[Heb. Abigayil, perhaps “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 (1 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. iii. 1 as Daniel. The name Abigail was also borne by a sister of David (2 Sam. xvii. 25; 1 Chron. ii. 16 f.). From the former (self-styled “handmaid” 1 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).
