Nabal was a wealthy man from Maon who conducted his business in Carmel. He was married to the wise and beautiful Abigail, but he himself was known for his harshness and bad behavior. His insult of David nearly led to bloodshed, but it was averted by Abigail's wisdom.
When David sent his men to ask for food and provisions as repayment for the protection they had given Nabal's shepherds, Nabal rejected them with harsh words and insulted David.
2There was a man in Maon whose holdings were in Carmel. He was a very wealthy man, with three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
3The man's name was Nabal, and his wife's name was Abigail. She was intelligent and beautiful, but her husband was harsh and mean in all his dealings. He was a Calebite.
10But Nabal answered David's servants, "Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? These days there are plenty of servants running away from their masters.
13David said to his men, "Strap on your swords!" So each man strapped on his sword, and David strapped on his as well. About four hundred men went up with David, while two hundred stayed behind with the baggage.
21Now David had been saying, "It was all for nothing that I protected everything this fellow owns in the wilderness, so that nothing of his went missing. He has repaid me evil for good.
18Abigail acted quickly. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five measures of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.
25Let my lord pay no attention to that worthless man Nabal. He is just what his name says: Nabal, "Fool"—and folly goes with him. But I, your servant, did not see the young men my lord sent.
36When Abigail came to Nabal, he was holding a banquet in his house like a king's feast. He was in high spirits and very drunk, so she told him nothing at all until daybreak.