translations for words that may be technical terms in the Mishnah. Talmid ḥakham, the "scholar," is actually one who studies with a master-teacher. Am ha-aretz, translated as "ignoramus," likely refers to one who was suspect of not having properly observed tithes and ritual cleanliness rules. Later Hebrew uses the expression am ha-aretz for an ignoramus, and this is how it is used in modern Hebrew.
In the Gemara, Rabbi Aḥa seeks to find a biblical source to support this order, especially for the fact that a mamzer who is a scholar takes precedence over a High Priest who is an ignoramus. He finds his proof in a verse from Proverbs. The entire chapter speaks of the value of wisdom:
Happy is the man who finds wisdom,
The man who attains understanding.
Her value in trade is better than silver,
Her yield, greater than gold.
She is more precious than rubies;
All of your goods cannot equal her.
(Proverbs 3:13–15)
Rabbi Aḥa makes a play on the letters in the two Hebrew words, saying that wisdom is more precious, mip'ninim, than rubies, even greater than the one who enters lifnei v'lifnim, literally, the most inside place, that is, the Holy of Holies in the Temple. If wisdom is greater than priesthood, then the respect we give to the scholar outweighs that which we give to the kohen.
Katz, M., & Schwartz, G. (1998). Swimming in the Sea of Talmud: Lessons for Everyday LIving
by Diana Wallis
"Look, I am about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?" --- Genesis 25:32
We cannot suppress a natural sympathy with Esau in this scene between the two brothers. Modern Sermons by World Scholars, Volume 1
Esau's good qualities are evident—bold and frank, free and generous, impulsive and capable of magnanimity, reckless and passionate. [But] being largely a creature of impulse, he was the plaything of animal passion, ready to satisfy desire without thought of consequences. Without self-control, without spiritual insight, judging things by immediate advantage, there was not in him depth of nature out of which a really noble character could be cut. This damning lack of self-control comes out in the transaction of the birthright. Coming from the hunt hungry, he finds Jacob cooking stew of lentils and asks for it. Ungovernable appetite makes him feel as if he would die if he did not get it.
The Bible writers speak of Esau with a certain contempt, and, with all our appreciation of his good natural qualities, we cannot help sharing in the contempt. The individual who has no self-control, who is swept away by every passion of the moment, who has no appreciation of higher and larger things, that individual is only a superior sort of animal—and not always very superior at that.
True self-control means willingness to resign the small for the sake of the great, the present for the future, the material for the spiritual, and that is what faith makes possible. Of course, Esau did not think he was losing the great by grasping at the small. At the moment, the birthright, because it was distant, appeared insignificant. He had no patience to wait, no faith to believe in the value of the [non]material, no self-restraint to keep him from surrender to present gratification.
[Impulsive] passion has no use for a far-off good. Temptation allures the eye, whispers in the ear, plucks by the elbow, offering satisfaction now. The birthright is a poor thing compared to the red stew.
It is the distortion of vision that passion produces, the exaggeration of the present that temptation creates, making the small look like the great and discrediting the value of the thing lost.--- Hugh Black
(27). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.Teacher's Commentary
The years of suffering were forging David's character. God was applying pressures to the godly youth; pressures that would mature him into a man. David's experiences forced him to plumb the depths of his humanity—and to find that in every extremity God was his only refuge.
David often found himself in situations where the temptation to choose the easy way was great. At times David did choose wrongly. But in the great tests—like that moment when David stood over a sleeping Saul—David found the strength to choose what he believed to be God's will. It was this strength, this heart for God, which was at the core of David's developing character. It was this strength which made David great, as it can make you and me.
These chapters which give us insight into the process by which David's mature character is shaped are filled with exciting stories which convey lessons of their own. Here are a few of these stories, and some of their lessons for us.
David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 20). Saul was determined that his son Jonathan be king, even though Samuel had secretly anointed David. Despite the close relationship between Jonathan and his father (1 Samuel 20:2), Jonathan sided with David. He defended David when his father angrily demanded David's death (vv. 30–31). When Jonathan was convinced that Saul intended to murder David, Jonathan helped David escape.
This must have been a very painful dilemma. On the one hand, Jonathan loved and honored his father. His self-interest would have been served by David's death. But on the other hand, David was Jonathan's friend. And Jonathan's sense of right and wrong was violated by his father's acts. Jonathan worked through to a godly decision, and won the admiration of countless generations. David is often seen as this era's hero. But there is no more attractive or praiseworthy model of a godly man than Jonathan.
David and Abigail (1 Samuel 25). When David was rebuffed by Nabal, whose flocks his men had protected, he was furious. In hot anger, he ordered his men to follow him to Nabal's house, intending to kill him and every male in his household.
But Nabal's men explained the situation to Abigail. She acted quickly, gathering food to take to David. When Abigail met David's force on the road, she begged his forgiveness, and urged him not to act hastily and "have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself" (1 Samuel 25:31). David was wise and strong enough to relent, even though he had publicly announced his intention to punish Nabal.
David spares Saul's life (1 Samuel 26). When David had an opportunity to kill Saul, he held back. He reasoned, "Who can lay a hand on the Lord's anointed and be guiltless? As surely as the Lord lives … the Lord Himself will strike him; either his time will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish" (1 Samuel 26:9–10).
David's trust in God was vividly demonstrated in his restraint. So too was his determination to do right, no matter how another provoked him.
The New Testament expresses this principle in a different way. We are to do good to those who persecute us so that we can be like the Lord, who does good to His enemies (Matthew 5:43–48).
How important to learn to do good, even to those who try to do us harm.
(323). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.