This is not numerical literary style at all. It is simply an example of 17 occurrences of the same name. But since the name has a reference to joy, that wonderful word found 17 times in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, I think it’s worth making an exception.

Abigail means my father is joy. In Hebrew, the word for joy alludes to a crown. I guess it’s appropriate that Abigail is one of the queens of Israel.

1. Abigail…was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband, a Calebite, was surly and mean in his dealings. 1 Samuel 25:3
2. One of the servants told Nabal’s wife Abigail: “David sent messengers from the desert to give our master his greetings, but he hurled insults at them. 1 Samuel 25:14
3. Abigail lost no time. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. 1 Samuel 25:18
4. When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground. 1 Samuel 25:23
5. David said to Abigail, “Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me. 1 Samuel 25:32
6. When Abigail went to Nabal, he was in the house holding a banquet like that of a king. He was in high spirits and very drunk. So she told him nothing until daybreak. 1 Samuel 25:36
7. Then David sent a proposal to Abigail, to take her as his wife. 1 Samuel 25:39
8. His servants went to Carmel and said to Abigail, “David has sent us to you to take you to become his wife.” 1 Samuel 25:40
9. Abigail quickly got on a donkey and, attended by her five maids, went with David’s messengers and became his wife. 1 Samuel 25:42
10. David and his men settled in Gath with Achish. Each man had his family with him, and David had his two wives: Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, the widow of Nabal. 1 Samuel 27:3
11. David’s two wives had been captured–Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel. 1 Samuel 30:5
12. So David went up there with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel. 2 Samuel 2:2
13. …his second, Kileab the son of Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel; the third, Absalom the son of Maacah daughter of Talmai king of Geshur… 2 Samuel 3:3
14. Absalom had appointed Amasa over the army in place of Joab. Amasa was the son of a man named Jether, an Israelite who had married Abigail, the daughter of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah the mother of Joab. 2 Samuel 17:25
15. Their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. Zeruiah’s three sons were Abishai, Joab and Asahel. 1 Chronicles 2:16
16. Abigail was the mother of Amasa, whose father was Jether the Ishmaelite. 1 Chronicles 2:17
17. These were the sons of David born to him in Hebron: The firstborn was Amnon the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel; the second, Daniel the son of Abigail of Carmel… 1 Chronicles 3:1