1 Samuel 25:10-11

25:10 But Nabal responded to David’s servants, “Who is David, and who is this son of Jesse? This is a time when many servants are breaking away from their masters! 25:11 Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers and give them to these men? I don’t even know where they came from!”

1 Samuel 25:21-22

25:21 Now David had been thinking, ¹  “In vain I guarded everything that belonged to this man in the desert. I didn’t take anything from him. But he has repaid my good with evil. 25:22 God will severely punish David, ²  if I leave alive until morning even one male ³  from all those who belong to him!”

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¹ tn Heb “said.”

² tc Heb “Thus God will do to the enemies of David and thus he will add.” Most of the Old Greek ms tradition has simply “David,” with no reference to his enemies. In OT imprecations such as the one found in v. 22 it is common for the speaker to direct malediction toward himself as an indication of the seriousness with which he regards the matter at hand. In other words, the speaker invites on himself dire consequences if he fails to fulfill the matter expressed in the oath. However, in the situation alluded to in v. 22 the threat actually does not come to fruition due to the effectiveness of Abigail’s appeal to David in behalf of her husband Nabal. Instead, David is placated through Abigail’s intervention. It therefore seems likely that the reference to “the enemies of David” in the MT of v. 22 is the result of a scribal attempt to deliver David from the implied consequences of this oath. The present translation follows the LXX rather than the MT here.

³ tn Heb “one who urinates against a wall” (also in v. 34); KJV “any that pisseth against the wall.”