2 Samuelchapter 9
13 verses · Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition · 10th century BC · History
And David said unto him, Fear not: for I will surely shew thee kindness for Jonathan thy father’s sake, and will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually.
Introduction
Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition, History, 2 Samuel Overview.
This short chapter begins the second part of David's story, and it begins with a question about kindness. Its first hearers knew what usually happened to the family of a fallen dynasty. They also knew the promise David and Jonathan had sworn to each other years before. The chapter is quiet, set at court, with no battle in it. Listen for the word kindness and for whose kindness David says he wants to show. Watch how the man brought before the king speaks of himself, and where he is seated at the end.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who expected a new dynasty to hunt the old one rather than feed it
- What
- David's search for a survivor of Saul's house, and his gift of Saul's land and a place at the king's table to Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son.
- Where
- The palace in Jerusalem, and Lo-debar in Gilead east of the Jordan, where Mephibosheth had been living.
- When
- About 995 BC, in the settled years after the wars of chapter 8, reckoned from the forty years of 5:4.
- Why
- To show David keeping his sworn loyalty to Jonathan, and to show the grace of a king to a man who expected to die.
Historical context
The chapter is David's, in the years when the kingdom was secure and the wars of chapter 8 were behind him. He was king over all Israel and had been for some time, which is why he can dispose of a dead rival's estate in a sentence.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
The place matters twice. Jerusalem is the court, and Lo-debar is a town in Gilead east of the Jordan, well beyond the capital's reach, which is where a surviving heir would logically be kept. Machir son of Ammiel, who was sheltering him, appears again at 17:27 supplying David during the flight from Absalom.
The occasion is an oath. David had sworn covenant loyalty to Jonathan at 1 Samuel 20:14 and 20:15, and the chapter is that oath being paid years later to Jonathan's son.
A first hearer knew what usually happened next. When a new house took a throne in that world, the surviving males of the old house were killed, because any one of them could become the banner for a revolt. Mephibosheth arrives expecting to die, and calls himself a dead dog at 9:8.
A first hearer also knew what the word behind David's question meant. Chesed is the steady faithfulness owed under a binding promise, and it is the same word the LORD uses at 7:15 for a loyalty that will not be withdrawn.
Two gifts are given and they do different work. The estate gave Mephibosheth an income, and the seat at the king's table gave him honour and put him where the king could see him daily. In court life that arrangement was generosity and supervision at once.
Significance
The reversal would land first. A man with ruined feet, hidden in a backwater, is carried into the palace and seated among the king's sons.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The chapter also settles a political question quietly. 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.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus for this chapter holds twenty-four commentary entries and eight rabbinic locators. Three entries carry English text under a licence that permits quotation, and all three are Rashi in the Metsudah translation, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY, cited below by ref alone. Radak stands at eight further places, Metzudat David at seven and Malbim at six, with no English version, so those twenty-one are cited and never quoted. The chapter about kindness to the house of Saul draws a thin file, and the part below is short because the corpus is short.
The one substantial comment is about royal power rather than about kindness. When David hands Saul's land to Jonathan's son, Rashi asks how a king may move an estate from one owner to another. He answers from the law of the king in the earlier book, which gives the crown power to take fields and vineyards and give them to its servants (Rashi on II Samuel 9:9:1). The edition's note records the dispute behind the answer, between the view that the powers listed there are the king's in fact and the view that they were stated to make the people fear him. The classical reading therefore treats this chapter as a lawful act of a king as well as an act of faithfulness to a covenant with Jonathan.
Rashi's other two comments are plain readings of who is speaking. He divides one verse between two speakers, the servant answering the king and the king replying about the table (Rashi on II Samuel 9:11:1). He identifies the household named at the end as the servant's own children and slaves (Rashi on II Samuel 9:12:1). Malbim, Metzudat David and Radak stand at almost every verse without English text, among them Malbim on II Samuel 9:1:1, Metzudat David on II Samuel 9:7:1 and Radak on II Samuel 9:3:1.
What the rabbis say
Eight locators stand on this chapter in the corpus, five from the Midrash and three from the Talmud, every one of them a locator without text. The house of Machir at Lo-debar, where Jonathan's son was found, draws Shabbat 56a:14 and Ein Yaakov, Shabbat 5:13. The coming of Jonathan's son before the king draws Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Nezikin 13:15. The grant of Saul's land draws Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Teitzei 1:1 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Ki Teitzei 1:1. The charge to the servant to work the land draws Yevamot 62a:14 and Jerusalem Talmud Yevamot 2:6:3. Eight locators is what this chapter holds, and the part is not padded to match the chapters around it.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Samuel 9:9:1, 9:11:1 and 9:12:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Radak, Radak on II Samuel 9:3:1 and seven further places, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Samuel 9:7:1 and six further places, cited only; Malbim, Malbim on II Samuel 9:1:1 and five further places, cited only; The Midrash and the Talmud on this chapter, Shabbat 56a:14; Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Nezikin 13:15; Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Teitzei 1:1; Yevamot 62a:14; Jerusalem Talmud Yevamot 2:6:3, as the corpus records them.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Is there yet any left of the house of Saul?
2 Samuel 9:1-2
shew him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?: 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
“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 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
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 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
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say Ziba was the steward of Saul's land, the servant who knew who was left of the house. Barnes says Josephus names him one of Saul's freedmen.
2 Samuel 9:3-4
shew the kindness of God unto him?: 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.
John Gill traces this Machir to the family of Machir son of Manasseh, who received the land of Gilead. Albert Barnes notes that the same Machir fed David and his army when the king fled from Absalom. David's kindness came back to him.
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.).”
2 Samuel 9:5-6
fetched him out of the house of Machir: 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.
2 Samuel 9:5
“Then King David sent,.... Messengers; it may be Ziba, none being more proper than he that knew him, and where he was: and fetched him out of the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, from Lodebar; they demanded him in the king's name, and being delivered to them, they brought him from thence to Jerusalem.”
A lame heir eats at the king's table continually
David greets him by name. Henry says David remembered the name, Jonathan's son having been born about the time of their friendship. Barnes says he fell facedown in fear and could scarcely believe such kindness to the house of Saul.
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 Samuel 9:7-8
eat bread at my table continually: 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
“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
Barnes says the dog of the verse was the wild dog of Eastern towns, a common object of contempt. He finds the words painful even from a servant. Barnes traces them to a young man lame in both feet, who had lost his father and his grandfather's house.
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.”
2 Samuel 9:9-10
all that pertained to Saul and to all his house: 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
“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.”
Adam Clarke reads the harvest as the support of the household and of Mica, while Mephibosheth himself ate at the king's table. Matthew Henry reckons him well placed to grow rich. Much came in, and he had little to spend.
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
1 more voice on this verse
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
2 Samuel 9:11-13
as one of the king’s sons: 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
“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.”
1 more voice on this verse
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
Mephibosheth was five years old when Saul died. Albert Barnes reckons from that age that a son of his places the chapter near the tenth year of David's reign. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the line of Jonathan lived on through Mica.
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).”
Adam Clarke notes that his lameness left Mephibosheth fit for no public office in Jerusalem. David gave him a seat at the royal table instead, with every mark of respect. The chapter names his feet a second time.
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
How this psalm is built
The form: A narrative of covenant kindness, in which a king pays an old oath to the surviving son of the man he swore it to, as Samuel classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The question raised the second time | David asks the same question twice and raises it on the second asking. At 9:1 he asks whether anyone of Saul's house is left to whom he can show kindness for Jonathan's sake. At 9:3 he asks for one to whom he can show the kindness of God. John Gill and Adam Clarke both read the second phrase as kindness measured by God's own scale rather than by a king's ordinary favour.John Gill and Adam Clarke, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Samuel 9:3, as this site's published exposition note on verses 3 and 4 reports them. | 2 Samuel 9:1, 2 Samuel 9:3 |
| The table repeated four times | The seat at the king's table is stated at 9:7, repeated in the orders given to Ziba at 9:10, reported as fact at 9:11, and made the reason for where Mephibosheth lives at 9:13. The land is named once and the table four times, which is how the chapter weights the two gifts. | 2 Samuel 9:7, 2 Samuel 9:10, 2 Samuel 9:11, 2 Samuel 9:13 |
| The lameness stated at the beginning and at the end | Ziba names Mephibosheth as lame in both feet at 9:3, and the chapter's last clause says again that he was lame in both feet. The fact that first marked him as useless to a court is the last thing the reader is told about a man eating as one of the king's sons. No commentator in the store's quotation pool is cited for the pairing, and the repetition is plain in the Berean text of both verses. | 2 Samuel 9:3, 2 Samuel 9:13 |
| The household counted out | The chapter breaks its narrative once to count Ziba's household at fifteen sons and twenty servants. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read that figure as the working staff the estate needed, so the grant at 9:9 is a farm with hands on it rather than an allowance.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on 2 Samuel 9:9 and 9:10, as this site's published exposition note on verses 9 and 10 reports them. | 2 Samuel 9:10 |
What the chapter answers
11 more paragraphs on the patterns
The question a first reader brings is why a new king would look for an heir of the house he replaced. Adam Clarke states the ordinary expectation plainly and reads political calculation into the delay, holding that reasons of state had kept David from making the enquiry sooner. The answer the chapter gives is the oath, named twice, and nothing else.
The name, and the two forms of it
Mephibosheth stands in Chronicles as Merib-baal, and Ish-bosheth stands there as Esh-baal. Albert Barnes explains the difference as the substitution of bosheth, shame, for baal across the transmission of Saul's line, and this site's published exposition note on verses 5 and 6 carries his reading. The point matters for a student comparing the two books, since the same man is being named twice.
The historical value
Lo-debar and the house of Machir son of Ammiel stand east of the Jordan in Gilead, and Machir appears again at 17:27 supplying David during the flight from Absalom. The chapter therefore names a real household with a recorded second appearance, which is how the book usually handles its minor figures.
A grant of royal land with a named steward working it on shares is the ordinary form of such a settlement. Adam Clarke reads 9:10 as leaving Ziba half the produce for his labour, so the arrangement pays the informer as well as the heir.
The debated point
The text does not say why Mephibosheth was living in Lo-debar rather than on his own land, and it does not say who had been holding Saul's estate in the years between. The commentators supply answers of different kinds, Clarke reading a political silence on David's part and Wesley reading simple ignorance, and the chapter itself states neither.
This site's published dossier for the book carries no contested point on chapter 9. A reader after the estate's argued questions on the house of Saul is sent to the Rizpah page, which takes up 21:1 to 21:14.
The pattern the chapter sets
A man who cannot walk is carried into the presence of the king who had every political reason to kill him, and is told twice not to be afraid. The older commentators read the scene as a picture of grace given to one who could not have asked for it, and this site's published exposition note on verses 7 and 8 records that reading.
Keep studying
Places1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on 2 Samuel 9:9 and 9:10, where the size of Ziba's household is read as the equipage that lets Mephibosheth live as a king's son; This site's published guide to 2 Samuel, src/components/book/guides/2-samuel/Book2SamuelGuide.tsx, act II, the beat at chapter 9 and This site's published theology of 2 Samuel, src/components/book/dossier-content/2-samuel.ts, the theology entry "Chesed, the loyalty that outlives a house", which reads 9:1 and 9:3 with 7:15 and 22:51 as one word carried through the book.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; 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; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.