Strap On Your Swords

David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing sheep. He sent ten young men to Carmel with instructions to greet Nabal in his name. They were to begin with a blessing of long life and peace, extending it to Nabal, his household, and everything that belonged to him.

Then they were to remind him of his shepherds. “Now I hear that it is time for shearing. When your shepherds were with us, we did not harass them, and nothing of theirs was missing the whole time they were in Carmel.” David’s request began with what had already happened in the fields.

Nabal did not have to take a stranger’s word for it. His own young men could tell him how they had been treated and whether anything had gone missing. The evidence David offered was already among the people who worked for the man he was asking to help him.

The message continued: “Ask your young men, and they will tell you. So let my young men find favor with you, for we have come on the day of a feast. Please give whatever you can afford to your servants and to your son David.” There was no fixed amount in the request, only what Nabal could afford to give.

The young men arrived and delivered all these words on David’s behalf. They carried his greeting, his account of the shepherds, and his request for food. Then they waited, with the message fully spoken and the answer still belonging to Nabal.

Nabal answered with questions of his own. “Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants these days are breaking away from their masters.” The greeting had named David as a son asking favor; Nabal’s answer placed him among servants breaking away.

He went on: “Why should I take my bread and water and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give them to these men whose origin I do not know?” He named the provisions as his own, and the shearers as his own. Nothing in the recorded answer asked whether the shepherds had been protected.

The ten young men turned around and went back. They had waited for an answer, and now they had one to carry through the wilderness. They relayed all Nabal’s words to David, just as they had relayed all David’s words to Nabal.

No further message was prepared for Carmel. David did not send the young men back to ask Nabal’s shepherds to speak for them or to repeat the request more firmly. The next words he gave were addressed to his own men, and they concerned what each man was to put on.

“Strap on your swords!” David said. His men put on their swords, and David put on his own. The answer that had travelled back as words now sent armed men toward the household from which it had come.

About four hundred followed David, while two hundred stayed with the supplies. Ten men had gone to Carmel carrying a greeting of peace; now hundreds were following the man whose name Nabal had treated with contempt. The supplies remained behind, and David went forward with his sword on.