XIV. DAVID’S DEATHBED, AND MEPHIBOSHETH

We have now followed David through the events of his chequered life; it remains to contemplate him yet once more upon his death-bed, giving in charge the execution of his last wishes to Solomon his son. Probably in consideration of his youth, his inexperience, and the difficulties of his position, David thought it well to put him in possession of the characters of some of those with whom he would have to deal; of those whom he had found faithful or faithless to himself; that, on the one hand, his own promises of favour might not be forfeited, nor, on the other, the confidence of the young monarch be misplaced. Now it is remarkable, that in this review of his friends and foes, David altogether overlooks Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan. Joab he remembers, and all that he had done; Shimei he speaks of at some length, and puts Solomon upon his guard against him. The sons of Barzillai, and the service they had rendered him in the day of his adversity, are all recommended to his friendly consideration; but of Mephibosheth, who had played a part, such as it was, in the scenes of those eventful times, which had called forth, for good or evil, a Chimham, a Barzillai, a Shimei, and a Joab, he does not say a syllable. Yet he was under peculiar obligations to him. He had loved his father Jonathan. He had promised to show kindness to his house for ever. He had confirmed his promise by an oath. That oath he had repeated [1 Sam. 20:17.] . On his accession to the throne he had evinced no disposition to shrink from it; on the contrary, he had studiously inquired after the family of Jonathan, and having found Mephibosheth, he gave him a place at his own table continually, for his father’s sake, and secured to him all the lands of Saul [2 Sam. 9:6, 7.] .

Let us, however, carefully examine the details of the history, and I think we shall be able to account satisfactorily enough for David’s apparent neglect of the son of his friend; for I think we shall find violent cause to suspect that Mephibosheth had forfeited all claims to his kindness.

When David was driven from Jerusalem by the rebellion of Absalom, no Mephibosheth appeared to share with him his misfortunes, or to support him by his name, a name at that moment of peculiar value to David, for Mephibosheth was the representative of the house of Saul. David naturally intimates some surprise at his absence; and when his servant Ziba appears, bringing with him a small present of bread and fruits (the line of the king’s flight having apparently carried him near the lands of Mephibosheth), a present, however, offered on his own part, and not on the part of his master, David puts to him several questions, expressive of his suspicions of Mephibosheth’s loyalty: “What meanest thou by these? Where is thy master’s son?” [2 Sam. 9:6, 7.] Ziba replies in substance, that he had tarried at Jerusalem, waiting the event of the rebellion, and hoping that it might lead to the re-establishment of Saul’s family on the throne. This might be true, or it might be false. The commentators appear to take for granted that it was a mere slander of Ziba, invented for the purpose of supplanting Mephibosheth in his possessions. I do not think this so certain. Ziba, I suspect, had some reason in what he said, though probably the colouring of the picture was his own. Certain it is, or all but certain, that the tribe of Benjamin, which was the tribe of Mephibosheth, did, in general, take part with the rebels. When David returned victorious, and Shimei hastened to make his peace with him, a thousand men of Benjamin accompanied him; and it was his boast that he came the first of “all the house of Joseph” to meet the King [2 Sam. 19:17–20.] , as though others of his tribe (for they of Benjamin were reckoned of the house of Joseph, the same mother having given birth to both) were yet behind. Went not then the heart of Mephibosheth in the day of battle with his brethren, rather than with his benefactor? David himself evidently believed the report of Ziba, and forthwith gave him his master’s inheritance [2 Sam. 16:4.] . The battle is now fought, on which the fate of the throne hung in suspense, and David is the conqueror. And now, many who had forsaken, or insulted him in his distress, hasten to congratulate him on his triumph, and to profess their joy at his return; Mephibosheth amongst the rest. There is something touching in David’s first greeting of him; “Wherefore wentest thou not with me, Mephibosheth?” A question not of curiosity, but of reproach. His ass was saddled, forsooth, that he might go, but Ziba, it seems, had taken it for himself, and gone unto the King, and slandered him unto the King; and meanwhile, “thy servant was lame.” The tale appears to be as lame as the tale-bearer. I think it clear that Mephibosheth did not succeed in removing the suspicion of his disloyalty from David’s mind, notwithstanding the ostentatious display of his clothes unwashed and beard untrimmed; weeds which the loss of his estate might very well have taught him to put on: for otherwise, would not David, in common justice both to Mephibosheth and to Ziba, have punished the treachery of the latter—the lie by which he had imposed upon the King to his own profit, and to his master’s infinite dishonour and damage, by revoking altogether the grant of the lands which he had made him, under an impression which proved to be a mistake, and restoring them to their rightful owner, who had been injuriously supposed to have forfeited them by treason to the crown? He does, however, no such thing. To Mephibosheth, indeed, he gives back half, but that is all; and he leaves the other half still in the possession of Ziba; doing even thus much, in all probability, not as an act of justice, but out of tenderness to a son, even an unworthy son of Jonathan, whom he had loved as his own soul. And then, as if impatient of the wearisome exculpations of an ungrateful man, whose excuses were his accusations, he abruptly puts an end to the parley (the conversation having been apparently much longer than is recorded), with a “Why speakest thou any more of thy, matters? I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land.” [2 Sam. 19:29.]

Henceforward, whatever act of grace he received at David’s hands was purely gratuitous. His unfaithfulness had released the King from his bond; and that he lived, was perhaps rather of sufferance, than of right; a consideration which serves to explain David’s conduct towards him, as it is reported on an occasion subsequent to the rebellion. For when propitiation was to be made by seven of Saul’s sons, for the sin of Saul in the slaughter of the Gibeonites, “the king,” we read, “spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord’s oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul;” [2 Sam. 21:7.] as though he owed it to the oath only, and to the memory of his father’s virtues, that he was not selected by David as one of the victims of that bloody sacrifice.

Now, under these circumstances, is it a subject for surprise, is it not rather a most natural and veracious coincidence, that David, in commending on his deathbed some of his stanch and trustworthy friends to Solomon his son, should have omitted all mention of Mephibosheth, dissatisfied as he was, and ever had been, with his explanations of very suspicious conduct, at a very critical hour? considering him, with every appearance of reason, a waiter upon Providence, as such persons have been since called—a prudent man, who would see which way the battle went, before he made up his mind to which side he belonged? This coincidence is important, not merely as carrying with it evidence of a true story in all its details, which is my business with it; but also as disembarrassing the incident itself of several serious difficulties which present themselves, on the ordinary supposition of Ziba’s treachery, and Mephibosheth’s truth; difficulties which I cannot better explain, than by referring my hearers to the beautiful “Contemplations” of Bishop Hall, whose view of these two characters is the common one, and who consequently finds himself, in this instance (it will be perceived), encumbered with his subject, and driven to the necessity of impugning the justice of David. It is further valuable, as exonerating the King of two other charges which have been brought against him, yet more serious than the last, even of indifference to the memory of his dearest friend, and disregard to the obligations of his solemn oath. But these are not the only instances in which the character of David, and indeed of the history itself, which treats of him, has suffered from a neglect to make allowance for omissions in a very brief and desultory memoir, or from a want of more exact attention to the under-current of the narrative, which would, in itself, very often supply those omissions.