And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart [was] merry within him, for he [was] very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.
Ver. 36. He held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king.] We use to say, it is good going to a niggard's feast, for such do it but seldom, and then they usually lay on, measuring their cheer not by the necessity of nature, but by that which, greedy appetite appointeth. Oh, the gourmandise and excess of this age! It is hateful that peasants should expend as princes, &c. The Great Turk entertaineth ambassadors with rice and mutton, and fair water out of the river - Adam's ale. a
And Nabal's heart was merry within him.] When yet he was so near to a mischief. Carnal men give themselves over to pleasures, while there are deadly quarrels depending against them in heaven.
For he was very drunken.] And so had no consideration of the present danger; as neither had Belshazzar, Amnon, Elah. Drunkenness had robbed Nabal of himself, and laid a beast in his room. Abigail therefore said nothing to him for present, till he had slept out his drunkenness, which is, saith Augustine, Flagitiorum omnium mater, radix criminum, culparum materia, origo vitiorum, turbatio capitis, subversio sensus, tempestas linguae, procella corporis, naufragium castitatis, b &c. That is, the mother of misdemeanour, the matter that ministereth all mischief, the root of wretchedness, the vent of vice, the subverter of the senses, the confounder of the capacity, raising a storm in the tongue, billows in the body, and shipwreck in the soul: the loss of time, the corrupter of conversation, the discredit of carriage, the infamy of honesty, the sink that swalloweth chastity, the infirmity whose physician is ignominy, and the madness whose medicine is misery.
a Turk. Hist.
b August., Ad Sacr. Virg.