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1 and 2 Samuel: The Rise of Kingship

  1. Lesson One
    Overview of 1 and 2 Samuel (1 Samuel 1–3, 8)
    19 Activities
    |
    1 Assessment
  2. Lesson Two
    Samuel and Kingship (1 Samuel 4–12)
    24 Activities
    |
    1 Assessment
  3. Lesson Three
    Saul’s Demise (1 Samuel 13–19, 28–31)
    25 Activities
  4. Lesson Four
    David’s Rise (1 Samuel 16–27, 29–30)
    26 Activities
    |
    1 Assessment
  5. Lesson Five
    David's Reign (2 Samuel)
    23 Activities
    |
    1 Assessment
  6. Course Wrap-Up
    Course Completion
    1 Activity
    |
    1 Assessment

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Grab your Workbook Journal!

[Record your answers in the workbook provided at the beginning of this course.]

When her husband Nabal refuses to help David in 1 Samuel 25, Abigail intercedes. Bowing before David, she criticizes Nabal openly: 

Please do not let my lord pay attention to this worthless man, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name and folly is with him; but I your maidservant did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent.

1 Samuel 25:25 (NASB)

Abigail associates her criticism of Nabal with his name, “for as his name is, so is he.” Nabal is a variation on nebalah, the Hebrew word for folly. Abigail identifies it with the character of her husband. As it appears in translation, the connection between “folly” and “Nabal” is not so obvious, but to the Bible’s original audience the connection would have been.

Now the sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard (about the rape of Dinah); and the men were grieved, and they were very angry because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, for such a thing ought not to be done. 

Genesis 34:7 (NASB)

Then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

Deuteronomy 22:21 (NASB)

(Re: Amnon’s rape of Tamar) But she answered him, “No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this disgraceful thing! 

2 Samuel 13:12 (NASB)

  1. After reading the passages above, with the English for nebalah highlighted in bold, offer a brief description of Abigail’s reference to Nabal’s character: