Of her family and early life nothing is recorded. When first mentioned she was the wife of the wealthy and churlish Nabal. It was an ill-assorted union, probably due (like most Oriental marriages) to parental arrangement. She was distinguished by a beautiful countenance and form, and (what is not always associated therewith) by a beautiful mind and character, embodying the ideal of womanhood (Proverbs 31:10-31). "Where do we find in all the heathen world a woman comparable with Abigail, the daughter of the wilderness?" She was a woman of -

1. Superior intelligence, practical wisdom, prudence, tact, and good management. "Of good understanding" (ver. 3). The part she took in the affairs of her husband is evident from the servants telling her of the threatening danger (ver. 17), and her apology (ver. 25). Her discretion was also shown in her reserve (ver. 19).

2. Prompt decision, energy, and activity. "Abigail made haste," etc. (ver. 18). Not a moment was lost, and she was promptly obeyed.

3. Unaffected humility, meekness, modesty, and self-devotion. "She fell before David on her face," etc. (vers. 23, 41). Her meekness and patience must have been greatly tried by the temper of Nabal, and had doubtless previously averted many a disaster.

4. Noble generosity and sacrifice. "Two hundred loaves," etc. (ver. 18). She felt that no sacrifice was too great to save her husband and his household. "David's men and David felt that these were not the gifts of a sordid calculation, but the offerings of a generous heart. And it won them, their gratitude, their enthusiasm, their unfeigned homage" (Robertson).

5. Conciliatory, faithful, eloquent speech, and pacifying, beneficent influence (vers. 24-31). Having taken the blame upon herself (as intercessor), and referred to her husband "with that union of playfulness and seriousness which above all things turns away wrath" (Stanley), she directed the thoughts of David to God, by the leadings of whose providence she had been sent to divert him from his purpose, utters the wish flint he to whom vengeance belongs would avenge him, humbly begs the acceptance of her offering for his young men, and beseeches his forgiveness. Then (assuming her prayer to be granted) she assures him of the brilliant future that awaited him, inasmuch as he would fulfil the purposes of Jehovah, and not his own; that, should any one seek to do him harm, Jehovah would preserve him in safety, and punish his adversaries; and that when he should be "ruler over Israel" it would be a source of comfort, and not of trouble, to him that he had not shed blood causelessly, nor taken vengeance into his own hand. Finally she says, "And Jehovah will do good to my lord, and thou wilt remember thine handmaid" (for good) - "remember the things which I have spoken" (Dathe). No dissuasions from revenge could be more effective.

"When a world of men
Could not prevail with all their oratory,
Yet hath a woman's kindness overruled." Doubtless she had not studied eloquence in the schools, but the Spirit of God alone made her such an orator. God put wisdom into her heart, and it flowed out in wise discourse (Roos).

6. Exalted piety; faith in the righteousness and goodness of God, his overruling providence, and the establishment of his kingdom (see the song of Hannah), devotion, spiritual insight, manifested in this appeal, and in her whole conduct (Proverbs 31:26, 30). It is not surprising that, after the death of Nabal, "David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife" (ver. 39). - D.

In this chapter you find a perfect picture of a choleric, bad-tempered man. There is a saying "that the worst temper in the house always rules," and often it is so. I have seen father and mother weakly yielding to some boorish, ill-tempered child. You have met the workman who was feared by all his fellows because he was a churl, a sullen, violent-tempered man, a modern Nabal, which means a fool. What a picture of home life is drawn for us here in this chapter. In the foreground is Nabal, the grumpy, sullen, beetle-browed, coarse-tongued, drunken husband — the prototype of hundreds of husbands of today, Who rule in their own little world with all the despotism of a Nero, and who only need a larger platform and greater power to show us how inhuman, how cruel, and how like the devil men can become. That is Nabal in low life, but you find Nabal in high life, in political life, ay! and in church life too. And then there is Abigail, Nabal's wife, in the picture, and she is its redeeming feature. She is as tactful as she is beautiful, and she knew her husband's moods well, and she is always particularly gracious when the wind is in the east, and Nabal is most out of temper. "He's gey bad to live with," was the testimony of Carlyle's mother, and the reading of some of the letters his wife wrote are nothing less than heart breaking. "If he would only be satisfied," she said, "but I have learned that when he does not find fault he is pleased, and that has to content me." Such a wife as Abigail is a crown to her husband; a daily blessing from God; but Nabal had the dark spirit within him, and never saw her worth. There are men who will go through a rose garden and never smell its sweet fragrance. Graciousness, and sweetness, and gentleness are wasted on such natures as Nabal's, but let those who have to deal with these churls remember that it is always worth while to practise these virtues, if only for their own sake. Abigail did not let Nabal destroy her good temper, although her married life was little better than a martyrdom. "The mind," Milton tells us, "is its own place, and it can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven," and Abigail, denied the love of her husband, won the love and respect of the servants, and was a shelter in the time of storm to them. "Nabal," says Dr. Whyte, "died of a strange disease, indebtedness to his wife." He could not brook the thought that he owed his life to the good sense of his wife and to the forbearance of David; it was wormwood and gall, and it poisoned him, and he died of a heart frozen by his own wickedness. Have there not been times when our bad temper has ruled, and we have forgotten to be either just or generous? Nabal died of a frozen heart, but he has had a resurrection in many a life. Boorishness and churlishness were not buried in Nabal's grave. "Temper," says Bishop Watson, "is nine-tenths of religion." "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," pleads the Apostle. It is the Christ mind that is the great thing, not simply doing the right thing, but doing it in the right spirit. Nabal was a rich man, but he never was a gentleman; you could not make a gentleman out of such stuff as constituted Nabal's nature. Have you met him — this loud-voiced, blatant, well-dressed, overfed churl. A quaint old Methodist used to say, "Never judge a man by the size of his house. A very small rabbit may live in a very big hole." "Behaviour," says Emerson, "is the finest of the fine arts. Manners are the garments of the spirit, the eternal clothing of the being." Even religion turns sour with some men, and that which should spell light, brightness, and cheerfulness spells instead sourness, unrighteousness, and exclusiveness. You remember how Robert Falconer's grandmother hid away his fiddle, fearful lest the lad should be tempted by it into worldly things, never dreaming that God melts the heart of some by touching the bow of a fiddle with His own figures, as He speaks to others by the voice of some great preacher. He has many ways of fulfilling Himself. How this churlishness destroys the best in life, and robs it of sweetness. The prodigal came home, and his reception would have been perfect but for the one thing, and that was his brother's churlishness. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down." Epictetus has left us a great lesson in his famous saying, "If a man is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault; for God hath made all men to be happy."

(Samuel Herren.)