Avigail: David's Third Wife

(1) Samuel died, and all Israel gathered and made lament for him; and they buried him in Ramah, his home.

David went down to the wilderness of Paran. (2) There was a man in Maon whose possessions were in Carmel. The man was very wealthy; he owned three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. At the time, he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. (3) The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. The woman was intelligent and beautiful, but the man, a Calebite, was a hard man and an evildoer. (4) David was in the wilderness when he heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. (5) David dispatched ten young men, and David instructed the young men, “Go up to Carmel. When you come to Nabal, greet him in my name. (6) Say as follows: ‘To life!^-b Greetings to you and to your household and to all that is yours! (7) I hear that you are now doing your shearing. As you know, your shepherds have been with us; we did not harm them, and nothing of theirs was missing all the time they were in Carmel. (8) Ask your young men and they will tell you. So receive these young men graciously, for we have come on a festive occasion. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can.’”

(9) David’s young men went and delivered this message to Nabal in the name of David. When they stopped speaking, (10) Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many slaves nowadays who run away from their masters. (11) Should I then take my bread and my water, and the meat that I slaughtered for my own shearers, and give them to men who come from I don’t know where?” (12) Thereupon David’s young men retraced their steps; and when they got back, they told him all this. (13) And David said to his men, “Gird on your swords.” Each girded on his sword; David too girded on his sword. About four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage. (14) One of [Nabal’s] young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, that David had sent messengers from the wilderness to greet their master, and that he had spurned them.

(23) When Abigail saw David, she quickly dismounted from the ass and threw herself face down before David, bowing to the ground. (24) Prostrate at his feet, she pleaded, “Let the blame be mine, my lord, but let your handmaid speak to you; hear your maid’s plea. (25) Please, my lord, pay no attention to that wretched fellow Nabal. For he is just what his name says: His name means ‘boor’ and he is a boor.

“Your handmaid did not see the young men whom my lord sent. (26) I swear, my lord, as Adonai lives and as you live—Adonai who has kept you from seeking redress by blood with your own hands—let your enemies and all who would harm my lord fare like Nabal! (27) Here is the present which your maidservant has brought to my lord; let it be given to the young men who are the followers of my lord. (28) Please pardon your maid’s boldness. For God will grant my lord an enduring house, because my lord is fighting God's battles, and no wrong is ever to be found in you. (29) And if anyone sets out to pursue you and seek your life, the life of my lord will be bound up in the bundle of life in God's care; but He will fling away the lives of your enemies as from the hollow of a sling. (30) And when God has accomplished for my lord all the good He has promised you, and has appointed you ruler of Israel, (31) do not let this be a cause of stumbling and of faltering courage to my lord that you have shed blood needlessly and that my lord sought redress with his own hands. And when God has made my lord prosper, remember your maid.” (32) David said to Abigail, “Praised be Adonai, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! (33) And blessed be your prudence, and blessed be you yourself for restraining me from seeking redress in blood by my own hands. (34) For as sure as Adonai, the God of Israel, lives—who has kept me from harming you—had you not come quickly to meet me, not a single male^-e of Nabal’s line would have been left by daybreak.”

(38) About ten days later God struck Nabal and he died. (39) When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be God who championed my cause against the insults of Nabal and held back His servant from wrongdoing; God has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing down on his own head.”
David sent messengers to propose marriage to^-f Abigail, to take her as his wife. (40) When David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel and told her that David had sent them to her to make her his wife, (41) she immediately bowed low with her face to the ground and said, “Your handmaid is ready to be your maidservant, to wash the feet of my lord’s servants.” (42) Then Abigail rose quickly and mounted an ass, and with five of her maids in attendance she followed David’s messengers; and she became his wife.

The Sages taught in a baraita: Forty-eight prophets and seven prophetesses prophesied on behalf of the Jewish people, and they neither subtracted from nor added onto what is written in the Torah.

§ The Gemara asks with regard to the prophetesses recorded in the baraita: Who were the seven prophetesses? The Gemara answers: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah, and Esther.