Deeper Commentary
2Sa 9:1 David said, Is there yet any who is left of the house of
Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?-
These words may have been said in David's heart, or perhaps as a
nationwide announcement. David sought to show all grace to the house of
Saul, in response to the grace he had received from God. And he
didn't let
the opportunities to show grace just meet him along life's way, but rather
proactively sought them out. And this is a pattern to us.
The fulfilment of God's promises is His showing kindness to us (s.w.
Gen. 24:12,14); to show kindness is to respond to grace or something done
for us (s.w. Gen. 40:14 "remember me when it will be well with you, and
please show kindness to me, and make mention of me to Pharaoh"; Josh. 2:12
"since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my
father’s house"; Jud. 1:24; 8:35; Ruth 1:8; 2 Sam.
10:2). Nothing good had been done to David by the house of Saul; but God had
done David so much good. And he reflected that by showing grace to those who
had not shown it to him. See on 2 Sam. 10:1. Indeed 2 Sam. 3:1
specifically states that there had been "long war between the house of Saul
and the house of David". But David wanted to show grace to that "house of
Saul"; that "house" which God had condemned as guilty of blood shedding:
"Saul, and his bloody house" (2 Sam. 21:1). And that "house" had been
destroyed by God's judgment: "Saul died, and his three sons, and all his
house died together" (1 Chron. 10:6). But to the bloody, the condemned, the
enemy... David wants to show God's grace. We will read likewise in 2 Sam.
10:2 of David's desire to show grace to the Ammonites who likewise were
under Divine condemnation. David's response to grace is perhaps reported
here as a kind of foil to the upcoming record of the shameful behaviour with
Bathsheba and Uriah in 2 Sam. 11.
2Sa 9:2 There was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba, and
they called him to David; and the king said to him, Are you Ziba? He said,
Your servant is he-
As noted on :1, this is an example of proactively seeking out
opportunities to show grace. David was apparently unaware of Jonathan's lame
son (:3) or else he would have shown this grace earlier. Perhaps Ziba and
Mephibosheth didn't quite believe David could show so much grace to the
house of Saul after what they had done to him. We take from this the
principle that it is always hard to believe real grace. On the
other hand, it is a fair question as to why only now David was seeking to
show such grace. And seeing he had undertaken to his best friend Jonathan
to be faithful to Jonathan's family, we wonder whether it really could be
the case that David was ignorant of Mephibosheth's existence. He was five
when Jonathan died and David became king, and now Mephibosheth is old
enough to have had a child himself. So we wonder why David hadn't shown
any interest in Mephibosheth for at least 10 years. And thus begins our
suspicion that David's apparently amazing grace was in fact not as amazing
as it seems. God's grace is pure, and our response to it should be to show
pure grace. But our grace is often compromised and far less than pure.
Ziba had been "a servant" of the house of Saul; but he now presents himself as David's servant [LXX "I am your servant"]; and again in :11. But David and the record repeatedly stress that Saul was still his "master" and he was therefore in his heart a servant of Saul (:9,10). Later, at the time of Absalom's rebellion, Ziba would turn against David and seek to get the kingdom back into the hands of the house of Saul. So David is correct to be cynical of Ziba. David's awareness of the current of support for a revived Saulide kingdom means that his grace to Mephibosheth may have not been so pure, but also politically motivated- see discussion on :13.
2Sa 9:3 The king said, Is there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I may
show the kindness of God to him? Ziba said to the king, Jonathan has yet a
son, who is lame of his feet-
See on Ps. 35:14. David wept for Saul as if he was his friend or
brother (Ps. 35:14). Who was David's friend and brother? Surely Jonathan
his brother-in-law. But he wept for Saul, David says, as he wept for
Jonathan. This is testified to historically by David's lament of 2 Sam. 1.
And still David sought out the house of Saul, “that I may shew the
kindness of God” unto them. It was the experience of Divine kindness that
motivated David.
The allusion is to Jonathan's request that David "show the kindness [hesed, grace] of Yahweh" to him even after his death (1 Sam. 20:14). But David goes beyond the letter of the law, the strict terms of his agreement with Jonathan, to enquire if he could show God's kindness to any of the whole family of Saul. David's mercy to the "house" of his enemy reflects God's promised grace to David's "house" in 2 Sam. 7, just as we likewise should reflect our personal experience of God's grace to others. The same phrase is used by David of Saul when he says that Saul had not remembered to "show mercy / kindness" (Ps. 109:16). But all the same David shows grace to him. So David's response to God showing him grace was to show grace to those who didn't show grace. Our response should be likewise. In 2 Sam. 22:51 David reflects that in those promises, Yahweh "showed mercy / kindness to David and to his seed for ever more". The same phrase for 'showing kindness' is found also in 2 Sam. 10:2, where it seems David again wanted to just reflect God's grace / kindness to others even outside the family of Saul. But we ponder whether David is remembering how the men of Jabesh 'showed kindness' to Saul and therefore were shown kindness by Yahweh (2 Sam. 2:5,6). We ponder whether David was motivated by wanting blessing in a transactional sense if he showed such kindness to Saul's house. Sadly Solomon considered that God had only 'shown kindness / grace' to David because he had been obedient to God's laws (1 Kings 3:6). By saying this Solomon showed his complete lack of understanding that grace is grace, undeserved, and not given as a reward for works.
We reflect on how "the blind and the lame" were "hated of David's soul" in 2 Sam. 5:6 and it seems he had them thrown down the water shute of Zion once the stronghold was captured. I noted there that this was inappropriate anger and blood lust by David, so perhaps here we have some kind of repentance. Or we can simply look at it as David, true to all men, having an inconsistency in approach. He could be very angry against the lame and then very gracious towards one of them.
The explanation of Mephibosheth's lameness is given in 2 Sam. 4:4 as being that "his nurse took him up, and fled: and it happened, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame". But as with the language of demon possession in the New Testament, we may have here an example of where an as then undiagnosed illness is blamed upon something that is mythical, or an imagined narrative. For there are reasons to think that Mephibosheth's lameness would have been a case of what we now know as poliomyelitis. To cause a five year old to have such spinal damage that both his legs were useless would require dropping the child from a great height. Casual dropping of a child of five years old is unlikely to cause this damage. And polio is often contracted by children around five years old.
Be that as it may, lameness was typically seen as a punishment for sin, and so David's grace to the man reflects his own desire to show grace to a sinner. He indeed showed "the kindness of God" to him.
2Sa 9:4 The king said to him, Where is he? Ziba said to the king, Behold,
he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, in Lo Debar-
"Lo Debar" is literally 'place of no pasture'; we can assume it was
therefore an impoverished area. Machir supported David at the time
of Absalom's rebellion (2 Sam. 17:27) and so it could be that David's
amazing grace paid off, and former supporters of his enemies came around
to his side.
2Sa 9:5 Then king David sent, and fetched him out of the house of Machir
the son of Ammiel, from Lo Debar-
It could be that David personally did this, hence LXX "David went,
and took him out of the house of Machir". He was so eager to personally do
the hard work of showing grace.
2Sa 9:6 Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David-
"Mephibosheth" is apparently a name which would have arisen from
changing his original name, Meribbaal 'man of Baal' (1 Chron. 8:34), to
something which means 'the dispeller of shame'. i.e. Baal. The suffix
'baal' could suggest that even Jonathan was closer to idolatry than we
would like, and at least he didn't use the 'Yah' suffix in the name of his
children. But Mephibosheth had perhaps repented of this, renouncing Baal
as shameful, and yet still struggled to believe in the extent of Yahweh's
grace to him through David.
And fell on his face, and showed respect. David said, Mephibosheth. He
answered, Behold, your servant!-
The record gives us the tragic picture of a fearful (:7) lame man
now fallen flat on his face before the powerful king David. And David
shows him every grace. Falling on the face is usually associated
with begging for mercy. Mephibosheth assumed he had been summoned in order
to be executed but instead found an amazing grace. He represents us all,
who sit at the Lord's table. "Behold your servant" suggests something in
the spirit of "Behold the man...". 'Look at me, useless and hopeless as I
am. Maybe just have pity on me rather than slay me'.
2Sa 9:7 David said to him, Don’t be afraid; for I will surely show you
kindness for Jonathan your father’s sake, and will restore to you all the
land of Saul your father. You shall eat bread at my table continually-
David is offering to give Mephibosheth land that belonged to Saul, his grandfather, in honour of the covenant David had made with Jonathan. He is using law not as a leash or chain, but as a springboard to greater grace, as Boaz did with the laws about allowing gleaners and raising up seed to a dead brother.
The Lord surely had this incident in mind when He seems to apply this situation to each of us, no better than Mephibosheth: "That you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom" (Lk. 22:30). Mephibosheth's fear reflects the difficulty we all have in accepting grace. Indeed faith in the gospel is effectively a climbing of this mountain, to believe in grace. See on 2 Sam. 1:23; Ps. 35:14. As he hoped for fellowship at the Messianic King’s table in the future, so David delighted in inviting his former enemies to partake of his table, now he was king (2 Sam. 9:7,11,13). And if we hope to share the Lord’s table in the Kingdom, we must share it with our weaker brethren now. I see in all this such a triumph for David, that a man should reflect the love of God to such an extent, to love in the face of such hatred, to not just love those who loved him. The deep sorrow of the Lord Jesus for Judas and all those who turn away is surely typified here. Right at the bitter end, the Lord still referred to him as his friend (Mt. 26:50), even though a few hours before he had been speaking of how the faithful few were his friends, and how he would give his life for his friends (Jn. 15:13-15).
2Sa 9:8 He bowed down, and said, What is your servant, that you should
look on such a dead dog as I am?-
This was how David had felt about himself (1 Sam. 17:17 LXX; 24:14 cp. 2 Sam. 9:8;
16:9)
The promises to David are described as the mercy of
God (Is. 55:3; Ps. 89:33,34). God having a son is the sign of His love for
us, and this must elicit a response in us. David himself marvelled that
such mercy had been shown to him: "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my
house… You know Your servant" (2 Sam. 7:18-20). And yet in the very
next chapters, we read of how David made a renewed attempt to show mercy
to the house of Saul. Mephibosheth says that he is "Your servant… what is
your servant, that you should look upon such… as I am?" (2 Sam. 9:8).
Mephibosheth is using the very words which David used to God; David is
showing mercy to Mephibosheth in the very way in which the promises of God
to him were the "mercies" shown to David. Appreciating that the promises
concern us personally, and that they reveal such loving grace from the
Father, can only lead to a similar response in showing love and grace
through entering into the lives and destinies of others.
2Sa 9:9 Then the king called to Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, All
that pertained to Saul and to all his house have I given to your master’s
son-
It's not clear whether the "master" of Ziba refers to
Jonathan, or whether his master was Mephibosheth and Ziba being told that
the inheritance is going to go to Mephibosheth's son Mica (:12). We get
the impression that Ziba had abused Mephibosheth's handicap and somehow
manipulated to get the land of Saul and Jonathan given to him and his
family as an inheritance. It is impressive that David had
apparently not taken over Saul's land for himself, as most victors would
have done. Perhaps he recognized the Mosaic principle that inheritance
should not move between the tribes. David could also have argued that
seeing Saul's sons were dead, his inheritance passed to his daughter
Michal and thus to David as she was his wife (Num. 27:8); and in any case
there is the comment that all Saul's house had been given to David by God
(2 Sam. 12:8). But David was willing to give this back to Mephibosheth.
This is all definitely a "plus" for David.
2Sa 9:10 You shall till the land for him, you, and your sons, and your
servants; and you shall bring in the harvest, that your master’s son may
have bread to eat: but Mephibosheth your master’s son shall eat bread
always at my table. Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants-
The LXX brings out the contradiction: "Thou shalt bring in
bread to the son of thy lord, and he shall eat bread: and Mephibosheth the
son of thy lord shall eat bread continually at my table". Ziba was to
bring all the bread from the lands of Saul to Mephibosheth, but David was
going to give Mephibosheth "bread" from his own table. Here we get
suspicious that all this apparent grace was to make Mephibosheth a kind of
"prisoner of the court". The "bread" from Saul's lands was not to be
given for the economic benefit of anyone apart from Mephibosheth; but it
was to be brought to him to Jerusalem and thus effectively come under
David's control. See the discussion on David's motives on :13. We likewise
note that soon we will be reading of someone else getting food from
David's table and being urged to eat it- Uriah, to whom David sent food
from his own table (2 Sam. 11:8) and who ate and drank with David at his
table ("David had called him, he ate and drink before him" 2 Sam. 11:13).
Again we are invited to ponder the sincerity of David's invitation to men
to eat at his table. For the only other person given this honour [Uriah]
was not given it sincerely.
David had done likewise to Saul's daughter Michal; he took her from her second husband and kept her in his court but apparently didn't kill her. But she was under his control. He does the same later with Absalom, bringing him to Jerusalem but for some time refusing to meet him. Solomon does the same to Shimei, possibly following David's advice. He told Shimei: "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem, and dwell there, and don’t go out anywhere from there. For on the day you go out, and pass over the brook Kidron, know for certain that you shall surely die" (1 Kings 2:36,37). Shimei was effectively a prisoner of the court. Possibly there was something similar going on here in 2 Sam. 9 in the control of Mephibosheth Saul's grandson, the Saulide heir to the throne.
There could be here the implication that Ziba had used Saul's land
for his own enrichment, and not always given Mephibosheth enough to eat. Mephibosheth is called Saul's son (2 Sam. 9:7,10; 19:24), although he
was actually Jonathan's son. This suggests that the son was brought up in
Saul's house. This certainly does not give the impression that Jonathan
separated himself from his father's house, even though he strongly
disagreed with Saul. There was no fear of guilt by association with Bible
characters, but rather a standing up for Godly principle in whatever
situation they were in.
The invitation to eat at David's table is emphasized (:7,11,13). Likewise after Solomon's ascension, there was judgment and reward; in
the form of being able to eat at his table (1 Kings 2:7 "show
kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be of those
who eat at your table" cp. 2 Sam. 9:
7,10; 19:28).
2Sa 9:11 Then Ziba said to the king, According to all that my lord the
king commands his servant, so your shall servant do. So Mephibosheth ate
at the king’s table, like one of the king’s sons-
This eating at table with David is stressed three times (:7,11,13).
Whom you shared your table with was significant; and the handicapped were
often kept out of public view. David's grace is shown by how he opened his
table to the otherwise hopeless and obscure.
The Lord Jesus did
the same, and so should we.
2Sa 9:12 Mephibosheth had a young son, whose name was Mica-
See on :9 for the significance of this mention. Mephibosheth
was quite young- he had been five when David became king (2 Sam. 4:4).
David was taking a risk by showing such grace to Saul's direct
descendants; for living in the palace, the thought of restoring Saul's
kingdom would have been suggested to their minds. The chances of this
happening would've been far less if David left them living in poverty and
obscurity far from Jerusalem. But grace does indeed take such risks.
All that lived in the house of Ziba were servants to Mephibosheth-
The idea is perhaps that Ziba had abused Mephibosheth's handicap, and
had become wealthy as a result; for he had many sons and servants (:10).
But now that is all changed around, in the spirit of grace. Now the
crippled Mephibosheth is made the master and Ziba and his family become
Mephibosheth's servants.
2Sa 9:13 So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem; for he ate continually at the
king’s table. He was lame in both his feet-
It was common in those days for the handicapped to be isolated from
society and not placed in public view. But grace inverted all of that. The
lameness of Mephibosheth is emphasized, and juxtaposed against the fact he
ate always at David's table, as if they were family. His eating at
David's table is five times recorded: 2 Sam. 9:7,10,11,13; 19:28. On one
hand this was indeed David's grace. But quite possibly he feared the Saul
faction still wanting to have a Saulide king. And so he brought the next
king in Saul's line to live under his control and observation in
Jerusalem, right in his own house. Making an enemy a "prisoner at court"
was a known way of dealing with potential opposition. See the discussion
on :10 on David's controlling the agricultural output of Saul's lands by
using Mephibosheth as a proxy, and the notes on :2 about Ziba's support
for the house of Saul. As ever, we are left to ponder whether David's
motives in showing grace were pure, just as we must ponder our own motives
for grace and apparent generosity. Or it could be argued that David showed
total grace to Mephibosheth, but the providentially arranged result of it
was that he ended up having the potential Saulide king under his thumb and
constant observation in Jerusalem, rather than far from him in obscure
Lodebar in northern Israel.
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