1 Samuel 25:5-9 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And David sent out, &c.— In this message of David to Nabal, which is a fine picture of ancient and true politeness, there are three things well worth our notice. First, the direction: To him that liveth, 1 Samuel 25:6. (in prosperity is not in the Hebrew); and secondly, the salutation: Peace be to thee, and peace to thine house, &c. In the Scripture, living and being happy, are synonimous: David's own benevolent spirit suggested to him, that, being happy ourselves, we should delight in making others share in our happiness. God does so; and the man after God's own heart does so too: at the same time David well knew that Nabal was obliged to assist him from God's own express command; Deuteronomy 15:7. In the next place, the great beauty and propriety of that ancient eastern salutation, Peace be to thee, &c. is very emphatical, inasmuch as the best blessings of life, and all the social affections attend upon peace; and in the last place, the modesty of this message is very remarkable: for though David had much real merit towards Nabal, yet he puts his request only upon having no demerit towards him; (well knowing that some martial men are wont to deem this merit enough towards the tame inhabitants of the country; and they too think it so;) but at the same time referring him to his own servants for fuller information. The LXX translate the 7th verse thus: Behold, I have heard that thy shepherds are now shearing for thee. They were with us in the wilderness, and we have not hindered them, nor have we commanded them any thing all the days of their being in Carmel. Upon which the author of the Observations remarks, that this is translating like people perfectly well acquainted with the managements of the violent and rapacious Arab Emirs, whose manners David, though he lived in the wilderness as they did, did not adopt. One of them, at the head of six hundred men, would have commanded from time to time some provisions or present from Nabal's servants for permitting them to feed in quiet, and would have driven them away from the watering place upon any dislike. He had not done either. Nor is this a misrepresentation of the LXX. The Hebrew word הכלמנום heklamnum, which we translate hurt, the Margin tells us signifies shamed; and it is used, Jeremiah 14:3 to express a returning from a watering place without water: and the word נפקד niphkad, translated missing, is the passive of the verb פקד pakad, which signifies to visit, and perhaps comes to signify missing, or wanting, from some things being usually wanting where an Arab emir had visited. Some late authors have represented this address of David to Nabal as a very strange one, and made it one topic of defamation; as if he had the assurance to press Nabal for a supply of his wants, on the plea of his not having robbed or hurt his servants, for which he could have no pretence; and on the old man's declining it, resolves to cut him off, with those of his household. It would be an over-officious zeal to attempt to justify this design of David, since he himself condemned it, as he certainly did when he blessed God for preventing him, by his Providence, from avenging himself with his own hand, 1 Samuel 25:33. But it is right to place every action in its true light as far as possible; and David might certainly with a very good grace remind Nabal, that though he was unjustly driven out from the inhabited parts of Judea, and forced to live very much like the Arabs of the desart, and reduced to necessities equal to theirs, he did not imitate their rapaciousness, nor extort the least thing from his servants when they were absolutely in his power, as the Arabs of the wilderness often did. When therefore, in return to all this, Nabal treated him with reproaches, it is the less to be wondered at, that he was wrought up to a rage, which prompted him to think of imitating these Arabs, among whom he was now forced to dwell, and who thought themselves authorised to take from others what they wanted, and even to kill those who resisted, which is what they do to this day. But the law of God hath hitherto restrained him from any thing of this kind, made him acknowledge to be wrong the thought which anger had inspired, and engaged him to lay aside the bloody purpose. Observations, p. 65.