Study Desk

Please do me this favor, and keep the sacred promise you made to me. But if I'm guilty, kill me yourself Why take me to your father to be killed?"

And if I remain alive, please keep your sacred promise and be loyal to me; but if I die,

But if I tell him, ‘The arrows are on the other side of you,' then leave, because the Lord is sending you away.

but Saul said nothing that day, because he thought, "Something has happened to him, and he is not ritually pure."

The king's officials said to Achish, "Isn't this David, the king of his country? This is the man about whom the women sang, as they danced, ‘Saul has killed thousands, but David has killed tens of thousands.'"

Then he said to the guards standing near him, "Kill the Lord 's priests! They conspired with David and did not tell me that he had run away, even though they knew it all along." But the guards refused to lift a hand to kill the Lord 's priests.

But Abiathar, one of Ahimelech's sons, escaped, and went and joined David.

Stay with me and don't be afraid. Saul wants to kill both you and me, but you will be safe with me."

But David's men said to him, "We have enough to be afraid of here in Judah; it will be much worse if we go to Keilah and attack the Philistine forces!"

David stayed in hiding in the hill country, in the wilderness near Ziph. Saul was always trying to find him, but God did not turn David over to him.

Saul and his men set out to look for David, but he heard about it and went to a rocky hill in the wilderness of Maon and stayed there. When Saul heard about this, he went after David.

But then David's conscience began to hurt,

You can see for yourself that just now in the cave the Lord put you in my power. Some of my men told me to kill you, but I felt sorry for you and said that I would not harm you in the least, because you are the one whom the Lord chose to be king.

Look, my father, look at the piece of your robe I am holding! I could have killed you, but instead I only cut this off. This should convince you that I have no thought of rebelling against you or of harming you. You are hunting me down to kill me, even though I have not done you any wrong.

But promise me in the Lord 's name that you will spare my descendants, so that my name and my family's name will not be completely forgotten."

There was a man of the clan of Caleb named Nabal, who was from the town of Maon, and who owned land near the town of Carmel. He was a very rich man, the owner of three thousand sheep and one thousand goats. His wife Abigail was beautiful and intelligent, but he was a mean, bad-tempered man. Nabal was shearing his sheep in Carmel,

One of Nabal's servants said to Nabal's wife Abigail, "Have you heard? David sent some messengers from the wilderness with greetings for our master, but he insulted them.

Then she said to the servants, "You go on ahead and I will follow you." But she said nothing to her husband.

The Lord has kept me from harming you. But I swear by the living God of Israel that if you had not hurried to meet me, all of Nabal's men would have been dead by morning!"

But David said, "You must not harm him! The Lord will certainly punish whoever harms his chosen king.