Sunday Sermonette: A subplot

We now get a little story that is essentially unrelated to the main plot. It features a woman with agency, in fact she acts contrary to her husband ' s intention and gives away a good deal of his property. One point of this seems to be to emphasize David ' s virtue, but it hardly seems virtuous to me that he intends to massacre an entire household -- which in this case evidently means at least dozens of people who are the employees of a wealthy sheepherder. And the reason he will do this is simply because the householder declined to reward David for not robbing him. Does that make sense? Oh yeah, Samuel dies. Or does he?25 Now Samuel died, and all Israel assembled and mourned for him; and they buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David moved down into the Desert of Paran.[a]2 A certain man in Maon, who had property there at Carmel, was very wealthy. He had a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel.3 His name was Nabal and his wife ’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband was surly and mean in his dealings—he was a Calebite.4 While David was in the wilderness, he heard that Nabal was shearing sheep.5 So he sent ten young men and said to them, “Go up to Nabal at Carmel and greet him in my name.6 Say to him: ‘Long life to you! Good health to you and your household! And good health to all that is yours!7 “‘Now I hear that it is sheep-shearing time. When yo...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs