Avigail

BT Megilah 14a

The Gemara asks with regard to the prophetesses recorded in the baraita: Who were the seven prophetesses? The Gemara answers: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah, and Esther.

I Samuel 25

[introduction to Nabal]

(1) Samuel died, and all Israel gathered and made lament for him; and they buried him in Ramah, his home. David went down to the wilderness of Paran. (2) There was a man in Maon whose possessions were in Carmel. The man was very wealthy; he owned three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. At the time, he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. (3) The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. The woman was intelligent and beautiful, but the man, a Calebite, was a hard man and an evildoer.

[David decides to test Nabal]

(4) David was in the wilderness when he heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. (5) David dispatched ten young men, and David instructed the young men, “Go up to Carmel. When you come to Nabal, greet him in my name. (6) Say as follows: ‘To life! Greetings to you and to your household and to all that is yours! (7) I hear that you are now doing your shearing. As you know, your shepherds have been with us; we did not harm them, and nothing of theirs was missing all the time they were in Carmel. (8) Ask your young men and they will tell you. So receive these young men graciously, for we have come on a festive occasion. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can.’”

[Nabal's Response]

(9) David’s young men went and delivered this message to Nabal in the name of David. When they stopped speaking, (10) Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many slaves nowadays who run away from their masters. (11) Should I then take my bread and my water, and the meat that I slaughtered for my own shearers, and give them to men who come from I don’t know where?”

[David decides to attack Nabal]

(12) Thereupon David’s young men retraced their steps; and when they got back, they told him all this. (13) And David said to his men, “Gird on your swords.” Each girded on his sword; David too girded on his sword. About four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.

[Abigail is informed about the impending violence]

(14) One of [Nabal’s] young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, that David had sent messengers from the wilderness to greet their master, and that he had spurned them. (15) “But the men had been very friendly to us; we were not harmed, nor did we miss anything all the time that we went about with them while we were in the open. (16) They were a wall about us both by night and by day all the time that we were with them tending the flocks. (17) So consider carefully what you should do, for harm threatens our master and all his household; he is such a nasty fellow that no one can speak to him.” (18) Abigail quickly got together two hundred loaves of bread, two jars of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of parched corn, one hundred cakes of raisin, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs. She loaded them on asses, (19) and she told her young men, “Go on ahead of me, and I’ll follow you”; but she did not tell her husband Nabal.

[Abigail takes matters into her own hands]

(20) She was riding on the ass and going down a trail on the hill, when David and his men appeared, coming down toward her; and she met them.— (21) Now David had been saying, “It was all for nothing that I protected that fellow’s possessions in the wilderness, and that nothing he owned is missing. He has paid me back evil for good. (22) May God do thus and more to the enemies of David if, by the light of morning, I leave a single male of his.”— (23) When Abigail saw David, she quickly dismounted from the ass and threw herself face down before David, bowing to the ground. (24) Prostrate at his feet, she pleaded, “Let the blame be mine, my lord, but let your handmaid speak to you; hear your maid’s plea. (25) Please, my lord, pay no attention to that wretched fellow Nabal. For he is just what his name says: His name means ‘boor’ and he is a boor. “Your handmaid did not see the young men whom my lord sent. (26) I swear, my lord, as the LORD lives and as you live—the LORD who has kept you from seeking redress by blood with your own hands—let your enemies and all who would harm my lord fare like Nabal! (27) Here is the present which your maidservant has brought to my lord; let it be given to the young men who are the followers of my lord. (28) Please pardon your maid’s boldness. For the LORD will grant my lord an enduring house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and no wrong is ever to be found in you. (29) And if anyone sets out to pursue you and seek your life, the life of my lord will be bound up in the bundle of life in the care of the LORD; but He will fling away the lives of your enemies as from the hollow of a sling. (30) And when the LORD has accomplished for my lord all the good He has promised you, and has appointed you ruler of Israel,

(31) do not let this be a cause of stumbling and of faltering courage to my lord that you have shed blood needlessly and that my lord sought redress with his own hands. And when the LORD has prospered my lord, remember your maid.”

[David thanks Abigail for her wisdom]

(32) David said to Abigail, “Praised be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! (33) And blessed be your prudence, and blessed be you yourself for restraining me from seeking redress in blood by my own hands. (34) For as sure as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives—who has kept me from harming you—had you not come quickly to meet me, not a single male of Nabal’s line would have been left by daybreak.” (35) David then accepted from her what she had brought him, and he said to her, “Go up to your home safely. See, I have heeded your plea and respected your wish.”

[The end of Nabal and Marriage of Abigal and David]

(36) When Abigail came home to Nabal, he was having a feast in his house, a feast fit for a king; Nabal was in a merry mood and very drunk, so she did not tell him anything at all until daybreak. (37) The next morning, when Nabal had slept off the wine, his wife told him everything that had happened; and his courage died within him, and 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, “Praised be the LORD who championed my cause against the insults of Nabal and held back His servant from wrongdoing; the LORD has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing down on his own head.” David sent messengers to propose marriage to Abigail, to take her as his wife. (40) When David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel and told her that David had sent them to her to make her his wife, (41) she immediately bowed low with her face to the ground and said, “Your handmaid is ready to be your maidservant, to wash the feet of my lord’s servants.” (42) Then Abigail rose quickly and mounted an ass, and with five of her maids in attendance she followed David’s messengers; and she became his wife.

A little background before jumping in...

The Rabbis depict Abigail as a wise and practical woman, capable of acting at the right moment and in the right way. She saves David from committing unnecessary bloodshed, while at the same time assuring her future. This good woman and David were suited for one another, and their marriage was ordained by Heaven; it was not based on political or economic considerations, but rather on love and mutual appreciation, the roots of which had already been planted the first time they met. - Tamar Kadar

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/abigail-midrash-and-aggadah

1 Samuel 25 stands in stark contrast to, and serves as a mirror image of, the Bathsheba story in 1 Sam 11–12. Both Abigail and Bathsheba are originally married to other men, and both become the wives of David, yet by very different courses of events. In the Abigail story, the woman is married to an evil husband, yet David is prevented by the woman from murdering her husband, as he clearly acknowledges (1 Sam 25:33–34). In the case of Bathsheba, whose husband is portrayed as a good man, David is led to order the murder of the husband because of his desire for the woman. The Abigail story contains no illicit sex, though the opportunity was present; the Bathsheba story revolves around an illicit relationship. In the Abigail story, David, the potential king, is seen as increasingly strong and virtuous, whereas in the Bathsheba story, the reigning monarch shows his flaws ever more overtly and begins to lose control of his family.

Adele Berlin https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/abigail-bible

The Rabbis’ positive attitude to Abigail is evident from their deliberations about the number of wives that a king may take. The Torah (Deut. 17:17) mandates that the king “shall not have many wives,” which the Rabbis understood as limiting him to eighteen wives. In this context they add the proviso: “‘he shall not have many wives’—even though they be like Abigail” (M Sanhedrin 2:4). In other words, even if the king’s wives are blessed with good traits and are as righteous as Abigail, he may not take too many. Another view, however, understands that this prohibition is meant to prevent the king from leaving the path of the Lord. Consequently, if a person has wives like Abigail, there is no reason to limit the number of his spouses (T Sanhedrin 4:5; BT Bava Mezia 115a). Both approaches, regardless of the differences between their interpretations, highlight Abigail’s uniqueness: she is the only one of David’s wives mentioned in this context and she symbolizes positiveness and goodness. - Tamar Kadari https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/abigail-midrash-and-aggadah