The First Book of Shemu'el, starting at chapter 25
{25:1} Shemu'el died; and all Yisra'el gathered themselves together,
and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah. David arose,
and went down to the wilderness of Paran. {25:2} There was a man in
Ma`on, whose possessions were in Karmel; and the man was very great,
and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was
shearing his sheep in Karmel. {25:3} Now the name of the man was
Naval; and the name of his wife Avigayil; and the woman was of good
understanding, and of a beautiful face: but the man was churlish and
evil in his doings; and he was of the house of Kalev. {25:4} David
heard in the wilderness that Naval was shearing his sheep. {25:5}
David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, Go up to
Karmel, and go to Naval, and greet him in my name: {25:6} and thus
shall you tell him who lives [in prosperity], Shalom be to you, and
shalom be to your house, and shalom be to all that you have. {25:7}
Now I have heard that you have shearers: your shepherds have now been
with us, and we did them no hurt, neither was there anything missing
to them, all the while they were in Karmel. {25:8} Ask your young men,
and they will tell you: therefore let the young men find favor in your
eyes; for we come in a good day. Please give whatever comes to your
hand, to your servants, and to your son David. {25:9} When David's
young men came, they spoke to Naval according to all those words in
the name of David, and ceased. {25:10} Naval answered David's
servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Yishai? there
are many servants now-a-days who break away every man from his master.
{25:11} Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my meat that I
have killed for my shearers, and give it to men who I don't know where
they come from? {25:12} So David's young men turned on their way, and
went back, and came and told him according to all these words. {25:13}
David said to his men, Gird you on every man his sword. They girded on
every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword: and there
went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by
the baggage. {25:14} But one of the young men told Avigayil, Naval's
wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to
Greet our master; and he railed at them. {25:15} But the men were very
good to us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything, as long
as we went with them, when we were in the fields: {25:16} they were a
wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them
keeping the sheep. {25:17} Now therefore know and consider what you
will do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all
his house: for he is such a worthless fellow that one can't speak to
him. {25:18} Then Avigayil made haste, and took two hundred loaves,
and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five
measures of parched grain, and one hundred clusters of raisins, and
two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. {25:19} She said
to her young men, Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But she
didn't tell her husband, Naval. {25:20} It was so, as she rode on her
donkey, and came down by the covert of the mountain, that behold,
David and his men came down toward her; and she met them. {25:21} Now
David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow has in
the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained to
him: and he has returned me evil for good. {25:22} God do so to the
enemies of David, and more also, if I leave of all that belongs to him
by the morning light so much as one man-child. {25:23} When Avigayil
saw David, she hurried, and alighted from her donkey, and fell before
David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground. {25:24} She fell
at his feet, and said, On me, my lord, on me be the iniquity; and
please let your handmaid speak in your ears. Hear the words of your
handmaid. {25:25} Please don't let my lord regard this worthless
fellow, even Naval; for as his name is, so is he; Naval is his name,
and folly is with him: but I your handmaid didn't see the young men of
my lord, whom you did send. {25:26} Now therefore, my lord, as the
LORD lives, and as your soul lives, seeing the LORD has withheld you
from blood guiltiness, and from avenging yourself with your own hand,
now therefore let your enemies, and those who seek evil to my lord, be
as Naval. {25:27} Now this present which your servant has brought to
my lord, let it be given to the young men who follow my lord. {25:28}
Please forgive the trespass of your handmaid: for the LORD will
certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord fights the
battles of the LORD; and evil shall not be found in you all your days.
{25:29} Though men be risen up to pursue you, and to seek your soul,
yet the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the
LORD your God; and the souls of your enemies, them shall he sling out,
as from the hollow of a sling. {25:30} It shall come to pass, when the
LORD shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he has
spoken concerning you, and shall have appointed you prince over
Yisra'el, {25:31} that this shall be no grief to you, nor offense of
heart to my lord, either that you have shed blood without cause, or
that my lord has avenged himself. When the LORD shall have dealt well
with my lord, then remember your handmaid. {25:32} David said to
Avigayil, Blessed be the LORD, the God of Yisra'el, who sent you this
day to meet me: {25:33} and blessed be your discretion, and blessed be
you, that have kept me this day from blood guiltiness, and from
avenging myself with my own hand. {25:34} For in very deed, as the
LORD, the God of Yisra'el, lives, who has withheld me from hurting
you, except you had hurried and come to meet me, surely there wouldn't
have been left to Naval by the morning light so much as one man-child.
{25:35} So David received of her hand that which she had brought him:
and he said to her, Go up in shalom to your house; behold, I have
listened to your voice, and have accepted your person. {25:36}
Avigayil came to Naval; and, behold, he held a feast in his house,
like the feast of a king; and Naval's heart was merry within him, for
he was very drunken: therefore she told him nothing, less or more,
until the morning light. {25:37} It happened in the morning, when the
wine was gone out of Naval, that his wife told him these things, and
his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. {25:38} It
happened about ten days after, that the LORD struck Naval, so that he
died. {25:39} When David heard that Naval was dead, he said, Blessed
be the LORD, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of
Naval, and has kept back his servant from evil: and the evil-doing of
Naval has the LORD returned on his own head. David sent and spoke
concerning Avigayil, to take her to him as wife. {25:40} When the
servants of David were come to Avigayil to Karmel, they spoke to her,
saying, David has sent us to you, to take you to him as wife. {25:41}
She arose, and bowed herself with her face to the [1>]eretz[<1], and
said, Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the
servants of my lord. {25:42} Avigayil hurried, and arose, and rode on
a donkey, with five ladies of hers who followed her; and she went
after the messengers of David, and became his wife. {25:43} David also
took Achino'am of Yizre`el; and they became both of them his wives.
{25:44} Now Sha'ul had given Mikhal his daughter, David's wife, to
Palti the son of Layish, who was of Gallim.
{26:1} The Zifim came to Sha'ul to Gevah, saying, Doesn't David hide
himself in the hill of Hakhilah, which is before the desert? {26:2}
Then Sha'ul arose, and went down to the wilderness of Zif, having
three thousand chosen men of Yisra'el with him, to seek David in the
wilderness of Zif. {26:3} Sha'ul encamped in the hill of Hakhilah,
which is before the desert, by the way. But David abode in the
wilderness, and he saw that Sha'ul came after him into the wilderness.
{26:4} David therefore sent out spies, and understood that Sha'ul was
come of a certainty. {26:5} David arose, and came to the place where
Sha'ul had encamped; and David saw the place where Sha'ul lay, and
Aviner the son of Ner, the captain of his host: and Sha'ul lay within
the place of the wagons, and the people were encamped round about him.
{26:6} Then answered David and said to Achimelekh the Hittite, and to
Avishai the son of Tzeru'yah, brother to Yo'av, saying, Who will go
down with me to Sha'ul to the camp? Avishai said, I will go down with
you. {26:7} So David and Avishai came to the people by night: and,
behold, Sha'ul lay sleeping within the place of the wagons, with his
spear stuck in the ground at his head; and Aviner and the people lay
round about him. {26:8} Then said Avishai to David, God has delivered
up your enemy into your hand this day: now therefore please let me
strike him with the spear to the [1>]eretz[<1] at one stroke, and I
will not strike him the second time. {26:9} David said to Avishai,
Don't destroy him; for who can put forth his hand against the LORD's
anointed, and be guiltless? {26:10} David said, As the LORD lives, the
LORD will strike him; or his day shall come to die; or he shall go
down into battle and perish. {26:11} The LORD forbid that I should put
forth my hand against the LORD's anointed: but now please take the
spear that is at his head, and the jar of water, and let us go.
{26:12} So David took the spear and the jar of water from Sha'ul's
head; and they got them away: and no man saw it, nor knew it, neither
did any awake; for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the
LORD was fallen on them. {26:13} Then David went over to the other
side, and stood on the top of the mountain afar off; a great space
being between them; {26:14} and David cried to the people, and to
Aviner the son of Ner, saying, Don't you answer, Aviner? Then Aviner
answered, Who are you who cries to the king? {26:15} David said to
Aviner, Aren't you a [valiant] man? and who is like you in Yisra'el?
why then have you not kept watch over your lord, the king? for there
came one of the people in to destroy the king your lord. {26:16} This
thing isn't good that you have done. As the LORD lives, you are worthy
to die, because you have not kept watch over your lord, the LORD's
anointed. Now see where the king's spear is, and the jar of water that
was at his head. {26:17} Sha'ul knew David's voice, and said, Is this
your voice, my son David? David said, It is my voice, my lord, O king.
{26:18} He said, Why does my lord pursue after his servant? for what
have I done? or what evil is in my hand? {26:19} Now therefore, please
let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If it be the LORD
that has stirred you up against me, let him accept an offering: but if
it be the children of men, cursed be they before the LORD: for they
have driven me out this day that I shouldn't cling to the LORD's
inheritance, saying, Go, serve other gods. {26:20} Now therefore,
don't let my blood fall to the [2>]eretz[<2] away from the presence of
the LORD: for the king of Yisra'el is come out to seek a flea, as when
one does hunt a partridge in the mountains. {26:21} Then said Sha'ul,
I have sinned: return, my son David; for I will no more do you harm,
because my life was precious in your eyes this day: behold, I have
played the fool, and have erred exceedingly. {26:22} David answered,
Behold the spear, O king! let then one of the young men come over and
get it. {26:23} The LORD will render to every man his righteousness
and his faithfulness; because the LORD delivered you into my hand
today, and I wouldn't put forth my hand against the LORD's anointed.
{26:24} Behold, as your life was much set by this day in my eyes, so
let my life be much set by in the eyes of the LORD, and let him
deliver me out of all oppression. {26:25} Then Sha'ul said to David,
Blessed be you, my son David: you shall both do mightily, and shall
surely prevail. So David went his way, and Sha'ul returned to his
place.
{27:1} David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the
hand of Sha'ul: there is nothing better for me than that I should
escape into the land of the Pelishtim; and Sha'ul will despair of me,
to seek me any more in all the borders of Yisra'el: so shall I escape
out of his hand. {27:2} David arose, and passed over, he and the six
hundred men who were with him, to Akhish the son of Ma`okh, king of
Gat. {27:3} David lived with Akhish at Gat, he and his men, every man
with his household, even David with his two wives, Achino'am the
Yizre`elite, and Avigayil the Karmelite, Naval's wife. {27:4} It was
told Sha'ul that David was fled to Gat: and he sought no more again
for him. {27:5} David said to Akhish, If now I have found favor in
your eyes, let them give me a place in one of the cities in the
country, that I may dwell there: for why should your servant dwell in
the royal city with you? {27:6} Then Akhish gave him Tziklag that day:
why Tziklag pertains to the kings of Yehudah to this day. {27:7} The
number of the days that David lived in the country of the Pelishtim
was a full year and four months. {27:8} David and his men went up, and
made a raid on the Geshuri, and the Gizri, and the `Amaleki; for those
[nations] were the inhabitants of the land, who were of old, as you go
to Shur, even to the land of Mitzrayim. {27:9} David struck the land,
and saved neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and
the oxen, and the donkeys, and the camels, and the clothing; and he
returned, and came to Akhish. {27:10} Akhish said, Against whom have
you made a raid today? David said, Against the South of Yehudah, and
against the South of the Yerachme'eli, and against the South of the
Kinim. {27:11} David saved neither man nor woman alive, to bring them
to Gat, saying, Lest they should tell of us, saying, So did David, and
so has been his manner all the while he has lived in the country of
the Pelishtim. {27:12} Akhish believed David, saying, He has made his
people Yisra'el utterly to abhor him; therefore he shall be my servant
forever.
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Footnotes:
[1] {25:41} earth
[1] {26:8} earth
[2] {26:20} earth
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