1Samuel 25:39 When David heard that Nabal was dead he said, “Blessed be God, who has stood up for me against Nabal’s insults, kept me from an evil act, and let Nabal’s evil boomerang back on him.”
Nabal has repaid David’s kindness with brutish irresponsibility. David and his men, on the run from Saul, have protected Nabal’s sheep and shepherds, and now that it is sheering time, David’s men approach Nabal with proclamations of peace, asking respectfully for some hospitality, food and drink to sustain them in the wilderness. Nabal refuses in a most vicious and callous way, yelling and calling them names. Naturally, David is angry. How dare this idiot (Nabal means “fool”) treat him and his men so badly! After all they’ve done for him! And so David intends to wreak revenge, which would mean killing everyone in sight. (The customs of the time dictated that revenge was wrought on the whole family of the evildoer. It was in this context that “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” was a statement of mercy. It meant you could only do damage on a par with what was actually done to you. Life for life, but no more.) But Nabal was lucky that he had a very clever wife named Abigail, who collects bread, wine and meat ready to roast, rides out to meet David, and basically appeals to his better instincts. He shouldn’t stoop to Nabal’s level by wreaking this revenge, and add a blot to his honor, she tells him. She gets David to stop and think and recognize what a mistake this would be. And he honors her request. Next day she tells Nabal what happened, he has a heart attack, and dies a few days later. So God did for David what was wrong for him to do for himself. It is God’s role to judge, not ours.
There’s another interesting little piece to this, this notion of Nabal’s evil boomeranging back on him. Today we would call that experiencing the natural consequences of one’s choices. I think the deal is that I don’t have to retaliate for an injustice done to me because God will take care of it. I may not see the results, but fools inevitably fall into their own traps, people reap the consequences of their own behaviors, it’s almost a natural or spiritual law. I need to stand up for myself, stand up for justice, but I needn’t retaliate in kind because then I am just as bad as the other person was. Then I’m not living in the
Prayer: Dear God, It’s hard not to retaliate when I am treated unfairly, not to want to make the other person experience what I have. But I know it only makes things worse, leads me away from who You want me to be and, even worse, puts me in Your place as judge of all. Give me patience and wisdom to take the right path, to stick with You and not get pulled into behaving wrongly, that I may bind my will to Your perfect one and become the person You call me to be. Amen
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