Women with a Story to Tell. A Trustworthy Wife.
During my retirement luncheon at Asbury Seminary in May 2010 several people stood up and spoke favorably about me, as is customary. Professor David Thompson, retired then and now deceased, stood up and paid me a compliment. Then he closed with, “I would trust him with my wife.”
The audience was taken back, and laughter broke out. Dr. Thompson realized his mistake and quickly said, “I mean I would trust him with my life.” He paused, thought about it, and then added, “But I would trust him with my wife.” No compliment can be higher than that. Trust between friends, trust in a marriage, and trust in God is about as good as it gets. David was my friend; bless his memory.
Proverbs 31:11-12.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not harm
all the days of her life.
We hear a mother giving advice to her son. Trust is at the heart of the marriage relationship, the first rule, and doing no harm is like the first.
This brings to mind other instances in Scripture. For example, months ago we were considering each of King David’s wives and we came across Abigail. David and his merry men were on the run from King Saul. David was hiding in the countryside, but his gang was careful to protect the local inhabitants from bandits and government mistreatment, whether they knew it or not.
Abigail was the wife of a boorish man. The text in I Samuel 25 says that Nabal was a wealthy man with many sheep and goats.
“He had a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel. His name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband was surly and mean in his dealings….” (I Samuel 25:2-3).
How did they get married? Remember that this patriarchal pastoral society practiced strategic arrangements: livestock given in exchange for sisters and daughters. Yet, arranged marriage or not, Abigail still faithfully looked after her husband’s well being. Consider this incident.
At sheep shearing time, when sheep owners would be resupplying their abundant resources, David sent some young men to Nabal to ask for provisions for his men. He instructed them to remind Nabal that his shepherds and sheep had been protected by David’s men in the desolate country around the pastures. (See II Samuel 25 for the full story). So David asked for a contribution of food,
”But Nabal answered David’s servants, ‘Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are breaking away from their masters. Shall I take my bread and my water and the meat that I have butchered for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?’ (I Samuel 25:10-11).
Nabal was conservative; the rich and powerful should remain the rich and powerful. Nabal foolish. In fact, his name means ‘fool’. He did not fact-check. He was arrogant and decided to side with the present administration led by King Saul who had already lost God’s favor. As we might predict, when David heard how his young men had been treated, he told them all to prepare for a fight.
However, a counter-story is unfolding and Abigail is at the center of it. One of the shepherds ran to her and told the story revealing the precarious position that Nabal had put himself in. She immediately went into action to protect her husband. She gathered together loaves of bread, skins of wine, five sheep, pounds of parched grain, clusters of raisins, and 200 cakes of figs. Then she rode straight to David’s camp.
David was prepared to leave and take revenge. Here is what Abigail said as she had bowed to the ground.
“Upon me alone, my lord, be the guilt; please let your servant speak in your ears and hear the words of your servant. My lord, do not take seriously this ill-natured fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him, but I, your servant, did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent” (II Samuel 25:24-25).
Abigail told David that the Lord had restrained him from bloodguilt because he had not already left to take vengeance. If he had killed Nabal, then given the structure of feud justice, close relatives of Nabal would have to seek his life. Abigail presented her gift of food and asked David to forgive her and Nabal. She reminded David that the Lord was fighting his battles for him. She predicted that he would become king some day and warned him about the baggage a candidate might bring.
Who is Abigail taking care of here? She is a trusting wife to Nabal and a faithful servant of God and God’s choice, David. In response, David cooled down and survived.
”David said to Abigail, ‘Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me today! Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, who kept me today from bloodguilt and from avenging myself by my own hand! For as surely as the LORD the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there would not have been left to Nabal so much as one male’. Then David received from her hand what she had brought him; he said to her, “Go up to your house in peace; see, I have heeded your voice, and I have granted your petition” (II Samuel 25:32-35).
Abigail was a wife in whom a husband could trust…completely. Abigail did what was necessary to preserve even this foolish husband from harm. She was faithful to the Lord, the God of Israel, and thus found a way to make peace while protecting both Nabal and David, the Lord’s anointed.
Surely, this is the kind of wife that Lemuel’s mother is telling him to find. Proverbs has already pointed the way to good character.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7; see also Proverbs 9:10, 15:33; Psalm 111:10; and Job 28:28).