2 Samuel 9 Bible study: At the king's table

The chapter opens with a question, not a battle: "Is there yet any who is left of Saul’s house, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?" (9:1) (tap kindness and sake). The reason goes back to 1 Samuel. When Saul was hunting David, Jonathan asked him, "You shall not only show me the loving kindness of the LORD while I still live, that I not die" (1 Samuel 20:14), "but you shall also not cut off your kindness from my house forever" (1 Samuel 20:15). "Jonathan caused David to swear again, for the love that he had for him" (1 Samuel 20:17), and at their parting Jonathan said, "we have both sworn in the LORD’s name, saying, ‘The LORD is between me and you, and between my offspring and your offspring, forever.’" (1 Samuel 20:42). Saul asked for the same: "Swear now therefore to me by the LORD that you will not cut off my offspring after me" (1 Samuel 24:21), and "David swore to Saul" (1 Samuel 24:22). Chapter 9 doesn't name the oath. David gives his reason in his own words, twice: "for Jonathan’s sake" (9:1), and to Jonathan's son, "for Jonathan your father’s sake" (9:7).

2 Samuel 9:13→leads toLuke 14:21

David sent for Jonathan's son, "lame in his feet" (9:3), and told him, "You will eat bread at my table continually" (9:7). "So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate continually at the king’s table. He was lame in both his feet" (9:13). In a parable Jesus told at a meal (Luke 14:1), "A certain man made a great supper" (Luke 14:16), and when the invited guests made excuses, he said to his servant, "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor, maimed, blind, and lame" (Luke 14:21). Luke doesn't cite 2 Samuel 9, so setting the two side by side is a reading, and it rests on what happens in both, a host who brings to his own table people who could not claim a place there, not on the shared English word lame. Some see the same thing in both: Mephibosheth asked, "What is your servant, that you should look at such a dead dog as I am?" (9:8), and the master sends for those who had not been invited. Others read each on its own terms: David gives his own reason, "for Jonathan’s sake" (9:1), while Jesus' host is "A certain man" (Luke 14:16), not a king, and the parable answers a guest who said, "Blessed is he who will feast in God’s Kingdom!" (Luke 14:15), with a warning about those first invited: "none of those men who were invited will taste of my supper" (Luke 14:24).

חֶסֶדchesedsay KHE-sed

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "goodness, kindness", including "kindness of men toward men, in doing favours and benefits", and of God, "lovingkindness in condescending to the needs of his creatures". The chapter has it three times, all in David's mouth: "that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake" (9:1), "that I may show the kindness of God to him" (9:3), and "I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father’s sake" (9:7). Each time the verb is asah, do; in 9:7 it is said twice, asoh e'eseh, which the WEB gives as "I will surely show". Jonathan had asked David for it: "you shall also not cut off your kindness from my house forever" (1 Samuel 20:15). The LORD had used it in his promise to David: "my loving kindness will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul" (7:15). In the next chapter David uses it again, of another son whose father has died: "I will show kindness to Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness to me" (10:2).