David’s Threat to Nabal

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When David first meets Abigail, his second wife-to-be, she is married to another man, a prosperous farmer named Nabal. In Hebrew, Nabal’s name means “Fool,”¹ a clear sign that he won’t amount to much in the biblical world. Indeed, Nabal dies almost as soon as he is introduced (and David’s wedding plans are then set in motion). Yet Nabal the Fool still plays an important part in the narrative. An understanding of his role has been lost over the years, however, due to the common misreading of two key, yet rather crude, phrases that have been “cleaned up” by generations of translators.

As the story opens in 1 Samuel 25, David and his 400 supporters are hiding out in the region of Carmel, on land belonging to Nabal. They have been chased there by King Saul, who correctly fears that the young warrior is destined to the throne. Nabal is not around, but his workers are: It’s shearing time, and Nabal’s 3,000 sheep and 3,000 goats are getting their annual 020haircuts. The workers don’t mind the soldiers’ presence, however, since the soldiers offer the farmhands some protection. One of Nabal’s laborers later reports: “[David’s] men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we never missed anything when we were in the fields, as long as we were with them; they were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep” (1 Samuel 25:15–16).

But when David asks Nabal to recompense his men for protecting the workers, he is rebuffed. Nabal asks David’s messengers: “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many slaves today who are breaking away from their masters. Shall I take my bread and my water and the meat that I had butchered for my shearers, and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” (1 Samuel 25:10–11).

Enraged, David orders his men to strap on their swords and return to Nabal’s estate. “[Nabal] has returned me evil for good,” David fumes. “God do so to David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as the last male of all he owns” (1 Samuel 25:22).² In the original Hebrew, David’s language is in fact far cruder than this English translation, however. In Hebrew, David actually threatens to kill every last one “who pisses against the wall” (masûtián b^eqiár)—thereby likening his enemies to dogs, as well as identifying them as men. The cleaned-up English translation also obscures the reference in the original Hebrew to the “wall” of protection David’s men had provided; through Nabal’s ingratitude, he and his men have in effect pissed on this “wall.” But apart from the King James Version, most every major English translation prudishly replaces David’s “pisser” with the term “male.”³

When Nabal’s farmhands learn that David’s troops are heading toward them, they appeal to Abigail and explain to her how David protected them (“They were a wall to us” [1 Samuel 25:16]) and how Nabal has reacted violently and unfairly.

Abigail gathers together two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five measures of grain, one hundred raisin cakes and two hundred fig cakes, and loads it all on donkeys. Without telling her husband, she heads out into the wilderness in search of David.

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When she finds David, she bows before him and begs him to ignore Nabal: “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” (1 Samuel 25:25). She predicts David will become “prince over Israel” and offers him the food and wine.

David acquiesces: “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 have kept me today from blood guilt 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 the last one who pisses against the wall” (1 Samuel 25:32–35). (Here, too, English translations usually mention only “the last male.”)

Abigail returns home and finds her husband feasting “like a king” (1 Samuel 25:36). Nabal is merry and drunk, and Abigail decides not to tell him about her encounter with David until the next day: “In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him; he became like a stone. About ten days later the Lord struck Nabal, and he died” (1 Samuel 25:37).

Throughout history, most translators have interpreted the Hebrew phrase (b^es hayyayin minnaÆbaÆl), rendered here as “when the wine had gone out of Nabal,” as an indication that Nabal had sobered up. The New International Version reads “when Nabal was sober”; the New Jewish Publication Society has “when Nabel had slept off the wine”; and the New American Standard Bible and the New Revised Standard Version translate the phrase as “when the wine had gone out of Nabal,” closely following the King James Version and the American Standard Version’s “when the wine was gone out of Nabal.” Ancient translations show a similar range. The Latin Vulgate renders the phrase as “when Nabal had disposed of the wine” (cum digessisset vinum Nabal) and the Greek Septuagint reads “to become sober from the wine” (hos exenepsen apo tou oinou Nabal).

But the grammatical construction used here (the particle b^e with the infinitive construct) commonly denotes action simultaneous with the main verb.⁴ A more accurate translation would be “While the wine was going out from Nabal, his wife told him…” Nabal is clearly doing something while Abigail is speaking.

A handful of scholars have recognized the pun between the name Nabal and neµbel, meaning “wineskin.” Wineskins are made from animal bladders, and, as Jon Levenson of Harvard University has suggested, Nabal the man is here being equated with a bladder.⁵ The wine goes out of Nabal just as it goes out of a wineskin-bladder. Though Levenson does not say so, 022this means that when Abigail informs Nabal of her encounter with David, her husband is emptying his bladder after a heavy night of drinking.

This is not simply a vulgar detail, but an important one, for two reasons.

First, it fulfills David’s threat to eliminate those who “piss against the wall.” The biblical author is making it clear that the main “pisser” is Nabal himself. The wall he pisses on, at least metaphorically, is David and his men. Nabal is elsewhere identified as a member of the Calebite (kaÆlibbiá) clan—a pun on the Hebrew calev, or “dog,” so it is hardly surprising that he pisses on a wall.⁶ Twice, David threatens to kill the “pisser” by morning light (1 Samuel 25:22, 34), and that is when Nabal’s heart dies. But, significantly, David doesn’t have to do anything; rather, the Lord strikes Nabal.

Second, the phrase creates a striking parallel between Nabal and Saul, David’s greatest enemy. The suggestion that Nabal is an alter ego of Saul is commonplace.⁷ Nabal isn’t a king like Saul, but, as many commentators have noted, he is very rich and he feasts like a king (1 Samuel 25:2, 36). In the next chapter, Saul confesses that he has “played the fool” (the Hebrew verb is sakal, 1 Samuel 26:21); as we have noted, Nabal’s name means “fool.” When we look at Nabal’s treatment of David, the parallels with Saul become clearer. While David was serving Nabal (1 Samuel 25:7), his men did not insult Nabal’s servants, or steal anything from them, but instead were like a wall to Nabal’s house and goods (1 Samuel 25:16–17, 21). David had already performed similar service for Saul. But both Nabal and Saul are completely ungrateful and refuse to reward him with anything in return. Instead, they return evil for David’s good (1 Samuel 25:21). Nabal gives David nothing, contemptuously called him the “son of Jesse” (1 Samuel 25:10), as Saul had done (see for example 1 Samuel 22:7, 8, 13), and dismisses him as a rebel.

The reference to Nabal’s urinating further reinforces the analogy between Nabal and Saul. For in the immediately preceding chapter (1 Samuel 24), David and his men see Saul defecating in a cave (the 023Bible uses the polite euphemism “covering his feet” [1 Samuel 24:3] but some modern translations are more explicit). David and his men have been hiding in the cave, in the wilderness of Ein Gedi, when Saul unknowingly enters. David’s men tell their leader: “Here is the day of which the Lord said to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it seems good to you’” (1 Samuel 24:4). But David refuses to attack the king from behind. Instead he clips the hem of Saul’s garment, showing he could easily have killed Saul had Saul not been the “Lord’s anointed.” David then forbids his men from attacking Saul. Instead, David calls out loudly, “My lord, the king!” (1 Samuel 24:8) to get Saul’s attention, and he bows before the king in obeisance. David asks Saul: “Why do you listen to the words of those who say, ‘David seeks to do you harm?’ This very day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you into my hand in the cave; and some urged me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, ‘I will not raise my hand against my lord; for he is the Lord’s anointed’” (1 Samuel 24:10). He then presents Saul with the swatch of hem that he has cut off.

Weeping, Saul proclaims, “Now I know that you shall surely be king.” He begs David, “Swear to me by the Lord that you will not cut off my descendants after me” (1 Samuel 24:21). David agrees, and Saul returns to Jerusalem, leaving David behind in the wilderness.

David’s direct threat to Nabal in the following chapter contrasts sharply with the restraint David has shown in his dealings with Saul. David has been a wall and guardian to Saul, and Saul has continually “pissed” on him—seeking to kill him, pursuing him around the countryside, offering and then withdrawing his daughter as a bride, and so on. But despite Saul’s constant hostility, David promises not to harm his descendants (see also 1 Samuel 20:15).

David’s restraint is vindicated in the Nabal episode. Here David learns that he no more needs to strike the dog Saul than the dog Nabal. The Israelite deity 059YHWH himself can be depended on to cut down those who piss against the protective wall. YHWH has killed Nabal; he will take care of Saul, too, and, ultimately, will give the crown to David.

We know David has learned his lesson. Immediately following the Nabal account is a second episode in which David shows remarkable restraint in dealing with Saul (1 Samuel 26). That episode closely parallels the story in 1 Samuel 24. Again the king is vulnerable—this time sleeping outdoors at Gibeah, with his spear by his head—when David discovers him. David refrains from killing Saul, but takes the king’s spear and water jug as proof that he could have, had he chosen to. He makes a speech similar to the one he gave outside the cave at Ein Gedi (“The Lord forbid that I should raise my hand against the Lord’s anointed” 1 Samuel 26:11=1 Samuel 24:6), but with a significant addition: At Gibeah, a wiser David adds: “As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him [Saul] down; or his day will come to die; or he will go down into battle and perish” (1 Samuel 26:10). That is, David needn’t slay Saul because the Lord will do it himself. Through his encounter with Nabal, David has learned that the Lord knows how to deal with fools and dogs.

For further reading, see Peter J. Leithart, “Nabal and His Wine,” Journal of Biblical Literature 120:3 (2001), pp. 525–527.

When David first meets Abigail, his second wife-to-be, she is married to another man, a prosperous farmer named Nabal. In Hebrew, Nabal’s name means “Fool,”1 a clear sign that he won’t amount to much in the biblical world. Indeed, Nabal dies almost as soon as he is introduced (and David’s wedding plans are then set in motion). Yet Nabal the Fool still plays an important part in the narrative. An understanding of his role has been lost over the years, however, due to the common misreading of two key, yet rather crude, phrases that have been “cleaned up” by […]