Matthew Henry

Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred…

“Nabal grudged them water, but she took two bottles ( casks or rundlets ) of wine, loaded her asses with these provisions, and sent them before; for a gift pacifieth anger, Prov. xxi. Jacob thus pacified Esau.”

My lord should pay no attention to this scoundrel Nabal, for he lives up to his name: His name means Fool, and folly accompanies him.

“): " Let not my lord take notice of his rudeness and ill manners, for it is like him; it is not the first time that he has behaved so churlishly; he must be borne with, for it is for want of wit: Nabal is…”

Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him, and he said to her, “Go home in peace. See, I have heeded your voice and granted your request.”

“Wise and good men will hear reason, and let that rule them, though it come from those that are every way their inferiors, and though their passions are up and their spirits provoked. Oaths cannot, bind us to that which is sinful.”

When Abigail returned to Nabal, there he was in the house, holding a feast fit for a king, in high spirits and very drunk.

“Abigail came home, and, it should seem, he had so many people and so much plenty about him that he neither missed her nor the provisions she took to David; but she found him in the midst of his jollity, little thinking how near he…”

So Abigail hurried and got on a donkey, and attended by five of her maidens, she followed David’s messengers and became his wife.

“(2.) Because she believed he would, in due time, be a very great man. She married him in faith, not questioning but that, though now he had not a house of his own that he durst bring her to, yet God's promise go him would…”

Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hand. Now, therefore, please let me thrust the spear through him into the ground with one stroke.

“The last advantage he had of this kind was indeed but accidental, when Saul happened to be in the cave with him at the same time.”

But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him, for who can lift a hand against the LORD’s anointed and be guiltless?”

“And he gave two reasons for it:-- 1. It would be a sinful affront to God's ordinance. Saul was the Lord's anointed, king of Israel by the special appointment and nomination of the God of Israel, the power that was, and to resist him was…”

So David took the spear and water jug by Saul’s head, and they departed.

“It was a deep sleep from the Lord, who has the command of the powers of nature, and makes them to serve his purposes as he pleases. Whom God will disable, or destroy, he binds up with a spirit of slumber, Rom. xi.”

Then Saul recognized David’s voice and asked, “Is that your voice, David my son?” “It is my voice, my lord and king,” David said.

“In the same manner he had expressed his relentings, ch. xxiv. He had given his wife to another and yet calls him son, thirsted after his blood and yet is glad to hear his voice.”

And he continued, “Why is my lord pursuing his servant? What have I done? What evil is in my hand?

“He had lately had Saul's own testimony concerning him ( ch. xxiv. 17 ): Thou art more righteous than I. It was very unreasonable and wicked for Saul to pursue him as a criminal, when he could not charge him with any crime.”

Now please, may my lord the king hear the words of his servant: If the LORD has stirred you up against me, then may He accept an offering.

“Saul himself could not say that justice put him on thus to persecute David, or that he was obliged to do it for the public safety.”

So do not let my blood fall to the ground far from the presence of the LORD.

“He compares himself to a partridge, a very innocent harmless bird, which, when attempts are made upon its life, flies if it can, but makes no resistance. And would Saul bring the flower of his army into the field only to hunt one poor partridge?”

Then Saul replied, “I have sinned. Come back, David my son. I will never harm you again, because today you considered my life precious.

“Saul gets information of David's movements and acts offensively. The Ziphites came to him and told him where David now was, in the same place where he was when they formerly betrayed him, ch. xxiii.”

May the LORD repay every man for his righteousness and faithfulness.

“He appeals to God as judge of the controversy: The Lord render to every man his righteousness. David, by faith, is sure that he will do it because he infallibly knows the true characters of all persons and actions and is inflexibly just to render…”

Saul said to him, “May you be blessed, David my son. You will accomplish great things and will surely prevail.” So David went on his way, and Saul returned home.

“He foretels his victories, and his elevation at last: Thou shalt do great things. Note, Those who make conscience of doing that which is truly good may come, by the divine assistance, to do that which is truly great.”

Then David said to Achish, “If I have found favor in your eyes, let me be assigned a place in one of the outlying towns, so I can live there.

“In a town of his own he might have the more free exercise of his religion, and keep his men better to it, and not have his righteous soul vexed, as it was at Gath, with the idolatries of the Philistines. (2.)”

Whenever David attacked a territory, he did not leave a man or woman alive, but he took the flocks and herds, the donkeys, camels, and clothing.

“We may acquit him of injustice and cruelty in this action because those people whom he cut off were such as heaven had long since doomed to destruction, and he that did it was one whom heaven had ordained to dominion; so that the thing…”

When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid and trembled violently.

“Now he remembered the guilty blood of the Amalekites which he had spared, and the innocent blood of the priests which he had spilt.”

He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets.

“He did not enquire in faith, but with a double unstable mind. He enquired of the Lord when it was too late, when the days of his probation were over and he was finally rejected.”

Then Saul said to his servants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, so I can go and consult her.” “There is a medium at Endor,” his servants replied.

“He knew the heinousness of the sin of witchcraft, else he would not have cut off those that had familiar spirits; yet now he had recourse to that as an oracle which he had before condemned as an abomination.”

But the woman replied, “Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has killed the mediums and spiritists in the land.

“She considered what Saul had done, not what God had done, against such practices, and feared a snare laid for her life more than a snare laid for her soul.”

Then Saul swore to her by the LORD: “As surely as the LORD lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this.”

“It was his duty as a king to punish her and he knew it, yet he swears no to do it; as if he could by his own oath bind himself from doing that which, by the divine command, he was bound to do.”

Then Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” “I am deeply distressed,” replied Saul.

“"God denies me, therefore I come to thee. Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. " -- If I fail with heaven, I will move hell.”

He has done exactly what He spoke through me: The LORD has torn the kingship out of your hand and given it to your neighbor David.

“Yet, to make him believe that he was Samuel, the apparition affirmed that it was God who spoke by him.”

Because you did not obey the LORD or carry out His burning anger against Amalek, the LORD has done this to you today.

“Satan had helped him to palliate and excuse that sin when Samuel was dealing with him to bring him to repentance, but now he aggravates it, to make him despair of God's mercy.”