Abigail

Abigail is a Hebrew name meaning father of joy — or, more literally, whose father is joy. Two distinct women bear it in scripture; one of them is among the Old Testament's most-quoted models of wisdom and intercession.

**1. Wife of Nabal, then of David (1 Samuel 25).** This Abigail lived at Carmel in southern Judah, married to Nabal — a man whose name itself means fool and whose conduct earned it. When David, on the run from Saul, sent ten young men to ask Nabal for provisions during the sheep-shearing feast, Nabal refused with insult. David buckled on his sword and rode out with four hundred men, intending to slaughter Nabal's whole household by morning.

A servant warned Abigail. She rode to intercept David herself, with two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, parched grain, raisins, and figs. Then, in one of the longest recorded speeches by a woman in the Old Testament, she persuaded David to spare her foolish husband and to spare himself the bloodshed of a crime he would later have to live with. David received her words as the LORD's intervention: Blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood.

Ten days later the LORD struck Nabal dead. David sent for Abigail, and she became his wife. She bore him a son named Chileab (called Daniel at 1 Chronicles 3:1), was carried off by the Amalekites in the raid on Ziklag, and was rescued by David in pursuit (1 Samuel 30). She is remembered chiefly for the moment she stood in the road between an angry man and an avoidable sin.

**2. Sister of David and mother of Amasa (1 Chronicles 2:16-17; 2 Samuel 17:25).** This Abigail was a daughter of Jesse — or, in the textually disputed parallel at 2 Samuel 17:25, of Nahash, which would make her a half-sister of David through their mother. She married Jether the Ishmaelite and bore Amasa, who would later command Absalom's army in his rebellion and be murdered in cold blood by Joab as David tried to make peace (2 Samuel 20:9-10).