David spares Saul
1 Samuel Chapters 24 -25
David’s loyalty to Saul is again on display when he passes up a prime opportunity to kill Saul, but instead uses it as a chance to show his commitment to his king.
Saul has learned the area where David and his men are hiding and comes after him in force, with about 3,000 soldiers. By contrast David has only a few hundred.
While David and some of his men are hiding in a cave, Saul happens to choose that cave to get some privacy while relieving himself. As he does so, David sneaks up on him and cuts a corner from his robe, apparently planning to use it to prove to Saul that he had the opportunity to kill him. But David is remorseful for even this harmless act against Saul. “The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.”
David then approaches Saul and, face down in front of him, pleads his innocence of any intent to harm him.
While Saul repents and spares David, it will not last.
Samuel dies, and his death receives only a passing mention; his great farewell speech was earlier back in Chapter 12.
We next meet Abigail, who will become the third of David’s wives (though his first wife, Saul’s daughter Michal, has now been given in marriage to another man).
When we meet Abigail, she is married to the brutish Nabal. When Nabal offends David and David plans to slaughter him and his men. Abigail intervenes, saving both her husband and his men; in spite of that, Nabal dies and David marries the courageous Abigail.