Bible Encyclopedias

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

Abigail

(Heb. Abigayil, perhaps "father is joy"), or ABIGAL (2 Sam. iii. 3), in the Bible, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite, on whose death she became the wife of David (I Sam. xxv.). By her David had a son, whose name appears in the Hebrew of 2 Sam. iii. 3 as Chileab, in the Septuagint as Daluyah, and in I Chron. iii. 1 as Daniel. The name Abigail was also borne by a sister of David (2 Sam. xvii. 25; I Chron. ii. 16 f.). From the former (self-styled "handmaid" I Sam. xxv. 25 f.) is derived the colloquial use of the term for a waiting-woman (cf. Abigail, the "waiting gentlewoman," in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady).