Abigail and David

Lucas van Leyden · in or before 1508
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Lucas van Leyden engraved this plate in or before 1508, when he was hardly more than a boy. The great trees, each leaf cut in line, rise high over the scene.

David rides at the head of his men on a white horse, crowned, holding a staff. A man at his bridle points ahead. Far off on the road at the right, Abigail comes with her servants and loaded donkeys.

From the text

Abigail loaded donkeys with bread, wine and food (1 Samuel 25:18)

She came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine and saw David and his men coming toward her (1 Samuel 25:20)

She got off the donkey and bowed before him (1 Samuel 25:23)

The artist’s own

David as an old crowned king with a long beard — in the story he is a young leader not yet king

Abigail small in the distance, still on her way

A dog and tall trees in the front

Details

David

Crowned and bearded, he rides a white horse.

The scout

A man at the bridle points ahead.

Abigail

Far off on the road, she comes with servants and donkeys.

The dog

A big dog walks at the front.

Lucas van Leyden, Netherlandish, c. 1489/94–1533. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Rosenwald Collection, 1950.1.105) · Engraving · NGA Open Access: "Images of these works are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial, under Creative Commons Zero (CC0)." (NGA open data: published_images.csv openaccess = 1)

The verses

1 Sam 25:18–23Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys and said to her young men, “Go ahead of me. I will be right behind you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. As Abigail came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, she saw David and his men coming down toward her, and she met them. Now David had just finished saying, “In vain I have protected all that belonged to this man in the wilderness. Nothing that belongs to him has gone missing, yet he has paid me back evil for good. May God punish David, and ever so severely, if I let one of Nabal’s men survive until morning.” When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off the donkey, fell facedown, and bowed before him.