Kindness for Jonathan's Sake
1 David said, “Is there yet any who is left of Saul’s house, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” 2 There was of Saul’s house a servant whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David; and the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” He said, “I am your servant.” 3 The king said, “Is there not yet any of Saul’s house, that I may show the kindness of God to him?” Ziba said to the king, “Jonathan still has a son, who is lame in his feet.” 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.” 5 Then King David sent and brought him out of the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, from Lo Debar. 6 Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, fell on his face, and showed respect. David said, “Mephibosheth?” He answered, “Behold, your servant!” 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 will eat bread at my table continually.” 8 He bowed down, and said, “What is your servant, that you should look at such a dead dog as I am?” 9 Then the king called to Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, “All that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master’s son. 10 Till the land for him—you, your sons, and your servants. Bring in the harvest, that your master’s son may have bread to eat; but Mephibosheth your master’s son will always eat bread at my table.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. 11 Then Ziba said to the king, “According to all that my lord the king commands his servant, so your servant will do.” So Mephibosheth ate at the king’s table like one of the king’s sons. 12 Mephibosheth had a young son, whose name was Mica. All who lived in Ziba’s house were servants to Mephibosheth. 13 So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate continually at the king’s table. He was lame in both his feet.
A king searches for a rival's survivor in order to bless him — and a crippled man who calls himself a dead dog eats at the royal table for life.
David said, “Is there yet any who is left of Saul’s house, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”
The question is against every convention of the age. A new dynasty hunted the old one's survivors as a matter of course, and David has both the power and the precedent to do it. What moves him instead is an oath sworn in a field years earlier, when Jonathan asked that his descendants not be cut off 1 Samuel 20:14–15. The covenant is kept after the other party is dead, when nobody could enforce it and no one would have noticed its breach.
The word he uses for what he wants to show is the Hebrew term for covenant loyalty — and he defines it in the next breath as the kindness of God 2 Samuel 9:3, which is to say kindness of the kind God shows: unearned, initiated by the giver, and reaching people who have nothing to trade.
3 The king said, “Is there not yet any of Saul’s house, that I may show the kindness of God to him?” Ziba said to the king, “Jonathan still has a son, who is lame in his feet.” 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.”
Mephibosheth is the child dropped by a nurse on the day of Gilboa 2 Samuel 4:4, now grown, living east of the Jordan in another man's house. He is out of sight for a reason: a lame grandson of Saul in the new capital would be either a hostage or a corpse, and he knows it.
He bowed down, and said, “What is your servant, that you should look at such a dead dog as I am?”
His self-description is the language of a man expecting a sentence. And David's answer had already been given before he could speak — don't be afraid — followed by three gifts: the family estate restored, a household of servants to work it, and a place at the king's table continually 2 Samuel 9:7 2 Samuel 9:10. The last is the greatest. Land is property; a seat at the table is a place in the family, and the narrator repeats it four times in thirteen verses.
Then Ziba said to the king, “According to all that my lord the king commands his servant, so your servant will do.” So Mephibosheth ate at the king’s table like one of the king’s sons.
The episode is one of the clearest pictures in the Old Testament of grace as Scripture defines it: sought out by the king, offered for the sake of another's covenant, given to a man who could not walk to it and had nothing to offer for it, and made permanent by a seat rather than a payment. The chapter's very last words are he was lame in both his feet 2 Samuel 9:13 — the disability is not cured, and it does not need to be. He eats at the table as he is.
Ziba, meanwhile, has been handed a fifteen-son estate to manage on behalf of a master he did not choose, and he is watching. His moment comes when the kingdom is falling apart 2 Samuel 16:3.
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