A Wife of Noble Character Who Can Find?: Abigail

[Second post in my "A Wife of Noble Character" series.]

Reading about Abigail in 1 Samuel 25 leaves me wishing there were more to find out about this interesting woman.  She is described as “intelligent and beautiful” (v. 3), while married to Nabal, a Calebite, who has gone down in history as “surly and mean” (v. 3). 


Source:  nccg.org

It is likely that Nabal, a wealthy man who likes to party like a king and treat others with thoughtless disrespect, has no idea that he is married to “a wife of noble character…worth far more than rubies” (Proverbs 31:10).  If it weren’t for her bringing him good, not harm, all the days of her life (Proverbs 31:12), the account found in 1 Samuel 25 would have ended much differently!

In this chapter, we are told that it is sheep-shearing time—time to party!—in Carmel, where the wealthy Nabal owns a thousand goats and three thousand sheep on his land.  Earlier, David and his men had protected Nabal’s shepherds and their sheep from any foreigners who might have tried to harm them or steal them away.  David thinks it is only fair that his men be repaid by Nabal for their kindness and concern—perhaps with some supplies, certainly an invitation to the party—whatever Nabal can spare for them.  It would be pretty hard to hold a lavish sheep-shearing party, while claiming that he has nothing to offer to men who have done such a great service for him!

David even has his men ask nicely:  “Long life to you!  Good health to you and your household!  And good health to all that is yours!...Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can find for them” (1 Samuel 25: 6, 8).

http://fbv.socialbiblia.com/david-and-nabal.php

But Nabal’s response is essentially this:  “Who is this David guy?  He could be ANYBODY.  Why should I waste my bread, water, and meat on HIM and his men?  They could be coming from who knows where!” (a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 25:10-11).

David is outraged, pretty understandably.  Nabal is violating every expectation of hospitality and kindness that would have generally ruled interactions at that time.  His response, though, is hasty.  He tells 400 of his men to grab their swords and head right over to kill every single man in Nabal’s household (1 Samuel 25: 13, 22).  That would have included his family, servants, shepherds, and other workers. 

Well, thank goodness, one of Nabal’s servants tells Nabal’s wife Abigail that a very outraged David and 400 tired, hungry, and angry men are headed their way (1 Samuel 25: 14-16)!

Abigail springs into action—it’s good news for her household that she does not “eat the bread of idleness” (Proverbs 31:27)!—with an understanding of the situation that suggests this isn’t the first time she has to act quickly to smooth over a rift caused by her husband’s bad behavior.  And the fact that the servants know to come to HER to sort out the catastrophe (1 Samuel 25: 17) suggests that they, too, know who to go to for wise action when Nabal’s breaches of kindness and etiquette get everyone else in trouble. 

In her wisdom, Abigail comes to David with humility, provisions, and positive and encouraging words. 

She faces these 400 angry men riding alone on a donkey into a mountain ravine (1 Samuel 25: 20).  Clearly, she is placing herself at David’s mercy.  She immediately falls at his feet, and offers to take all the blame for Nabal’s behavior upon herself (v. 23-24).


Source

But Abigail doesn’t come with words alone.  She also comes with provisions for David and his men.  They are looking for supplies, and she makes sure they get them:  200 loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs (about a bushel) of roasted grain, 100 raisin cakes, and 200 fig cakes (1 Samuel 25: 18, 27).

The Proverbs 31 wife is depicted as making good decisions, working with eager hands, and providing food for her family and servants (v. 13-15).  While we don’t have information about how Abigail fills her days, we DO know that she makes her own very good decisions for her family, and provides what is needed to keep her family and servants safe from harm.  While the Proverbs 31 wife decides how to use her money productively—on fields or vineyards (v. 16)—Abigail knows the value of using her household money to prepare food for David’s men.  While the Proverbs 31 woman sets about her work vigorously and is strong for the tasks before her (v. 17), Abigail moves quickly to take care of her household’s business and is emotionally strong enough to face an oncoming force of 400 men with humility and strength, simultaneously.  

And finally, Abigail wisely brings words of encouragement to appease David, calm his anger, and redirect his thinking.  The Proverbs 31 woman “can laugh at the days to come” (v. 25) because of her confidence that her future lays in God’s capable hands.  Indeed, Abigail is able to prophecy to David that the Lord will make a lasting dynasty from his family and protect his life, while casting aside his enemies, that God will do every good thing he has promised to David and appoint him leader over Israel (I Samuel 25:28-30).  Abigail knows who holds the future in His hands!  And in sharing this understanding with David at such a pivotal moment, “she speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue” (Proverbs 31:26).  She is wise to remind him that he will not want the burden of needless bloodshed marring his reputation and his conscience once he is king.

Imagine Abigail’s HUGE sigh of relief when David says, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me.  May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands…Go home in peace” (1 Samuel 25: 32, 35).  Though her own husband, Nabal, is unlikely to have called her blessed, nor praised her (Proverbs 31:28), David—her future husband—does, in fact, call her blessed.

Mission accomplished:  Disaster averted!

Of course, Abigail is still stuck going home to Nabal.  She finds him drunk and partying, and doesn’t even try to fill him in on what has happened until the next morning.  Long story short, God strikes him dead ten days later, and David asks Abigail to be his wife.  She gets back on that donkey quickly (1 Samuel 25: 42), and heads out to marry David, the future king of Israel!

If I had a chance to speak to Abigail, based on this account of one brief period in her life, I would say to her:  “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all” (Proverbs 31:29)!

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To read about Rebekah, the first woman in my

"A Wife of Noble Character" series, click here.

A Wife of Noble Character Who Can Find?: Rebekah

In the last chapter of A Woman’s Wisdom, Lydia Brownback challenges her readers to examine the lives of six different Biblical women to determine whether or not they meet the criteria presented in Proverbs 31 for the “wife of noble character.”  Because our Living Stones group will be engaging in a series of workshops during October and November that do not require Bible reading between our meetings, I would like to challenge our members to spend some time looking at these six women through the lens of the Proverbs 31 woman to draw your own conclusions about the ways each compares and contrasts with the ideal wife portrayed there:  Rebekah, Abigail, Michal, Jezebel, Sapphira, and Priscilla. 

I started this afternoon, looking at the Biblical narrative surrounding Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel, sister of Laban, wife of Isaac, and mother of Jacob and Esau.  Her history can be found in the Book of Genesis, specifically chapters 24 through 27.

I focused on the question:  Is Rebekah a “wife of noble character” (Proverbs 31:10)? 

Source:  bibleencyclopedia.com

She starts out so promisingly! 

When Abraham’s servant Eliezer finds Rebekah at the well in the town of Nahor (Genesis 24), she immediately offers the weary traveler a drink of water from her jar.  Not only that, but she offers to draw water from the well for his camels, too—TEN camels, who can drink as much as 25 gallons of water at a time to rehydrate!  She makes this offer without hesitation, and carries out the task without any recorded grumbling, which suggests a noble character indeed!

But once she becomes a wife and mother, the tone of her story changes. 

Rebekah should have seen that God had a great plan to work out in her life.  After all, she conceives after twenty years of barrenness, in response to Isaac’s prayer to God on her behalf (Genesis 25:21).  And when Rebekah inquires of God why there is so much jostling in her womb, He tells her very clearly that two separate nations will come from the children she will bear, that the older will serve the younger, and that the people of one would be stronger than the people of the other (Genesis 25:22-23).  God clearly has plans for her twins! 

Source:  womeninthebible.net

And yet even seeing God at work in her life so clearly, Rebekah doesn’t seem to trust Him completely; she seems to think she needs to help things along.

From the beginning she favors the younger twin, Jacob, over the older twin, Esau.  Esau only makes matters worse by taking two non-Hebrew women as wives (Genesis 26:34-35).  He seemed to be snubbing his cultural and spiritual heritage by marrying among the Hittites, and bringing these outsiders into his Hebrew mother’s home. Rebekah even says of her other son, Jacob:  “If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living” (Genesis 27:46).  From my 21^st century American perspective, it is hard to condone such a narrow-minded view of intercultural marriage, but Rebekah’s understanding of the special status of the Hebrew people in the sight of God gives her an entirely different point of view.

But rather than trusting God’s plan to bring about Jacob’s ascendance over Esau, foretold by the Lord when they were still in the womb, Rebekah takes matters into her own hands by following a path of deceit.  Here is what happened:

When Isaac was very, very old, he asked Esau to hunt some wild game and prepare him a tasty meal, and then Isaac would give his son the awaited blessing.  When Rebekah heard Isaac’s request, she went to Jacob and told him that while Esau is out hunting, Jacob should bring her two young goats, so SHE could fix the tasty food for Isaac.  To further the deceit, she dresses Jacob in Esau’s clothing and covers his exposed skin with goatskins so he would feel hairy like Esau.  Her deception is well-conceived and complete!  “Just do what I say,” she tells her son Jacob, when he worries that her plan will fail and result in a curse rather than a blessing (Genesis 27:12-13).

Source:  estudiobiblia.blogspot.com

Does this sound like the biography of a wife of noble character?

Proverbs 31 tells us that when it comes to the wife of noble character, “Her husband has full confidence in her” (Proverbs 31:11).  Not only that, but “she brings him good, not harm” (Proverbs 31:12), and “her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land” (Proverbs 31:23). 

Now, Isaac is too old and blind and sick to take his seat at the city gate, but what kind of reception do you think he would receive once the elders knew that his wife had tricked him into giving the birthright blessing to his second son Jacob in place of the first-born Esau? 

How much confidence could Isaac possibly have in a woman who schemed to give her “favorite son” this honor that amounted to legal privilege in the Middle East at this time? 

How much good could possibly come to Isaac and his family by dividing the brothers against one another, making one of them (Esau) murderous, and the other (Jacob) frightened for his life?

Further, the Proverbs 31 woman “is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come” (Proverbs 31:25).  Where does a woman get the confidence to laugh at the days to come?  It comes, Proverbs tells us, from a fear of the Lord (31:30).  When we have confidence in God’s plan, we have no need to worry about the future; Rebekah, on the other hand, manipulates her circumstances to turn the future in the direction she desires, to see her favored son honored.  But to make sure the unfavored son Esau is passed over and denied his birthright blessing is to thwart God entirely.  If His intention is to see Esau favored with the birthright blessing of the firstborn, then Rebekah has denied His Will.  If His intention is to see Esau serving under his brother, as the Lord’s prophecy during Rebekah’s pregnancy suggests, then she is thwarting His will by manipulating her circumstances to suit her own will.  Either way, Rebekah does not display the fear of the Lord that is to be praised (Proverbs 31:30).

And what is she teaching her sons about honesty, about respect for their father, about honoring their Hebrew heritage?  The woman described in Proverbs 31 “speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue” (v. 26).  Rebekah does not embody this ideal with her duplicitous behavior.  “She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness” (Proverbs 31:27).  Rebekah stays busy around her house—busy furthering her own agenda for her favored son!  She knows how to fix her husband’s food just the way he likes it (Genesis 27:15), but she puts that knowledge to a deceptive use.

“Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all’” (Proverbs 31: 28-29).  Upon discovering the deception, Isaac  “trembled violently” (Genesis 27:33) and Esau “burst out with a loud and bitter cry” (Genesis 27:34)—not exactly the look and sound of blessing, by far!  No direct accusation against Rebekah appears in the Scriptures I have found, and Esau’s grudge is specifically against his brother Jacob (Genesis 27:41), but the damage of Rebekah’s conniving plan and deception are done, and it will take God’s graceful handling of the situation to undo the harm she causes.

Rebekah serves as a kind of counter-example to the Wife of Noble Character described in Proverbs 31.  If she could have balanced a concern for all members of her household, rather than protecting the interests of one favored son, then the example she presents for women, wives, and mothers throughout history would look quite different.  If she could have trusted in the Lord’s plan, and His means and timing for enacting that plan, then her story would look quite different as well. 

Can you see the elements of a modern novel or movie in this bit of Old Testament history?  I sure can!  Favoritism, sibling rivalry, betrayal, deception.  Where have you seen current-day motivations and actions that mirror what happened in Rebekah’s life story?  In what ways is this narrative still relevant for us today?  I hope you will read the original text of the story in the Book of Genesis, and consider these questions. 

Feel free to leave a comment to let me know that you’ve stopped by!