Belial is a Bitch

When David the son of Jesse was running and hiding from king Saul (after having himself been anointed king of Israel by Samuel) he apparently spent some time in Carmel with his band of malcontented rebels. During David- and- crew’s outlaw years, extortion was one of the ways they avoided perishing from lack. The twenty- fifth chapter of the first book of Samuel describes how David applied pressure to get his protection shakedown from one citizen of Carmel whose name was Nabal.

Timing is of seminal importance to a shakedown. The shakedown has to take place at a moment when the mark has something sufficient to give. In this case, David and his outlaws chose shearing time: when Nabal was flush with the prospective proceeds of the wool being harvested. At that time, David sent ten “young men” to beg of Nabal whatever he could afford in the way of a charitable gift in support of David and his outlaw band. Nabal did not play ball.

When Nabal’s young men (his shepherds) heard of the rough treatment David's young men had received from Nabal upon his receipt of David's solicitation, one of them is recorded as having told Nabal's wife Abigail that her husband Nabal had made a possibly fatal mistake in railing on David and his band of outlaws. In one verse of the young shepherd’s warning to Abigail, four words were added by the translators; three of which are unnecessary.

1 Samuel 25:17 (with the translators’ additions) reads: "Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household: for he is such a son of Belial, that a man cannot speak to him." Oddly enough, this rendering makes it seem David is the son- of- a- bitch who can not be spoken to. This may be a true- enough assessment of David's character (David killed more than one messenger, after all); but it is a dereliction of the immediate context.

Obviously, 1 Samuel 25:17 requires the addition of a verb to render it sensible to an English- speaking reader (or hearer), but that's all that's required to make it so. The other three added words are unnecessary at best and misleading at worst. 1 Samuel 25:17 (without the translators’ unnecessary additions) reads: "Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household: for he is a son of Belial, that cannot speak to him.”

The simple redaction of the three unnecessarily added words, “such” and “a man”, from the text of 1 Samuel 25:17 clarifies the speaker’s intent to indicate Nabal as a miscreant: inasmuch as it was Nabal who would not have a conversation, but would rather rail on and chastise David and his outlaws as traitors (verse 10, ibidum) to their king. This is a distinction of contextual significance: which context is born- out by Abigail's words to the outlaw David, eight verses later.

In 1 Samuel 25:25, Abigail is credited with calling Nabal out, by name, as the son- of- a- bitch who cannot speak to a man, in her supplication of David concerning Nabal's folly (in the matter of the aforementioned attempted- shakedown) thus: "Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send [1 Samuel 25:25]." This confirms the frivolous nature of three- of- the- four words added by the translators to 1 Samuel 25:17.