The Compassionate Lord

2 Samuel 9

Immanuel – 8/20/23

In 1 Samuel, David was homeless, he was hunted, he was hated; but he was never hopeless. For David was a man after God’s own heart, and God had anointed him to be king of Israel. Despite the chaos of David’s early years God was always with him, guiding the events, bringing him through considerable trials to seat him upon the throne.

Now in 2 Samuel, the crown is upon David’s head. Israel’s perennial enemies, the Philistines, have been subdued. The house of Saul, which had persecuted David for so many years, has all but vanished from Israel. There is now a sense of peace and victory and unity issuing forth from Jerusalem.

Additionally, David restored order and honor to Israel’s worship of Yahweh. And he wanted to do even more; he wanted to build Yahweh a house, a temple. This desire of David’s is the very pinnacle of his life; for it is in this moment that Yahweh delivers to David an absolutely glorious covenant, or promise. We call it the Davidic Covenant.

Last week Steve Covell did a tremendous job preaching on the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7.

In the Davidic Covenant, God promised that David would have a great name, that we would be a prince of peace over a land of peace, and that a son (or descendant) would come from David that would have an everlasting kingdom. David’s son will have a powerful relationship with God, he will bear iniquity, his faithfulness will be unrivaled, and he will be God’s beloved. David’s son will reign forever.

Some of these things were partially fulfilled in David’s life, some in David’s son Solomon’s life; but all the promises of the Davidic Covenant are entirely, eternally fulfilled in Jesus the Christ, the Son of David, the Son of God. The Davidic Covenant was delivered to David yet realized in Jesus.

Yes, 2 Samuel 7, and God’s great covenant promises to David, is the pinnacle of David’s story. Though we are skipping 2 Samuel 8, there is this wonderful sentence I want to direct your attention to: Look at verse 15.

So David reigned over all Israel. And David administered justice and equity to all his people. -2 Samuel 8:15

Chapter 9, where we find ourselves today, demonstrates the justice and equity that marked David’s reign. It also begins a section of 2 Samuel that explores David’s royal court, particularly his family. This section starts in chapter 9 and goes all the way to chapter 20.

I want to read what Walter Bruggemann writes about this section of Scripture.

2 Samuel 9-20 “dares to articulate the interior hurt, anguish, conflict, and ambiguity that operate in these hard-nose players of the royal game. It dares to affirm for all the public appearance of official reality, there is another dimension of reality in which the royal figures are utterly human in their hurt, their hate, and their hope. This literature is an invitation to see behind the ideology, to discern what humanness is all about when lived in the presence of this haunting God and in the presence of earthly power that invites, seduces, and destroys.”1

But before chapters 9-20 plunge us into scandal and pain, we are mercifully greeted by a story of compassion (or hesed) and grace; again, a shining example of David’s justice and equity.

Purpose

1. Define and unpack David’s hesed for Mephibosheth.

2. The hesed Christ has shown us, we are to show others.

Read vs 1

Someone to Hesed

Saul, the first king of Israel, had a tumultuous reign. He rejected the word of the Lord and was thus rejected by God. Since then, and through a decades long process, the house of Saul had utterly fallen. Nearly all the descendants of Saul were dead. It appears that David was unaware of any living survivors.

But because of a promise David made to Jonathan years ago, he wants to be completely sure. Jonathan, Saul’s son, was David’s closest friend. And back when they were both young men and accomplished warriors, David made a covenant with Jonathan, promising that he would always show steadfast love to the house of Jonathan (1 Samuel 20:14).

The Hebrew word for steadfast love or compassion is hesed. It’s the exact same word translated as kindness in verse 1 of our passage. David promised hesed to Jonathan’s house, and now that he is king and has the means to do so, David wants fulfill his promise of hesed for Jonathan’s sake.

But not knowing if Jonathan has any sons left, notice how David seeks anyone from Saul’s house. David’s hesed/steadfast love for Jonathan is so great that it overflows the boundaries of his covenant with Jonathan; even spilling upon the wider house of Saul – the house of his enemy.

David’s hesed/steadfast love/kindness is nothing short of miraculous; the expression of the Spirit of God which rested upon him.

Read vs 2-4

Somehow David gets word that Ziba, a former servant to Saul, may know of one of Saul’s living descendants. He summons him. When Ziba arrives in Jerusalem he immediately forsakes his former master and declares himself a servant of David. His loyalty does not lie with a dead house, but is pledged to the house of the living king.

Ziba knows of a remnant of the house of Saul, a crippled. Not just a remnant of Saul, but a living son of Jonathan. It was more than David could have hoped for.

The fact that this son is a cripple underscores why David did not know of him. It meant he couldn’t possibly hold any political or militaristic positions of power. Typical for cripples of that time, he had virtually no status. He wasn’t on anyone’s radar.

It’s notable that the text hasn’t even mentioned Mephibosheth’s name yet. It’s as if he is a no-name.

But how could David lose track of one of Jonathan’s sons? Because of what happened in the chaos following Saul and Jonathan’s death.

Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled, and as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth. -2 Samuel 4:4

If David had met Mephibosheth before, he was a boy without disability. But some terrible accident happened as he and his nurse fled for their lives. From that point forward Mephibosheth’s life was one of hiding, cut-off from the prominence of Saul’s house; and even if he came out of hiding at some point, his family was dead and his life was marked by obscurity.

In some sense, Mephibosheth probably wanted it this way, for the way of the world was for a new house of kings to slaughter the descendants of old house of kings. Mephibosheth had been too young to remember that the new king had made a covenant of hesed with his father. Instead, and sadly, the name David likely struck terror into the heart of Mephibosheth. He wanted to be forgotten.

But however much fear filled his heart, however much he preferred to stay hidden, no one can resist the call of the king. As the next verse says, the king brough Mephibosheth to himself.

Read vs 5-8

The King’s Agenda

When Mephibosheth comes before the king, verse 6 says that he fell on his face and honored David. Falling on his face before David would only have put on a display of disability. If this was an act of humility for an able-body person, how much more for Mephibosheth!

But the first person to speak the name of Mephibosheth is the king; and then David begins a salvation oracle with the words, “Do not fear.” Isn’t that exactly what Mephibosheth would have needed to hear? Truly! “Do not fear” are words that continually precede words of salvation in Scripture.

Then, for the sake of Jonathan, David promises Mephibosheth hesed – kindness, compassion, steadfast love. The king’s agenda is nothing that Mephibosheth could ever have imagined!

But hesed cannot just be words and promises. It must become action!

David then immediately confirms hesed towards Mephibosheth by restoring all of Saul’s land to him. In other words, in an instant Mephibosheth goes from an unknown, disgraced, cripple; to one of Israel’s most wealthy men – because David had chosen to love him.

And if this wasn’t generous enough, David gave Mephibosheth a breathtaking honor: a place at the king’s table. Verse 11 helps us to understand why this was such an honor.

Read 11b

David brought Mephibosheth into his court and made the son of Jonathan as his own son. Mephibosheth is now a part of the house of David; the same house that God had promised will endure forever.

When confronted with the king’s overwhelming hesed, look again how Mephibosheth responds in verse 8: What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?

Mephibosheth knows that he has not merited or deserved such a flood of hesed from the king. In fact, in any other situation, his bloodline meant that he deserved death. Thus, he labels himself a dead dog, painfully aware of his helpless and desperate estate.

Can you hear the eternal truths reverberating through this account? Can you see the foreshadowing of Christ?

Read vs 9-11a

Saul must have owned a significant number of fields, because it’s going to take Ziba, his 15 sons, and their 20 servants to tend them. Land and servants; truly, David has given Mephibosheth fabulous wealth.

With such wealth, Mephibosheth does not need to eat at David’s table. It’s not like he’s poor anymore. It’s purely for the sake of honor – for the sake of family.

Read vs 11b-13

All that David promised came to pass: Mephibosheth received honor, wealth, and family all because of David’s hesed love.

The passage ends by again stating that Mephibosheth was crippled. It’s a reminder that Mephibosheth deserved nothing he received. His condition barred him from any position of honor and it prevented him from working for wealth. In more than one way, he was unable to rise.

It’s a particularly ironic detail – that this lame man lived in Jerusalem – when you remember what happened when David first conquered Jerusalem. The Jebusites David defeated were sarcastically labeled blind and lame. And afterwards a saying was established in Jerusalem:

“The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.” -2 Samuel 5:8

And yet, here is David bringing a lame man into his house, making Mephibosheth a part of his household. It’s a final reminder that Mephibosheth received far more than he could ever ask or imagine. David’s generosity was extravagant.

Now, let us consider how David’s covenant love points towards God’s covenant love expressed through Jesus Christ. As Paul writes:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins…and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

-Ephesians 2:1,3-7

We are like Mephibosheth, sons of the enemy, children of wrath. As sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, our fallen bloodline earns for us death. But there was a covenant of hesed established before any of us had been born, a covenant ratified and sealed in the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of David. He promised, on His very life, that He would show us His lavish kindness, compassion, steadfast love in spite of our very many trespasses.

Now, because of God’s great love, because of His extravagant mercy, He takes us from our desperate and lifeless estate and He makes us come alive: truly alive now, truly alive forevermore!

But more than this, He seats us with Himself just as David seated Mephibosheth with himself. How much greater is our seat, not found in a fading city of earth, but forever established heaven’s highest heights! And now, and for all coming ages, the immeasurable riches of God’s grace and hesed are streaming towards us in the face of Jesus Christ.

What wonder! What unexpected glory! We were nothing but dead dogs. Now we are sons and daughters of God, brilliant with heaven’s glory, lavished with wealth that nothing can steal away.

Shall we not fall on our faces before this awesome King of all kings and cry out, “Behold, I am your servant!” Should it not be our delight to honor Christ with everything in our lives?

And what does this King call His servants to do?

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

-John 15:12

Hesed one another as Jesus has shown hesed towards us. We must understand that hesed, that the love Jesus calls us into, is not one we sit around and merely strategize about. It’s not a love that never moves from our mouths to our hands. As John also wrote elsewhere:

Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth. -1 John 3:18

David’s covenant hesed was not just a promise made in the past. It was love that demanded action, over and abounding action. It was love so obvious that no one could deny it. Hesed is nothing if there is no action. Likewise, love/kindness/compassion is nothing if there is no action.

But I know, loving people is hard. Loving someone who is not like you can be so incredibly difficult – whether it’s a disability, or a socioeconomic difference, or a cultural difference, or even a difference of opinion. Such love wars with all of your selfish desires for ease and routine and pride.

But in those moments, when we seem to have no more love left, let us remember:

We love because He first loved us. -1 John 4:19

When our hearts are empty and cold, all we must do is bring them again to Christ. We must remember once more the incredible love that He has shown us, the life He gave for us, the incredible riches of grace He has lavished upon these children of wrath, these dead dogs. We will only be able to love when we remember, and our hearts are filled afresh with the hesed given to us in Christ Jesus our King.

Look upon Christ, and then ask, “Is there anyone in the house of my enemy that I may show hesed for the sake of my King?” Ask yourself if you are willing to bring someone into your family that is socially crippled, poor, a no-name? Christ was willing; for here you sit.

1Brueggemann, W. (1990). First and Second Samuel. Pg 266. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press.