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Thursday, March 2, 2023

Two Jewish Girls Make Good, Marry Kings

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

                King David's wisest and beautiful  wife, Abigail

Abigail, after the death of her 1st husband, Nabal, married King David who ruled Israel from 1010 to 970 BCE. (I Sam.-25).  She won David's pardon for Nabal's churlishness by her gifts and conciliatory words. .  

  Wife of King David, the widow-Abigail, 

Nabal happened to be a wealthy Calebite, : a member of a clan that traces its descent to the biblical Caleb and was once a part of the tribe of Judahliving at Maon in Southern Judah. Nabal owned 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats.  They were members of the Kenizzite family ;  one of the leaders of the tribe of Judah daring the wandering in the desert.  He and Joshua were the only spies out of the 12 dispatched by Moses to reconnoiter the land of Canaan who brought back a favorable report.  As a reward, they were the sole survivors of the exodus from Egypt to enter Canaan.  Promised an inheritance at Hebron, Caleb captured the place and expelled its inhabitants, the Anakim. They had inhabited the mountainous area of Judah and also the southern coastal zone, but were exterminated in the time of Joshua.  The Anakim have not yet been identified;  they were tall in stature as Numbers 13:32-3 says, and the word Anakim in Hebrew has come to denote giants.   A region of the Negev and a leading family of Judah were long known by his name of Caleb. 

                                             King David

 David, who regarded himself as the protector of the local population against attacks from the desert Beduin, asked Nabal for food for is troops.  He asked this in Carmel at the shearing of the sheep by sending 10 attendants to do the talking. When brusquely refused, David prepared to attack him with his 400 men and 200 stayed with David's belongings,  but was dissuaded by Nabal's wife, 

Abigail, who secretly conveyed food to David. She took 200 breads, 2 containers of wine, 5 cooked sheep, 5 se'ahs of toasted grain, 100raisin-clusters, and 200 cakes of pressed figs, and put them on the donkeys.  Abigail had 5 maids with her.  After all, Nabal was wealthy.                         

David was angry with Nabal because he had guarded all of Nabal's possessions in the desert and he had repaid kindness with evil.   The news, when broken to Nabal the next day by so many of David's men, caused him to have a mortal stroke.  

David turned around and married Abigail, the wealthy widow and 

                                 Ahinom of Jezreel

 He also married Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them were his wives.  Saul had given his daughter, Michal, to David as his intended wife to Palti, son of Laish of Gallim out of spite, angry with David turning against him.  I can see David also marrying two women out of spite because of Saul taking away Michal.  

Abigail is present with David in Hebron when he is publically inaugurated king, and she bears him a son called Chileab, meaning “according to the father” (2 Sam 3:3; Daniel in 1 Chr 3:1)—perhaps to assert David's paternity as unambiguous.Chileab (Hebrew: כִלְאָב, Ḵīləʾāḇ) also known as Daniel, was the second son of David, King of Israel, according to the Bible. He was David's son with his third wife Abigail, widow of Nabal the Carmelite, and is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 3:1, and 2 Samuel 3:3.

 Unlike the other of David's three elder sons, Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah who were important characters in 2 Samuel, Chileab is only named in the list of David's sons and no further mention is made of him. Though being the second son, Chileab was not a contender for the throne of Israel, even after the death of the first-born Amnon, the third-born Absalom and fourth-born Adonijah. 

He may have died before his father. Later rabbinic traditions name him as one of four ancient Israelites who died without sin, the other three being Benjamin, Jesse and Amram. The throne eventually passed to his younger half brother, Solomon.

Chileab is known as Daluyah (Ancient Greek: Δαλουιὰ, Dalouià) in 2 Samuel in the Septuagint.

According to Rashi, Rabbi Isaac said that some questioned whether Abigail was pregnant through David or her first husband, Nabal; No DNA testing for them for another 3,000 years!  

It might be the 1st stroke on record in the world.   You know, it's not surprising that being given the wrong answer here was the cause of David wanting to attack.  It was 4,000 years ago.  People were primitive in their emotions.  Yet we see the same behavior today in countries, like Russia attacking a smaller country, Ukraine,  who broke away from them to stand by themselves.  We can get to the moon and further today.  We can see others' spaceships, but we haven't done a good job of taming our emotions.  


                               Esther

Abihail  was the father of  Esther of our Purim story.  His father was Jair, a judge son of Shimei;  son of Kish;  son of Bela Abiel;  son of Benjamin, son of Jacob/Israel.  

Esther and Mordecai spoke Hebrew, and of course Ahasuerus spoke Persian. There would be a difference in names.   Esther and Mordecai would have had to learn Persian. 

This was Persia in about 727 BCE and evidently Jews were not high on the list of popular people.  Jews had been residing in Persia since around 727 BCE, having arrived in the region as slaves after being captured by the Assyrian and Babylonian kings. This is evident in the liberties Haman took to kill off all Jews.  He said he didn't like their arrogance.  He had resented the independent attitude of Mordecai who would never bow to him as he should have, according to Haman.  

        Esther and Xerxes, Persian name of king

Abigail's daughter, Esther, won herself a husband, King Ahasuerus in Persia by winning his beauty contest.  Her Uncle Mordecai had heard that Haman, the chief  advisor and minister of Ahasuerus detested all Jews and he planned their annihilation.  He was already having Jews killed in further provinces from Shushan where they lived.  

Esther fasted in order to have the courage to tell her husband.  He didn't know she was Jewish.  She'd have to tell him now.  They never talked about important things.  She was so frightened.  But she did it.  She told her husband of Haman's plan that was unknown to the king.  The king was so angry of having Haman go over his head to order such a slaughter that he hung Haman and his sons.  

To remember this event, it's written about in the Agagite which was interpreted by the rabbis to indicate Haman's  descent from Agag, King of Amalek. 

Resource:

The New Jewish Standard Encyclopedia

Tankah, The Stone Edition

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