2 Samuelchapter 9
13 verses · BSB2 Samuel book hub →
Key verse
“Do not be afraid,” said David, “for surely I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.”
It stands in scene B of the chapter, verses 6 to 13.
The chapter
Chapter summary
David asks whether any of Saul's house is left, that he may show him the kindness of God for Jonathan's sake, a search for someone to bless, in a dynasty that usually searched for rivals to kill. Ziba names Jonathan's son, lame of his feet, living in Lo-debar. Mephibosheth comes and falls on his face; David tells him not to fear, restores all the land of Saul, assigns Ziba's household to farm it, and adds the sentence the chapter is remembered for: 'thou shalt eat bread at my table continually.' Mephibosheth keeps the scale straight, what is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am? He was lame in both his feet.
Context
History · Nathan, Gad · 2 Samuel overview
Where the chapter sits
2 Samuel 9 falls in Rise: David over all Israel (chapters 1–10). Lament for Saul; anointing at Hebron; capture of Jerusalem; ark brought up; the Davidic covenant (ch. 7); Nathan's oracle; the Ammonite wars.
After it: The Fall: Bathsheba and Uriah, chapters 11–12.
The whole shape of 2 Samuel→The world behind this chapter
2 Samuel 9The history
When a new dynasty took a throne in that world, the surviving males of the old one were killed. It was not cruelty for its own sake; it was insurance, since any of them could become the banner for a revolt. Everyone hearing this chapter knew that, and so did Mephibosheth, which is why he arrives expecting to die.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The word behind David's question, the kindness he owes for Jonathan's sake, is the Hebrew word for covenant loyalty. It means the steady faithfulness you owe someone because of a binding promise, not a warm feeling. David had sworn to Jonathan; the oath outlived the man.
Lo-debar was a place east of the Jordan, well out of Jerusalem's reach, which is where a hidden heir would logically be kept. Ziba appears as the steward of Saul's estate, with fifteen sons and twenty servants of his own, a large working farm, the kind of holding a king's family left behind.
The land is restored and eating at the king's table is added on top. Both halves matter: the estate gave him income, and the seat at the table gave him honor and put him where the king could see him every day. In court life that arrangement was generosity and supervision at once.
What it meant to them
First hearers would feel the reversal immediately. The man with the ruined feet, hidden in a backwater, is carried into the palace and seated among the king's sons.
It also quietly settles a political question. By restoring the land and keeping the heir in plain view, David closes off any faction that wanted to raise Saul's grandson as a rival.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
A. Is there yet any left of the house of Saul?
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.David's question opens the covenant he swore to Jonathan at 1 Samuel 20:14-15, an oath he has kept in memory through years on the throne. He does not ask for Jonathan's house by name, since he does not yet know a son survived, and Wesley reads the silence as honest ignorance rather than neglect. Ziba surfaces first as Saul's own servant, the man who will carry the story to Lo-debar and back.
2 Samuel 9:1, 3 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
2 Samuel 9:1
“Is there yet any that is left - David recollecting the covenant made with his friend Jonathan, now inquires after his family. It is supposed that political considerations prevented him from doing this sooner. Reasons of state often destroy all the charities of life.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Samuel 9:1-7
“David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul--On inquiry, Saul's land steward was found, who gave information that there still survived Mephibosheth, a son of Jonathan who was five years old at his father's death, and whom David, then wandering in exile, had never seen.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Samuel 9:1
“Of Saul - He saith not of the house of Jonathan, for he knew not of any son he had left, and therefore thought his kindness and obligation was to pass to the next of his kindred. As for Mephibosheth, he was very young and obscure, and possibly concealed by his friends, lest David should cut him off, as hath been usual among princes.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2. (vv. 3-4)
a.David asks to shew the kindness of God unto him, the only place that exact phrase occurs in the Old Testament, and Gill and Clarke both read it as kindness measured by God's own scale rather than an ordinary king's favor. Ziba answers with the one fact David needs, that Jonathan has a son, lame on his feet, living far off in Lo-debar in Gilead. The house of Saul that seemed to end in the wars of the earlier chapters turns out to have one branch still standing.
2 Samuel 9:3, 1 voice
2 Samuel 9:3
“And the king said, is there not yet any of the house of Saul; that is, remaining or living: that I may show the kindness of God unto him? great kindness, some large favour or benefit; for the word God added to things, as to trees, mountains, &c. serves to set forth the excellency of them; and this kindness is in imitation of God, or such as he had sworn in the presence of God to show; and that is expressed in the same language, 1Sa 20:14, and Ziba said unto the king, Jonathan hath yet a son; a son still living: which is lame on his feet; on both his feet, as the Targum; of which occasion; see Gill on 2Sa 4:”
2 Samuel 9:4, 2 voices
2 Samuel 9:4
“And the king said unto him, where is he?.... In what part of the land, city, or town, does he dwell? and Ziba said unto the king, behold, he is in the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel; a descendant of Machir, the son of Manasseh, to whom the land of Gilead was given, which lay on the other side Jordan: in Lodebar; a place in that country, perhaps the same with Debir in Jos 13:”
2 Samuel 9:4
“David reaped the fruit of his kindness to Mephibosheth, for, when he fled from Absalom, Machir, the son of Ammiel, was one of those who were most liberal in providing him and his army with necessaries (marginal reference). According to 1Ch 3:5, Ammiel (called inversely Eliam, 2Sa 11:3) was the father of Bath-sheba. If this be the same Ammiel, Machir would be Bath-sheba’s brother. However, the name is not a very uncommon one (Num 13:12; 1Ch 26:5, etc.).”
3. (v. 5)
2 Samuel 9:5-6
a.David sends for Mephibosheth rather than waiting for him to come, and the young man falls on his face before a king who has every political reason to fear him and none to spare him. His name follows the same pattern Chronicles later shows for Saul's whole household, where Ish-bosheth appears as Esh-baal and Mephibosheth as Merib-baal, and Barnes explains it as the substitution of bosheth, shame, for baal across the line's transmission. The scene answers a fear neither man speaks aloud, for a new king's rivals do not usually live long.
B. A lame heir eats at the king's table continually
1. (v. 6)
2 Samuel 9:6, 1 voice
2 Samuel 9:6
“Mephibosheth - Also called Merib-baal (and Meri-baal, probably by a clerical error, 1Ch 9:40). The two names seem to have the same meaning: Bosheth, shame, being the equivalent for Baal, and Mephi (scattering or destroying, being equivalent to Merib (contending with). Compare Ish-bosheth and Esh-baal, Jerub-baal and Jerub-besheth. He fell on his face - In fear. Such generosity to a fallen rival as David showed in restoring him his paternal property seemed to him scarcely credible.”
2. (vv. 7-8)
a.David restates the ground of his kindness, for Jonathan thy father's sake, and restores the land of Saul along with a permanent seat at his own table. Mephibosheth answers by calling himself a dead dog, the language of the lowest contempt in that world, and Wesley reads the bowed posture as a humbled heart matching a humbled condition. The distance between what David offers and what Mephibosheth expects is the chapter's whole argument, and the older writers read it as grace given to one who could not have asked for it.
2 Samuel 9:7, 1 voice
2 Samuel 9:7
“Will restore thee all the land - I believe this means the mere family estate of the house of Kish, which David as king might have retained, but which most certainly belonged, according to the Israelitish law, to the descendants of the family.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Samuel 9:8, 1 voice
2 Samuel 9:8
“Mephibosheth’s humility of expression, even in the mouth of an Oriental, is painful. It was perhaps in part the result of his helpless lameness, and of the other misfortunes of his life. A dead dog - The wild dogs of the East, which still abound in every town, are the natural objects of contempt and dislike.”
3. (vv. 9-10)
a.David turns from Mephibosheth to Ziba and hands over the whole estate in one sentence, then sets Ziba's own household, fifteen sons and twenty servants, to work it. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the size of that household as the very equipage that will let Mephibosheth live as one of the king's sons rather than simply receive an income. Clarke notes that Ziba keeps half the produce for his labor, so the arrangement rewards the servant who told David the truth as well as the son David chose to honor.
2 Samuel 9:9, 1 voice
2 Samuel 9:9
“Saul’s servant - Josephus calls him one of Saul’s freedmen. The difference this would make in Ziba’s position would only be that instead of paying in the fruits of the confiscated land to David, he would have to pay them to Mephiboseth.”
2 Samuel 9:10, 2 voices
2 Samuel 9:10
“Thou therefore, and thy sons - shall till the land - It seems that Ziba and his family had the care of the whole estate, and cultivated it at their own expense, yielding the half of the produce to the family of Mephibosheth. Ziba was properly the hind, whose duty and interest it was to take proper care of the ground, for the better it was cultivated the more it produced; and his half would consequently be the greater.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Samuel 9:10
Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants--The mention of his sons and the slaves in his house was to show that Mephibosheth would be honored with an equipage "as one of the king's sons."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
4. (vv. 11-13)
a.Ziba agrees to the terms, and the chapter states its own outcome twice over, that Mephibosheth eats at David's table as one of the king's sons. Henry reads David's kindness here as a figure of the kindness of Christ toward those who bring nothing of their own to the relationship, since David owed Jonathan a debt he was under no obligation to repay in kind to the son. The chapter closes on the ordinary furniture of a settled life, a son named Micha and a household of servants, and one clause that will not let the reader forget how the man arrived, lame on both his feet, eating continually at a king's table.
2 Samuel 9:11, 2 voices
2 Samuel 9:11
“Said the king - There is nothing in the Hebrew to warrant the insertion of these words. The words are: “So Mephibosheth ate at my table as one of the king’s sons.” Only it follows that the narrator is David himself.”
2 Samuel 9:11
“How unfaithful Ziba was to him we shall find afterwards, ch. xvi. Now because David was a type of Christ, his Lord and son, his root and offspring, let his kindness to Mephibosheth serve to illustrate the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards fallen man, which yet he was under no obligation to, as David was to Jonathan.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 9:12, 1 voice
2 Samuel 9:12
“Mephibosheth was five years old at Saul’s death. He may have been thirteen at David’s accession to the throne of Israel. In the eighth year of David’s reign over all Israel he would have been twenty-one. His having a son at this time indicates that we are about the 10th year of David’s reign. Micha - Or Micah; who, as far as we know, was Mephibosheth’s only son, and had a numerous posterity (marginal references).”
2 Samuel 9:13, 1 voice
2 Samuel 9:13
“Did eat continually at the king’s table - He was fit for no public office, but was treated by the king with the utmost respect and affection.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on 2 Samuel 9. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley and Matthew Henry.
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