Deeper Reflection
1 SAMUEL 25 is a long narrative “with little explanation by the narrator himself”²⁸. The narrative is dominated by human speeches (27 verses out of 44) and human actions. A theocentric reading of the narrative would ask, “Where is God in the story?” God is mentioned 14 times, primarily as “the LORD”, of which 13 times are in the speeches of Abigail and David. But it does not necessarily mean that whenever God is mentioned in a human speech, God is rightly presented and truly represented. An example is, when Saul saw an opportunity to kill David at Keilah, he interpreted it as “God has delivered him into my hand” (1 Sam 23:7). We need to be careful that our presentation of God in our speech and our interpretation of God in events are true and right. The story of 1 Samuel 25 is told around a problem created by a problematic person: Nabal. But the dominant note of 1 Samuel 25 is the timely providence of God. 1 Samuel 25 begins with the introduction of the “very rich” but “harsh and evil” Nabal (vv.2-3), and ends with “the LORD struck Nabal” (v.38) – the only time that God is mentioned in a divine act, by which the narrator tells us that God is behind the whole story. In 1 Samuel 25, God in His providence intervened to rescue David from a problem that he was about to create for himself: hasty vengeance and bloodshed (1 Sam 25:13).

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²⁸ Dale Ralph Davis, 257