"Mephibosheth, Saul's grandson, also went down to meet the king. He had not taken care of his feet or trimmed his mustache or washed his clothes from the day the king left until the day he returned safely." (2 Samuel 19:24) You'll recall that Mephibosheth has been treated like one of the king's own sons ever since David had him brought out of obscurity in Lo-Debar as a way of honoring his friendship with Jonathan by treating the Jonathan's son like royalty. You'll also recall a deception perpetrated upon David by Saul's servant Ziba in regard to Mephibosheth. Ziba lied to David and said Mephibosheth didn't come out of Jerusalem with David because he wanted to stay and support Absalom. David now asks Mephibosheth to give an accounting of his actions. "When he came from Jerusalem to meet the king, the king asked him, 'Why didn't you go with me, Mephibosheth?'" (2 Samuel 19:25)
Here is where we find out Ziba not only lied to David but also tricked Mephibosheth into staying in Jerusalem so it would appear as if he backed Absalom's bid for the throne. "He said, 'My lord the king, since I your servant am lame, I said, 'I will have my donkey saddled and I will ride on it, so I can go with the king.' But Ziba my servant betrayed me. And he has slandered your servant to my lord the king. My lord the king is like an angel of God; so do whatever you wish. All my grandfather's descendants deserved nothing but death from my lord the king, but you gave your servant a place among those who eat at your table. So what right do I have to make any more appeals to the king?'" (2 Samuel 19:26-28) When David brought Mephibosheth to Jerusalem he restored the ancestral lands of King Saul's family to Mephibosheth and ordered Ziba and his fifteen sons and twenty servants to work the land for him. Since Mephibosheth had been lame in both feet since an injury at the age of five, he could not work the land himself. But when Ziba convinced David that Mephibosheth had betrayed him, David announced he was taking the land away from Mephibosheth and giving it to Ziba.
Confronted with a story which conflicts with the one Ziba gave him, David finds himself in a difficult situation. He was in deep distress when Ziba made false claims against Mephibosheth and in his distress he failed to take time to think things through. He hastily promised Ziba all of Mephibosheth's land. When he sees how much Mephibosheth has worried about him and mourned for him, I believe he can tell Mephibosheth is being truthful, but he doesn't entirely go back on his word to Ziba. Some scholars think this is because he is ashamed to fully take back his word because he is ashamed of having allowed himself to be deceived. Whatever the reason, he doesn't strip Ziba of all the land and place it back into Mephibosheth's hands but instead announces that half the land will go to one man and half to the other man. "The king said to him, 'Why say more? I order you and Ziba to divide the land.' Mephibosheth said to the king, 'Let him take everything, now that my lord the king has returned home safely.'" (2 Samuel 19:29-30)
I think David actually does divide the land; I doubt that he leaves Mephibosheth with nothing even though Mephibosheth says something like, "Ziba can have every acre for all I care. I care more about having you return to be our king than about all the lands of the world! I would have nothing at all if it weren't for you. Any other king who assumed the throne of my grandfather Saul would have put all of his descendants to death. After all, Saul was a deadly enemy to you! But you didn't seek me out to kill me; you sought me out to help me. No king on earth would have done what you did! It is enough for me that I'm invited to eat at your table every day. That's more than I ever expected to have and I can never repay you for it."
We see a picture of the way the Lord deals with us when we study this interaction between David and Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth was crippled by an accident; we were crippled by sin. Due to Mephibosheth's disabilities, he couldn't really do anything for David politically or militarily, yet David took him into his household and treated him like one of his own sons. When we were disabled by our sins we couldn't do anything for the Lord, yet while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8) so that by faith in Him we could become the children of God. King David did more for Mephibosheth than Mephibosheth ever expected or thought of or deserved; likewise the King of kings has done more for us than we ever expected or thought of or deserved. Mephibosheth is content just to eat at David's table in David's house where he can gaze upon the face of the one who turned him from being a nobody into being a somebody. This should be our attitude toward the One who took us when we were nobodies and made us into somebodies. David will write a psalm in which he says something to the Lord that is similar to what Mephibosheth says to him in today's text: "One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple." (Psalm 27:4) David says, "It is enough that He has saved me and made me one of His own. It is enough that I can go to His house and seek His face as a child looks to the face of his father."
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