Bible Strands
1 Samuel 25:38
About ten days later, the LORD struck Nabal dead.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator reports the event ten days after Nabal sobered up and learned of Abigail's intervention. This moment occurs immediately after Nabal's heart fails him and before David responds to the news.
The words — The verb וַ/יִּגֹּף (va/i.yi.Gof) means "and he struck," paired with וַ/יָּמֹֽת (va/i.ya.Mot) "and he died," describing Yahweh's direct action upon Nabal.
The thread — The theme of divine intervention determining historical outcomes runs through Exodus 12:29 and 1 Samuel 6:9, where God's direct action is explicitly noted.
Why it lands — The text records a factual judgment without elaboration, requiring the reader to recognize the immediate connection between Nabal's hardened state and God's decisive action.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And it came to pass about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died.
Cross-references
- 1 Samuel 25:33 Blessed is your discernment, and blessed are you, because today you kept me from bloodshed and from avenging myself by my own hand.
- Exodus 12:29 Now at midnight the LORD struck down every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, as well as all the firstborn among the livestock.
- 1 Samuel 6:9 but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the LORD who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”
- 1 Samuel 26:10 David added, “As surely as the LORD lives, the LORD Himself will strike him down; either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish.
- 2 Samuel 6:7 And the anger of the LORD burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down on the spot for his irreverence, and he died there beside the ark of God.
- 2 Kings 15:5 And the LORD afflicted the king with leprosy until the day he died, so that he lived in a separate house while his son Jotham had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land.
- 2 Kings 19:35 And that very night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!
- 2 Chronicles 10:15 So the king did not listen to the people, and indeed this turn of events was from God, in order that the LORD might fulfill the word that He had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.
- Acts 12:23 Immediately, because Herod did not give glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.