The Abigail Option

Whether or not the wife is an Abigail depends on whether or not the husband is a Nabal. If he is, then she must be. If he is not, then she must be submissive and obedient. 

Fear the Lord. Show hospitality. Learn to read the story you are in. 

And a Well Done for Abigail

Monday, December 2, 2024 by Douglas Wilson

Introduction

Over the years, I have had periodic occasion to wish that more Christian women in bad situations would show the courage and initiative shown by the biblical heroine Abigail.

I said this again last week in a Doug & Friends segment, with reference to wives whose husbands were going down a dank right wormhole. That episode was a conversation with my three kids, and this point I made was gravely misunderstood by Eric Conn, who posted a reply, to which I replied. But I also promised a fuller treatment, which is what this post is.

In the meantime, many in the various comment threads that popped up thought that what I was proposing was “top tier wicked,” assuming that somehow I was applauding the sentiments expressed by various bluesmen over the years.

But of course, the intention and goal is precisely the opposite. The pastoral question is actually this. How can you save marriages that are on the brink of implosion already? And no, they are not on the brink because the husband and wife cannot agree on Mexican or Chinese. They are in this parlous state because the husband has taken a dark and blasphemous turn, and he won’t listen to anybody, and is about to disappear up an aperture that he discovered somewhere on the Internet.

So let’s walk through this, shall we?

The Biblical Story

If you are not familiar with it, the outline of the story—found in 1 Samuel 25—is this. David, together with his armed band, were on the run because of the paranoia of King Saul. While in the countryside, they provided an impromptu security force for the flocks of a descendant of Caleb, a man named Nabal, who was a churlish, stupid, and hardhearted man. He was also a very wealthy man, with thousands of sheep and goats in his flocks. When the time for shearing came, David sent a group of men to request a gift from him in exchange for him having been a wall of protection for those flocks, but Nabal railed on them and sent them away empty instead.

David was greatly angered by this, and mustered four hundred of his men to go down and slaughter every male in the household of Nabal. One of Nabal’s servants told Abigail what had happened, and she made haste to intervene by bringing a suitable gift to David. In this way she saved two men—she saved her worthless husband from certain death and she saved her future husband David from certain blood guilt. In the meantime, Nabal had gotten profoundly drunk, and for some reason was putting on the airs of a king. So Abigail told him nothing at all about it until the wine had gone out of him, which was the next day. So then when she told him, his heart died within him, and he sank into a stupor. Ten days later, the Lord struck him and he died. David then summoned Abigail to become his wife, a summons with which she gladly complied.

Nabal was very rich, very drunk, and very much clueless. His name means blockhead (v. 25), and he is called a son of Belial, a son of worthlessness, twice—once by one of the servants (v. 17), and once by Abigail (v. 25). There was no reasoning with him at all. But the fact that he was so obtuse and unreasonable, and so wealthy, and honored himself with something that was “like the feast of a king” (v. 36) meant that he set himself up as a typological representative of the actual king that David was destined to replace. Well, thanks to the shrewdness of Abigail, David replaced this faux king also.

Objections and Distortions

There are of course various objections that can be made to my application of this, many of which can be dealt with in a pretty quick fashion.

Someone might say to a wife that “you’re not Abigail.” That is quite right. That should not be the default assumption for any marriage. But if the husband is a Nabal, then the wife needs to be an Abigail. She is not an Abigail unless he is a Nabal. And I will deal with how to tell when that line is crossed below.

This is a pastoral issue, not a political one. Eric Conn understood me as arguing that a wife should call the elders if her husband was “too right wing.” But it has nothing to do with where on the political spectrum he is. The question is not “is he right wing?” It is whether he is being a right wing Nabal. The same issues would apply if he was becoming a woke Nabal. It would apply if he was becoming a Chamber of Commerce RINO Nabal. The issue is the law of God. If a husband descends into wickedness, then a conscientious and godly wife must resist him. It doesn’t matter if he is going down for the third time on the right side of the sewage lagoon or on the left side. All the same principles would apply if he were going woke and wanted to rainbow decorate the kids.

And incidentally, the same principle extends to significant doctrinal issues. It would apply, for example, if he decides that he wants to go EO in order to pray to icons. A Protestant wife should submissively refuse to go along with him. The husband’s authority is a true authority, but it is a creaturely authority, and therefore not absolute.

So whether or not the wife is an Abigail depends on whether or not the husband is a Nabal. If he is, then she must be. If he is not, then she must be submissive and obedient.

Am I catering to the feminists here? There are those who want to represent all this as me reacting to some imagined and made up “misogyny.” They want to say I am retreating into and weaponizing the feminist and gynocentric longhouse. I have an unpleasant surprise for them here as well. On a recent episode of my Plodcast, I reviewed an excellent book by David Edgington entitled The Abusive Wife. In such circumstances, which are not all that uncommon either, very similar principles apply. Of course I would not urge the husband to “be an Abigail,” because that would be insulting. But I would tell him to bring things to a head, and to restore the balance of biblical authority in his home if at all possible. He should also get godly help from his elders and pastor in such a situation. And if restoration of a godly order is not possible, then having brought things to a head means that the abusive wife will leave him, and she will take the longhouse with her.

Some will object on other grounds and say that we shouldn’t extract doctrine from narrative. This is a hermeneutical rule that is often pushed in evangelical circles, but the problem is that it is applied in truly simplistic ways. Of course you shouldn’t interpret narrative in the same way that you interpret straight doctrinal teaching, but it is fully appropriate to draw out doctrine from narrative. Jesus did it with David and the show bread (1 Sam. 21:6; Mark 2:26). Paul did it with the worshipers of the golden calf (1 Cor. 10:6-7). Jude did it with the cities of the plain (Jude 5-11). And I draw it from the heroic example of Abigail.

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”

2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV)

And last, I can only envy those pastors who have never met a Nabal that they had to deal with. Must be nice.

Identifying a Nabal

We live in a time when most divorces are initiated by women—around 70%—and in this no-fault divorce culture of ours, this is often driven by a spirit of simple discontent. A lot of these divorces are not cases of divorcing a Nabal, but rather of divorcing some regular guy. As a regular guy, he likely has many faults, and almost certainly isn’t meeting all her needs. Fine. She wasn’t meeting all of his needs either, because one of his needs was the need for a sweet wife. But having an ordinary marriage that is running on just three cylinders is not biblical grounds for divorce. An unhappy marriage is not grounds for divorce. So nothing I am arguing for here should be taken as justification for any of the bad choices of unhappy and discontented wives.

I am rather talking about the courageous choices of godly wives.

But such women still need to know what the threshold is. If we are going to draw our lesson from the biblical Abigail, the first and most obvious thing about the story is that she saved a lot of lives. This was a life-and-death situation. If a wife is in a place where her husband is drunk and waving around a loaded pistol, we are in Nabal territory. So the first principle is that the issue needs to be important, and not trivial.

Another indicator or tell is the level and extent of the obtuseness of the husband. Nabal’s cussedness was well known throughout the entire household. The servants knew it, and Abigail knew it, and the writer of 1 Samuel knew it. Nabal was a legendary meathead. He is introduced in v. 3 as being “churlish and evil in his doings.” When Abigail drew the line, she wasn’t revealing any family secrets. Everyone who knew him already knew this. Now there may be times when a Nabal keeps his real character from being generally known, but the usual drill is that everybody nods and says, “that figures.” It is not really a did too/did not situation. So the second principle is that to tell the story straight is to reveal who the antagonist actually is.

The third thing is this. I have written a lot about learning to read the story you are in. Abigail was very aware of the broader political situation, and she read her position in it accurately. When she meets David on his way to slaughter all the males, her speech revealed her great awareness and intelligence. Though David was an exile in the wilderness, she knew that he was destined for the throne of Israel, and she knew this on the strength of the prophetic word. She was a shrewd believer, and she wanted him to come to the throne without any blood guilt on his hands (vv. 30-31). So the third principle is to read the story you are in by means of biblical categories. To do this you must be steeped in the Scriptures. You must heed what the prophets have said.

Identity Politics Has Gotten into Everything

One of the ways you can tell you are dealing with someone in the grip of identity politics is that they don’t know what they think of a cop shooting—for example—until they know the skin color of the various participants. As soon as they know that, they know what they think.

As soon as a feminist hears of some horrific behavior alleged against a husband, she knows what she thinks. She is a fierce advocate for “the survivor.” Whether the allegation is true or not is of no interest to her. If she hears of an abusive wife, she dismisses the mere possibility as ridiculous. She knows what she thinks without looking at any evidence. So the problem with her approach is the “without looking” part. It is not necessarily the fact that she finds fault with the husband. There are some awful husbands out there, and she might actually be right about him. But she is never right about the “without looking” part. It is that part of her approach which should keep her off juries for life.

There has been some chatter and debate online as to whether or not the phrase “woke right” has any meaning. I believe that it does, but we need to get something out of the way first. It is not fitting for any member of the woke left to be supplying us with any definitions of the woke right. This is because they don’t know what is actually going on, so let’s leave Neil Shenvi out of it.

So here is how I would describe how woke identity politics has captured some significant territory on the right. It is found in the “without looking” reaction. If I say that a wife should call for pastoral help when her husband is saying and doing awful things, and the reaction—without even looking—is to say that his actions weren’t awful at all, then identity politics has taken over. It is claimed that he was just “asking questions” about why there were so many Jews in the porn industry, which made him sound “too right wing.” No, not at all. Look, this was my hypothetical situation. The husband in question gave Jewish names to a litter of cute puppies and then took them down into the basement in order to stomp on them. Should a wife do something about that? To Abigail or not to Abigail? This is my hypothetical, not yours. I am stipulating that the husband’s behavior is a grotesque violation of God’s law. What should a dutiful wife do?

While glancing at and hearing about numerous reactions to this dust up in the variegated comment threads—”Moscow was becoming a threat so the feds took it over, everything here was great until my son married a Jewess (a Christian, but still), I am on the payroll of the Mossad”—please, I have to ask my readers to stop snorting—is it ever appropriate to use this many dashes?—another thing has become apparent yet again. Over the years, I have had occasion to express my gratitude to God for two things. One is the caliber of my friends, and the other is the caliber of my enemies. I am afraid the comment thread army is not yet ready for any sort of real battle.

Last one for this section. It is being claimed that by making this Abigail point I am demonstrating a basic longhouse allegiance to the feminist left. What is actually happening is that this controversy is revealing that the feminists have been lying about us here in Moscow for years. Revealing their lies is not catering to them. They don’t like it. The fact that some on the right have now picked up on a related lie puts the left in a really awkward position. If they cheer me on in this fight, then they are acknowledging their lies. If they don’t cheer me on, then they are revealing their hypocrisy. But whether from left or right, the harvest has come. “The mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped” (Psalm 63:11b).

Historical Review

Some are talking as though Moscow has somehow become a turncoat on these issues over the last several months. They are lamenting the fact that they have “learned so much” from us over the years, but now we have decided to join up with the squishes. But as they were learning from us over the years, they clearly weren’t paying consistent attention. This has always been one of the issues we have emphasized, in order to keep a balance in our very strong insistence on headship and submission in marriage.

The other possibility is that they have only been following us for the last 18 months or so, and so they hadn’t picked up on that part. But here it is.

In my book Fidelity (1999), I advise wives to go to the elders when a husband refuses to get help for his porn problem (p. 155). In the same book, I also say this:

“But a man only has a good view of the authority he has over others when he has an equally good view of the authority he is under. This understanding provides a wonderful opportunity: A man can teach his wife submission through his own godly example of submission—why he can now show her how easy submission is!”

Fidelity, p. 135

And here is a money quote from 2013. I was writing about Patriarchy, Vision Forum, and All The Rest of It.

“No human authority in this sinful world is absolute, and there are times when a woman must play the role of Abigail in dealing with a blockhead husband. We have emphasized this many times in our ministry and there is no reason to rehearse it again here.”

Patriarchy, Vision Forum, and All the Rest of It
(You really should read the whole thing)

But then this fictional letter entitled Miserable Wives (2017) is an example of counsel to a wife where I am directing her towards genuine submission in a challenging situation. In it, I show the other side of Abigail, and place the Abigail principle in its proper context. And I would challenge anyone who has been generating angsty piffle about us in various comments threads to go and read the whole thing. Go ahead, I dare you. Once you have read it, I would invite you to try to incorporate what I say here into your narrative. I can assure you beforehand that it doesn’t fit, but good luck trying.

In 2005, I posted something called Uppity Calvinist Women, which you can find here. In it I quote from an article my wife wrote, where she said this.

“If a man is acting foolishly, a woman is foolish to go along quietly. Of course this requires great wisdom. I am not advocating giving wives license to disobey in a willy-nilly fashion. That is what I am objecting to in the paragraphs above. But there are times when a godly wife should beseech her husband not to act in a foolish manner . . . A good Christian wife should go to the elders and ask them how she can be a good church member and a good wife at the same time.”

Nancy Wilson

But when a wife chooses to disobey her husband, it has got to be over a big deal. It cannot be over some trifle. But if it is genuinely a big deal, then she must be a woman of courage.

Conclusion

The basic point is this. To argue against what I have outlined above is to want husbands to be without accountability and to want wives to be without protection. Do you really want to be in a church where the men have no accountability? And the wives no protection? But this is not what church membership means. It is not what life in true community means. It is not what the Christian faith calls us to.

The following verse is from the Word of God. It is entirely true and fully authoritative. How should it be applied in the light of all Scripture? Is this an argument that Abigail was in sin?

So I will finish with this. Given all the discussion that has surrounded this, Eric is arguing that a wife’s submission to her husband needs to be absolute. If he is not arguing for that, then his position is the same as ours, and that would lead me to wonder why we are debating.

Here in Moscow we have been arguing, and for decades, that a wife’s submission is to be genuine and thorough and honest and wholehearted, but not absolute. No human authority is absolute. We are fallen, we are sinners. There must be checks and balances with regard to all governments. Our submission to civic leaders is to be genuine (Rom. 13:1-7) . . . but not absolute. Our submission to the leaders of the church should be genuine (Heb. 13:7, 17) . . . but not absolute. Our submission to the head of the home is to be genuine (Eph. 5: 22-23) . . . but not absolute.

I can only assume that Eric has never been in a pastoral situation where the husband was molesting the kids, and the wife knew about it and refused to seek help from anybody. Tell me, does the “in everything” of Ephesians 5:24 apply to that? Is this a far-fetched hypothetical? You think this never happens in the world? If you don’t want that balloon of yours to be popped, you had better get out of the ministry now.

If the “in everything” is claimed to be absolute and unqualified, then I would advise people under such teaching to be looking for a suitable exit ramp. If the “in everything” is to be qualified in some way, then what are the principles that qualify it? I have outlined mine above. What are yours? If there are such principles, then why are we having this debate? If there are such principles, why are you not here in the longhouse with me?

If you think that a wife is to be submissive to her husband no matter what, then I am glad that we have come to an understanding of our differences, and we can simply part ways. If you think she should seek help when help is clearly needed, then you need to explain to me why you are being so ardent about disagreeing . . . when we actually agree.