has done for you all the good that he has promised and has made you prince over Israel, then you will not have this as a qualm or a burden on your conscience that you needlessly shed blood or that you secured redress for yourself by your own hand. When Jehovah gives prosperity to my lord, then too remember your servant.'

David said to Abigail, 'Blessed be Jehovah the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me, and blessed be your discretion, and a blessing on you, who have kept me this day from committing an act of bloodshed and from avenging myself by my own hand. For as surely as Jehovah the God of Israel lives, who has kept me from doing you harm, unless you had quickly come to meet me, truly by daybreak not one man Iwould have been left to Nabal.' So David received from her all which she had brought him; and he said to her, 'Go back in peace to your house. See, I have heeded your advice and granted your request.'

When Abigail returned to Nabal, he was holding a feast in his house like that of a king. He was in a hilarious state, for he was very drunk; so she told him nothing whatever until daybreak. But in the morning, when the effects of the wine had worn off from Nabal, his wife told him what she had done; and his heart was paralyzed and he became insensible. About ten days later he had a stroke from which he died.

When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Thanks be to Jehovah who has avenged Nabal's insult to me and has kept me from doing wrong, for Jehovah has visited Nabal's crime upon his own head.'

Then David sent to ask Abigail to become his wife. When his servants came to her at Carmel and said, 'David has sent us to you to take you to him to be his wife,' she rose and bowed her face to the earth and said, 'See, your slave is willing to be a servant to wash

the feet of my lord's servants.' Then Abigail quickly rose and mounted an ass, and five of her maids followed as servants. So she accompanied the messengers of David, and became his wife.

86. DAVID AMONG THE PHILISTINES

Then David said to himself, 'I shall meet my end. some day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair and no longer search for me within the borders of Israel; thus I will escape from him.' David therefore went over, together with the six hundred men who were with him, to Achish the son of Maoch, king of Gath. And David lived together with his men, with Achish at Gath, each with his household, David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal's wife. When Saul was informed that David had fled to Gath, he gave up seeking for him.

David said to Achish, 'If now you will grant me the favor, give me a place in one of the towns in the open country, that I may live there; for why should your servant live in the royal city with you?' So Achish gave him Ziklag; therefore to this day Ziklag belongs to the rulers of Judah. The length of the time that David lived in the open country of the Philistines was a year and four months.

And David and his men went up and made a raid upon the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites; for these tribes inhabit the land which extends from Telem in the direction of Shur to the land of Egypt. Whenever David raided the land, he did not leave alive man or woman, but taking the sheep, the oxen, the asses, the camels, and the clothing, he returned and went to Achish. Then when Achish said, 'Where

have you made a raid to-day?' David answered, 'Against the South Country of Judah, or against the South Country of the Jerahmeelites, or against the South Country of the Kenites.' And Achish trusted David, thinking, 'He has made his people Israel detest him; therefore he will be my subject forever.'

Now in those days the Philistines assembled their forces to make war against Israel. And Achish said to David, 'You may be assured that you and your men shall go with me in the army.' David replied, "You shall then know what your servant can do.' Achish said to David, 'In that case I will make you the permanent captain of my body guard.'

Then the Philistines assembled all their forces at Aphek, and the Israelites camped at the fountain in Jezreel. When the rulers of the Philistines were marching past, by hundreds and by thousands, and David and his men were marching in the rear with Achish, the commanders of the Philistines said, 'What are those Hebrews doing here?' Achish said to them, 'Is this not David, the servant of Saul the ruler of Israel, who has been with me these two years, and I have found no fault in him from the time that he came to me to the present?'

But the commanders of the Philistines were displeased and said to him, 'Send the man back to the place where you had stationed him. Do not let him go down with us into battle, lest we have a foe in the camp; for how could this fellow better ingratiate himself with his master than with the heads of these men? Is not this the David of whom they sang to one another in the dances:

Saul has slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands?

Then Achish called David and said to him, 'As surely as Jehovah lives, you are upright, and your conduct toward me both in and out of the camp has been satisfactory, for I have found nothing wrong in you from the time that you came to me to the present; but you are not approved by the rulers. Go back, therefore, in peace, that you may do nothing to displease the rulers of the Philistines.' David said to Achish, 'But what have I done? What have you found in your servant from the day that I entered your service, that I may not go out and fight the enemies of my lord the king?' Achish answered, 'I know that you are as faithful to me as an angel of God, but the commanders of the Philistines have said, "He shall not go with us into battle." Therefore you and those who came with you are to rise early in the morning, and go to the place where I have stationed you. And do not entertain any evil design in your heart, for I regard you as perfectly reliable; but rise early in the morning and, as soon as it is light, depart.'

So David and his men arose early in the morning to return to the Philistine land, but the Philistines went up to Jezreel.

On the third day, when David and his men returned to Ziklag, the Amalekites had made a raid on the South Country and on Ziklag, and had attacked Ziklag and burnt it with fire, and had also carried away captive all who were in it, including women and children. They had not killed any but had carried them away with them. Then David and the people who were with him wept aloud until they were no longer able to weep.

David was in great anxiety, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was embittered for their sons and daughters; but David

took courage, relying on Jehovah his God. So David with his six hundred followers went on to the Brook Besor, where those who were too exhausted to cross the brook remained.

They found there an Egyptian in the open field and brought him to David and gave him food to eat and water to drink. Then David said to him, "To whom do you belong, and where do you come from?' He replied, 'I am an Egyptian lad, an Amalekite's servant, and my master abandoned me, because I fell sick three days ago. We made a raid upon the South Country of the Cherethites and upon that which belongs to Judah and upon the South Country of Caleb, and Ziklag we destroyed by fire.' said to him, 'Will you guide me to this robber band?' He replied, 'Swear to me by your God, that you will neither kill me nor turn me over to my master, and I will guide you to this band.'

David then

When he had brought him down, the Amalekites were scattered over all the land, eating and drinking and dancing, because of all the great spoil that they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. David fought against them from twilight to the evening of the next day, and only four hundred young men who were mounted on camels escaped.

So David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away and rescued his two wives; nothing at all was missing. Then he took all the flocks and the herds and drove those animals before the people, and they said, 'This is David's spoil.'

When David came to the two hundred men who had been so faint that they could not follow him, all the wicked, worthless fellows who went with him said, 'Inasmuch as these did not go with us, let us not give