Obsequiousness

Obsequiousness — servile compliance, the elaborate self-abasement of an inferior pleading with a superior — appears in three set-piece scenes in the books of Samuel.

Abigail before David

When David rides out to destroy Nabal's house, Abigail meets him with a posture of total submission. "And when Abigail saw David, she hurried, and dismounted from her donkey, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground" (1Sa 25:23). Her speech repeats "your slave" throughout, takes Nabal's guilt onto herself, and pleads David's future kingship as ground for restraint: "On me, my lord, on me be the iniquity; and let your slave, I pray you, speak in your ears, and you hear the words of your slave" (1Sa 25:24); "Forgive, I pray you, the trespass of your slave: for Yahweh will certainly make my lord a sure house" (1Sa 25:28); "the soul of my lord will be bound in the bundle of life with Yahweh your God" (1Sa 25:29).

Her self-abasement does not end with the rescue of Nabal. When David afterward sends to take her as wife, the same posture returns: "And she arose, and bowed herself with her face to the earth, and said, Look, your slave is a slave to wash the feet of my lord's slaves" (1Sa 25:41).

Mephibosheth before David

Lame in both feet and brought from Lo-debar, Mephibosheth meets David's offer of restoration with the same self-abasing speech: "And he did obeisance, and said, What is your slave, that you should look at such a dead dog as I am?" (2Sa 9:8).

The Woman of Tekoa before David

Joab's coached speaker performs an entire petition in the same register. "And when the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground, and did obeisance, and said, Help, O king" (2Sa 14:4). She accepts the iniquity onto her own house — "My lord, O king, the iniquity be on me, and on my father's house; and the king and his throne be innocent" (2Sa 14:9) — and frames David in the highest terms her petition can muster: "as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad" (2Sa 14:17); "my lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth" (2Sa 14:20). The whole speech is a calculated act — "to change the face of the matter has your slave Joab done this thing" (2Sa 14:20) — but the form it takes is unmistakable: prostration, "your slave" repeated, iniquity transferred onto the speaker, the king flattered into compliance.