Nabal answered David's servants— Nabal's answer was agreeable to his character, rude and sullen, a strong image of ungoverned brutality, and very natural to that insolence which wealth is too apt to infuse into undisciplined spirits. He had thoroughly learned Saul's contemptuous stile; Who is the son of Jesse? Nor could any reproach more atrocious be thrown upon a well-born, well-bred, and innocent man, than that in these words, there be many servants, &c. as it implies those crimes on account of which bad servants become fugitives from their masters.
REFLECTIONS.—We have here an account of Nabal, his family, and circumstances. He was sprung from a noble stock, the distinguished Caleb; but, like many others, became the reproach of his ancestors: a man, indeed, of vast wealth, which made him great in the eyes of men; but of a mean and little spirit; and, as mean spirits usually are, insolent, churlish, and overbearing. His wife was of a character the reverse of his; her name Abigail, her father's joy: a woman of excellent understanding, generous in her temper, and not more adorned by the accomplishments of her person, than by the beauties of her mind. Note; (1.) The greatest gifts of this world are often possessed by those who have neither wisdom nor grace to improve them. (2.) Many a wife, like Abigail, is doomed, by inhuman parents, for a great estate, to bear the yoke of such a Nabal. But how little happiness can be expected from such an union!