ABIGAIL (Heb. Abigayil, perhaps "

See also:

• FATHER

father is joy"), or ABIGAL (2 Sam. iii. 3)  , in the Bible, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite, on whose death she became the wife of David (I Sam. xxv.) . By her David had a son, whose name appears in the Hebrew of 2 Sam. iii . 3 as Chileab, in the Septuagint as Daluyah, and in 1 Chron. as Daniel . The name Abigail was also borne by a sister of David (2 Sam. xvii . 25; I Chron. ii . 16 f.) . From the former (self-styled "handmaid" i Sam. xxv . 25 f.) is derived the colloquial use of the term for a waiting-woman (cf . Abigail, the "waiting gentlewoman," in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady) .