Chapter 25: Now Samuel died, and all Israel assembled and mourned for him; and they buried him at his home in Ramah.
The prophet Samuel dies. He is the one that anointed David as King so now it will be David’s word against Saul’s word. This will deepen his fears when being pursued so it will intensify the Psalms. In the meantime, David is protecting a huge piece of property for a rich man named Nabal. It was customary that during the shearing season, the servants would feast in exchange for their labor. Nabal’s wife Abigail, may not like her scoundrel of a husband that she calls “fool”, but she does save his life (long enough for God to get justice, not David).
This was important because it states in verse 3 that Nabal was a “Calebite” (remember Joshua and Caleb), so he is from the tribe of Judah and she points out taking revenge on a man from Judah will only tarnish his reputation when he is king. She’s a smart woman!
Chapter 26: David took a wife….wait! Didn’t he have a wife (Saul’s daughter)? Oh, wait he took another wife….will 3 be his lucky number? Nope.8 Wives and 10 concubines will be his lucky number.
Does David NEED to kill Saul? No. What we learned from the Nabal story is that if God wants Saul dead, he can handle it Himself. So David continues to trust that he is not the hand that would kill one of God’s anointed kings. He trusts!
Chapter 27:
Now that we are reading the Psalms, take in the whole picture. He is being pursued by his OWN people, and fleeing and taking refuge in ENEMY territory. Scary! 
So David flees to the land of the Philistines, knowing this is such a risk that Saul would not follow him and give up. He is given a piece of land called Ziklag (technically a town listed in Judah but was never conquered, so the Philistines control it. He lives there a year and 4 months. While living there he continues God’s plan of conquering the land. When Achish asked who he raided that day he answered with “white lies” when really he was attacking the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites.
Have a great great day! Back into Psalms tomorrow. Feel free to read ahead.
Reading the Bible - 2021 
The family connection in these stories fascinate me. We meet Abishai in this read who is Joab’s brother, both are David’s nephew. When I was in high school I rode the bus with a family of 5 brothers and a little sister. They were an army no one could stand against. I also think of “Saving Private Ryan”, whose brothers were killed in the war. In future reads, we will meet Asahel, another brother of Joab. This is gonna get messy. We get to witness God’s anointing and His grace working in the lives of not just characters from a novel but people like me. We will see grudges and revenge held for years because someone wronged a brother. It helps me understand the intensity of some of the wars we are going to read about.
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“The only other person called discerning in Scripture prior to Abigail was Joseph!!” *shared on the Bible Recap podcast for today’s reading. This is SO exciting. “Abigail was granted wisdom by God to enter into chaos and create peace.” Prov 16:21
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I had no idea! That is so cool.
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