Now Abigail, by the grace of God, delivered David from the unhappy influence of the _present_, by leading his soul onward into the _future_: we learn this from her exquisite address to him. "And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be; and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid. 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. Now, therefore, my lord, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the Lord hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself _with thine own hand_, now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal; ... for _the Lord wilt certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord_, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days. Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul; _but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God_; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall He sling out, as out of the middle of a sling. And it shall come to pass, _when the Lord shall have done to my lord according to all the good that He hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel_, that this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself; but when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid." We can hardly conceive anything more touching than this address; every point in it was calculated to touch the heart. She presents to him the evil of seeking to avenge himself; the weakness and folly of the object of his revenge,--she reminds him of his proper occupation, viz., "fighting _the Lord's battles_." This must have brought home to his heart the humiliating circumstances in which Abigail met him, even rushing on to fight _his own_ battle.