Who’s Telling the Truth?

Hello Everyone: 

We left off on Friday with the story of Shimei’s request for David’s forgiveness when he curse David and his men as they were leaving the city on the run from Absalom.  Today, we will study what Mephibosheth (Jonathan’s son) has to say concerning his actions of betrayal.

Here is the story:

II Samuel 19: 24 And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace. 25 And it came to pass, when he was come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said unto him, Wherefore wentest not thou with me, Mephibosheth? 26 And he answered , My lord, O king, my servant deceived me: for thy servant said , I will saddle me an ass, that I may ride thereon, and go to the king; because thy servant is lame. 27 And he hath slandered thy servant unto my lord the king; but my lord the king is as an angel of God: do therefore what is good in thine eyes. 28 For all of my father’s house were but dead men before my lord the king: yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table. What right therefore have I yet to cry any more unto the king? 29 And the king said unto him, Why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said , Thou and Ziba divide the land. 30 And Mephibosheth said unto the king, Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace unto his own house.  

Wow.. we see quite an interesting account than the one that Ziba told when he came out to meet David.   

Let’s review that story:

II Samuel 16:1 And when David was a little past the top of the hill, behold, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth met him, with a couple of asses saddled , and upon them two hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine. 2 And the king said unto Ziba, What meanest thou by these? And Ziba said , The asses be for the king’s household to ride on ; and the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat ; and the wine, that such as be faint in the wilderness may drink . 3 And the king said , And where is thy master’s son? And Ziba said unto the king, Behold, he abideth at Jerusalem: for he said , To day shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father. 4 Then said the king to Ziba, Behold, thine are all that pertained unto Mephibosheth. And Ziba said , I humbly beseech thee that I may find grace in thy sight, my lord, O king.

As you can see with the two stories, they are totally opposite.

According to Mephibosheth, he was told by Ziba to stay behind because of his lameness and he would go to David to bring him help and show him that he was loyal to him but when Ziba gets there, he betrays him and tells David that Mephibosheth thinks that God is going to restore the kingdom back to his household and was happy for David’s betrayal by his son.  David cuts Mephibosheth off and gives all his property to Ziba.   When Mephibosheth finally reaches David, he tells him that he has always been loyal to him and that he was grateful that he took him in and he would have never betrayed him.  The text does not expose which story was true and David splits the belongings between the two of them. 

What is interesting to note though is that Mephibosheth does not want the property and says that Ziba can keep it all because he was just excited that David was safely back home. 

Ummmmmm……. Which one do you think is telling the truth.

We will continue our journey on tomorrow.

Stay encouraged everyone and don’t forget to pray and read God’s word daily.

This entry was posted on 22. February 2010 at 15:14 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.