Fake People Are Dangerous People

There was a man in Maon, whose property was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was clever and beautiful, but the man was surly and mean; he was a Calebite. (1 Samuel 25:2-3) 
 
I read the other day about a woman who described her experience finally meeting a man in person that she initially met online. When she got to the restaurant, she couldn’t recognize him because he didn’t look like his profile picture. Sadly, there are a lot of people who feel stuck in relationships because they married the person in the profile, but that’s not who the person really was.  
 
What’s noteworthy about today’s key text is that verse 2 is Nabal’s profile picture, but verse 3 is who he really was. In verse 2, he’s wealthy, he has land and cattle, and he seems to be a good catch. But verse 3 says Nabal was “surely and mean.” Some translations say he was “cruel,” or “brutish,” and “mean.” He has money, but he’s not a good person.  
 
But what I’m really struck by is the final description of Nabal in verse 3. It says he was a “Calebite.” This is an interesting phrase and there is a bit of a double-entendre that is intended here. The fact that he was a Calebite means that he was of the house and the lineage of his ancestor Caleb. Caleb was a brave and godly man whose great faith in God caused him, along with Joshua, to encourage the fainthearted Israelites to take possession of the land of Canaan. Nabal was a member of that house. The text is trying to tell us that he came from good offspring. 
 
But the Hebrew word, translated “Calebite,” also means “dog.” The text is trying to articulate that Nabal was a man who had money. He was a man who had status and standing, but he was also a dog. And the reason the text describes him as a Calebite is to let us know that just because a person comes from godly offspring doesn’t mean that’s an indicator of Godly character. His name, which means “fool,” also suggests that he could also “fool” people. To sum it up, he was fake. He wasn’t real.  
 
We can learn from reading this story in Scripture how important it is to not only be real ourselves, but to surround ourselves with real people as well. Associating with frauds and phonies will only have negative consequences in the long run. But if you stay close with real, authentic, genuine people, you’ll reap the benefits from that kind of community.