Tag Archives: peace-making

A commentator I read this week compared Abigail’s story to the Book of Esther, arguing that Esther’s story mines and undermines Abigail’s. The author makes various comparisons between the two, but ignores what I think is the greatest difference between them. In this story, only one guilty man dies, killed by God. In the story of Esther, 75,000 Persians die at the hands of the Jews: men, women, and children; the innocent with the guilty. (Esther 9:6-16) In today’s story, King David, whose overall body count is estimated to be 140,000 people, with fifteen individuals said to have been killed by his own hand, kills no one. Would the world be different if we remembered Abigail, instead of Esther? Continue reading →