2 Samuel 8-9

[0:00] Well, let's have a word of prayer as we enter the word. Lord, we do praise you for our time together again. Lord, we thank you that you've given us your eternal word that is unchanging.

[0:11] We thank you, Lord, that you have spoken very definitely, very definitively to humans, to us. Lord, we thank you that you've given us your word that is dependable, that we can indeed trust with our very lives.

[0:27] Lord, as we enter your word, we do so knowing that we need your Holy Spirit to rightly understand it. Lord, I do pray, God, that you would be with me as I seek to expound this word.

[0:40] I pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would speak through me, because I know that it is not my word, it is yours. So please speak, Lord, and give us all hearts that are ready to receive from you.

[0:52] In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Well, we are continuing through our study in the books of Samuel.

[1:03] We've been all the way through, well actually we've been all the way through Judges and Ruth and 1 Samuel, and now we're in 2 Samuel. And if you're new and you would like to catch up, then I commend to you our website, where you will find them all of varying degrees of quality.

[1:20] And, well, so far in 2 Samuel we've seen David finally ascending to the throne of Israel, and we did see recently some missteps where he was initially trying to move the Ark of the Covenant, you may remember that holy box, if it's not irreverent to call it that, that represented the very presence of God into the new capital, Jerusalem.

[1:51] And then David understood where he had gone wrong, and then he repented and he did it right, which is an excellent model for all of us. When we realise we've gone wrong, repent, and then do right. And then we saw in the last chapter, which was chapter 7, the great covenant between God and David, that it said, the Lord had given him rest on every side from all his enemies, which is a remarkable statement.

[2:18] Just a few years prior, probably 10 to 15 years maybe, I'm not sure, but the Philistines had given Saul such a pounding.

[2:30] And, you know, at the time I was wondering, you know, why didn't the Philistines just finish the job? And the answer is, of course, because God did not let them. But Israel was absolutely humbled, and now the Lord has given him rest from every side.

[2:45] A miracle, for sure. And then in that rest we saw David's heart was moved to build a house for God, a temple. And Tony took us through that chapter last time, and I won't rehearse all of that.

[2:58] But there was one thing that I wanted to remind us of. If you look back at verse 12 in chapter 7, I'm just going to read very quickly from there.

[3:11] God is speaking, and he says to David, verse 12, chapter 7, When your days are finished, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from you, and I will establish his kingdom.

[3:26] He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. When he does wrong, I will discipline him with the rod of men, and with strokes of the sons of mankind.

[3:40] But my favour shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from you. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever.

[3:52] Amen. And your throne shall be established forever. Amen again. And this has a dual fulfilment. Of course, Solomon is the direct fulfilment.

[4:03] Solomon is the son, the immediate son of David. And in his reign, God established him. There was unprecedented peace for Israel, which we'll get to in the coming chapters.

[4:16] And he indeed did build the house, the temple. And he did go astray, and he was disciplined, as it were. We'll read about how the Lord raised up adversaries in 1 Kings.

[4:29] But, secondly, Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfilment, because it is his kingdom that is indeed established forever. He is building a house in the name of God, and it's called the church, and it's here today.

[4:44] And we are living stones of that building. And, indeed, he did receive the strokes of the sons of mankind. He was scourged and crucified for us.

[4:55] But one other thing I wanted to point out from that chapter is a little bit of a contrast. Verse 9 of chapter 7, God says, I have eliminated all your enemies from you.

[5:06] And then verse 11 says, I will give you rest from your enemies. And you think, hang on, which is it? And the answer is, it's a bit of an already-but-not-yet kind of a deal.

[5:17] God has dealt with Saul, and he has brought the kingdom over to David. There were enemies left in, you know, camp Saul, as it were, and the Lord has dealt with them. And God is helping David continually, and that's what we will read today.

[5:35] But I would argue that that rest from all your enemies must be understood in a prophetic sense. Because Israel remains at war to this very day. If you've turned on the news, you may have noticed.

[5:47] And if Trump's 20-point plan is successful, that's hardly going to mean the end of war for Israel, is it? I was mentioning as we were praying this morning that last night President Trump said that if Hamas agrees to this withdrawal line that he sketched out in all the terms, then the hostage exchange will go ahead, and then the next phrase will, quote, bring us close to the end of this 3,000-year catastrophe.

[6:15] I was like, hmm, I don't know that it will until Jesus Christ comes, Mr. Trump. But it will. He will. And that's the prophecy that we see in the text.

[6:26] We have to see that. Only in Christ, in that coming millennial reign, when Christ himself reigns from this re-established Davidic throne in Jerusalem, will that true rest come.

[6:39] And actually, you could argue, based on this verse here, 1 Corinthians 15-26, the last enemy to be abolished is death. And that will come in eternity.

[6:52] And then we will have rest from all our enemies. And we could close the sermon there with that truth. But we'll continue. So, as we get into chapter 8, it's important for us to realise that this is generally regarded as a summary of campaigns over a chunk of David's life, rather than understood as happening A, then B, then C.

[7:12] We're going to read in this chapter David defeating the Arameans and the king of Zobah. But then the Arameans of Zobah are defeated again in chapter 10.

[7:25] And it may be that this is the same battle described in summary today and in detail in chapter 10. It could be that they are different battles. But if they are different battles, probably the one in chapter 10 comes before the one in 8.

[7:39] Because today's one is very definitive, it would seem. I've got a map for you. I realise this is probably going to be completely illegible. So I apologise. But it will be in the notes.

[7:50] I've got a nice high-resolution image that I'll put on the sermon when I upload it. But what you'll notice is that Israel... So here's Jerusalem, David's capital.

[8:01] And you'll notice that the enemies are coming from all directions. You've got the Philistines coming over from the west. You've got Edom is in the south. Moab coming from the east. And Zobah is way up there in the north.

[8:13] So all points of the compass are coming against Israel. And it kind of reminded me of this, which is another time in Israel's more recent history when Israel faced enemies from all sides.

[8:29] This was the Sixth Day War. And this image is of the events leading up to that war. And you can see, again, we've got Egypt coming over from the west. You've got Iraq and Iran coming over from the east.

[8:43] And you've got Syria coming down from the north. And plus, ça change. There's a link here that you don't need to worry about squibbling down.

[8:55] But I just found this amazing article about that war in particular. Six days for Israel to not only repel their enemies coming from all directions, but actually to take significant ground from them as well.

[9:09] The newspaper Haaretz quoted one military correspondent as saying, quote, quote, even a non-religious person must admit this war was fought with the help of heaven. And I thought, wow, may Israel indeed see that in these days as well.

[9:23] But yeah, there's a link there. It's a very interesting article. And again, it will be in the notes. Now we're ready. Chapter 8, verse 1. Now it happened afterward that David defeated the Philistines and subdued them.

[9:38] And David took control of the chief city from the hand of the Philistines. Now, when we read chapter 5, we read of this resounding victory against the Philistines.

[9:51] And I think I said at the time that this is the last we hear from them for a while. Apologies, I must have missed this reference. I was wrong. However, this does seem to be something of a mop-up exercise.

[10:03] We didn't read in that verse that the Philistines attacked and that David had to ward them off. What we read is that David went and struck them and brought them under submission.

[10:15] The NASB, from which I am studying and we're reading today, the New American Standard Bible, has a footnote there that says, Chief City literally takes the bridle of the mother city.

[10:28] Other Bibles will assume that that is actually a place name and you'll read Metheg HaAma or Metheg Amma. English Standard, King James, follow that approach.

[10:40] The Septuagint Bible, which is a very ancient Greek translation, I find it very helpful for seeing how the Hebrew was understood in history, in antiquity.

[10:50] And there the author put, or the translators put, that David took the lands marked off from them. Interesting. What I think is more interesting is the parallel passage.

[11:02] 1 Chronicles 18 is our parallel passage, by the way, for this morning. And there in verse 1 it says that David defeated the Philistines and subdued them and took Gath and its towns from the hand of the Philistines.

[11:15] So it's Gath. Gath is the chief city. And interestingly, the word towns there in 1 Chronicles 18 is the word bat. Does anyone know what that means?

[11:26] Daughter. Correct. It means its Gath and her daughters. So the idea of a mother city actually seems to be quite well founded. The bridle of the mother city then, the literal reading of the Hebrew, seems to be actually what the author meant to bring forward.

[11:45] And bridle, of course, would mean took control. Hence, the New American translation, I think, is good. And with this, the Philistines are indeed subdued for years to come. Verse 2, the Moabites.

[11:59] Verse 2. And he defeated Moab and measured them with a line, making them lie down on the ground. And he measured two lines to put to death and a full line to keep alive. And the Moabites became servants to David, bringing tribute.

[12:14] Now, this is strange. Why would David strike Moab? A little bit of history. Moab and his brother Ben-Ami are the two sons of Lot, Abraham's nephew.

[12:26] They are the fathers of the Moabites and the Ammonites, respectively. So they extended family to Israel. And we've met a famous Moabite.

[12:37] Her name was Ruth. And she is, in fact, David's great-grandmother. So why does David come against them now? Actually, one other detail that I wasn't aware until I went back and reread this.

[12:50] In 1 Samuel 22, verse 3, when David was fleeing from Saul, he left his parents, Jesse and Jesse's wife, with the Moabites.

[13:03] And he went to the king of Moab and said, please, can I leave my parents here? So their relationship was good. So why does David strike them now? I've got no idea.

[13:17] And commentators don't really have a clue either. Well, what we can say is that the Moabites are Israel's, or are among Israel's, perennial enemies.

[13:30] They are historically hostile. If you remember the story of Balak and Balaam from Numbers 22, then it is Balak, the king of Moab, who is trying to curse Israel.

[13:43] Judges 3 has got the king by the name of Eglon, a very fat man, if memory serves, king of the Moabites. So the Moabites are famous for coming against Israel.

[13:57] And indeed, Saul warred against both Moab and Ammon in his days. And looking ahead, you could look at Isaiah 15 and 16. You could look at Jeremiah 48. You could look at the book of Amos and Zephaniah.

[14:08] And they all speak of the future fate of Moab. And so it's quite conceivable that David, being aware of both ancient history for him and recent history for him, he sees them as a risk.

[14:21] And again, if you refer back to the map, they are right on the doorstep here of David's kingdom. So he sees them as a belligerent nation who are potentially going to come against them.

[14:35] One other Jewish tradition, and you can check out the 9th century rabbi by the name of Rashi, he supposes that actually the king of Moab murdered David's parents when they were in his care.

[14:49] Any evidence for that, Rashi? No. Tradition is right. It was a midrash on one of the psalms, I forget which. So anyway, that's a bit of background.

[15:02] So we can't be sure why David did this. But anyway, I initially thought it was astonishingly harsh to make them lie down, measure off two thirds to kill and a third to keep alive.

[15:16] But then other commentators that I read said, actually, this is mercy, because normally you would just wipe them all out if you perceived a risk. But in any case, this would reduce their fighting capacity while retaining their ability to be servants of Israel.

[15:35] Verse 3, and we'll read through verse 8. Hadadiza, verse 3, 2 Samuel 8. Then David defeated Hadadiza, the son of Rehob, king of Zobar.

[15:47] And he went to restore, as he went to restore his power at the Euphrates River. And David captured from him 1,700 horsemen and 20,000 foot soldiers. And David hamstrung almost all chariot horses, but left enough of them for 100 chariots.

[16:05] When the Arameans of Damascus came to help Hadadiza, king of Zobar, David killed 22,000 men among the Arameans. Then David put garrisons among the Arameans of Damascus, and the Arameans became servants to David, bringing tribute.

[16:20] And the Lord helped David wherever he went. David took the shields of gold, which were carried by the servants of Hadadiza, and brought them to Jerusalem.

[16:31] And from Bittar and Berothai, cities of Hadadiza, king David took a very large amount of bronze. So again on the map, you'll see that Zobar is in the far north, and you can see Damascus up there as well.

[16:49] And there's the city of Damascus. So way up in the north is where we are focused right now. Hadadiza is the king. And again, as I've already alluded, his name comes up again in chapter 10.

[17:03] The order isn't exactly clear. Hadad. Hadad is the name of a prominent god for the Arameans, the Syrians, and others.

[17:15] And I did read that it may be another name for Baal, who is the god of the Canaanites. So this is who we are dealing with. So Hadad Ezer.

[17:28] And so Ezer means help. So when we sang this morning here, I raised my Ebenezer. Here by thy great help I'm come. Ebenezer is from 1 Samuel 7, and it means stone of help.

[17:40] Eben Ezer. So Hadad Ezer means, Hadad is my help. Quite ironic, really, given that he has to go to the Arameans of Damascus.

[17:52] It's for Ezer. And of course, that's no help either, because he's still soundly defeated by David and by the armies of the true God.

[18:03] So a significant victory for David and for Israel. This would have been, I think, an overwhelming army. A horse division and 42,000 infantrymen.

[18:16] Most likely, David would not have had a corresponding cavalry. The fact that he hamstrung these war horses indicates that he wasn't interested in them as military assets.

[18:29] And it could also be in obedience to the Torah, not to multiply horses. I am told that hamstringing horses is to render them unfit for warfare anymore.

[18:41] But they would still be able to serve in agriculture. I have no idea if that's true. Sounds pretty brutal to me, if I'm honest. But it certainly would disable them from being a threat.

[18:57] And we also see gold and bronze coming into the treasury, which keep that in mind as we read on to verse 9. Now when King Toy, king of Hamat, heard that David had defeated the whole army of Haradiza, Toy sent his son Joram to King David to greet him and bless him, because he had fought Haradiza and defeated him.

[19:22] For Haradiza had been at war with Toy, and Joram brought with him articles of silver, gold and bronze. King David also consecrated these gifts to the Lord with the silver and gold that he had consecrated from all the nations which he had subdued.

[19:37] From Aram, Moab, the sons of Ammon, the Philistines, Amalek, and from the spoils of Haradiza, son of Rehob, king of Zobah. So Hamath or Hamat is the highest word on this map.

[19:52] I don't think I'm going to be able to reach it. That's up there. That's Hamat up there. So all the way up at the very top. So that would be modern Lebanon today. So our author here says clearly that Toy sends Joram to bless David.

[20:12] I read the historian Josephus who alleges that actually it was also, at least partly because Toy was afraid of David and thought it best to curry favour.

[20:23] I think we should go with the author of the Bible personally, that there was a battle and Toy saw this as a great blessing and benefit. Now here's an interesting thing.

[20:36] Here's a very interesting thing. In our parallel passage, 1 Chronicles 18 and verse 10, the name of the son is not Joram but Hadoram. Hadoram.

[20:48] The meaning of Hadoram would be that Hadad or Hedad is highly exalted. The name of Joram or Yehoram would be Yehovah or God.

[20:59] The Lord is highly exalted. Interesting, isn't it? That he would be named one thing and then the other. And it would be hard to argue that the author of 2 Samuel here is...

[21:15] We've seen before that he would change Baal to Bosheth. That will come up again when we get to Mephibosheth today. But it's hard to say, it's hard to explain why the author would change just this name from Hadoram to Jehoram or Doram.

[21:31] So I think we can imply a conversion on the part of the son to the faith of Israel. Infer, rather. We can infer.

[21:42] Sorry, grammar people. Sorry, Ali. So, all these precious metals. All the precious metals he is able to loot. They go to the Lord.

[21:54] We read that he consecrated them. He consecrated them. And what that means is he set them apart. He set them apart as holy. In the last chapter, David was told by God, You won't be building me a temple.

[22:11] Your son will. And again, we talked about the double fulfilment. But what David does do is... Actually, it's quite amazing. If you read 1 Chronicles 28, where David charges Solomon officially.

[22:26] This is what you're going to do. He hands over blueprints, plans. Here's the plans for the temple. Here's the building. Here's the different rooms. Here's the porch. Here's the other buildings. Here's the storehouses. This is how you arrange the furnitures.

[22:37] Here's the plans for the divisions of the priests. Here's how they're going to serve. Oh, and here's the gold. Here's the silver. Here's the bronze for that brazen altar. And he says, With all my ability, I have provided for the house of my God, gold, silver, and bronze.

[22:53] This is where he got it from. Right here. But again, we must pause and reflect the key point there. That is the Lord's doing. He is enabling and empowering David to win these victories and acquire the metals.

[23:06] Verse 13 now, then, the Edomites. So David made a name for himself when he returned from killing 18,000 Arameans in the Valley of Salt.

[23:19] He also put garrisons in Edom. In all Edom he put garrisons, and all the Edomites became servants to David. And the Lord helped David wherever he went.

[23:30] Amen. So the Valley of Salt is most likely a plain to the southwest of the Dead Sea. And that's where it says Valley of Salt on our map.

[23:43] Probably about right. It's not certain, but that makes sense to me. And another outstanding victory, 18,000 Arameans.

[23:55] And it would seem, however this one went, it was significant in that it established David's name and reputation as a strong king and a powerful general. And I don't know, I mean, this is just a summary.

[24:07] So what about that battle, as against all the other ones, against greater numbers, caused him to make a name? Well, one thing, there is one thing to note about this, actually.

[24:23] Which is that it would seem that the Edomites attacked while David was up in the north. And so as such, this was a really, a mad scramble to try and put this down.

[24:35] So if that's true, then that would certainly have been a remarkable, miraculous event. And we'll talk a bit more about that later, actually. But the Lord helped David wherever he went.

[24:51] And we read that David put them into servitude, which is, which recalls Genesis 27. That is where Jacob stole Esau's blessing, Esau being the father of the Edomites.

[25:01] And when that happened, that fulfilled the prophecy that God had said that the older, Esau, would serve the younger, Jacob, who was, of course, renamed Israel.

[25:13] So this is fulfilling that. Verse 15, to finish up the chapter now. So David reigned over all Israel, and David administered justice and righteousness for all his people.

[25:26] Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was commander over the army. Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, Ahilud, was secretary. Zadok, the son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech, the son of Abiathar, were priests.

[25:40] Saraiah was scribe. Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was over the Herathites and the Palathites. And David's sons were chief ministers. So David is established, and here we read about some of his chief officials, which we'll go through real quick.

[25:57] We've talked about Joab before. Zeruiah is his mother, and in fact, David's sister, which of course makes Joab David's nephew.

[26:09] And we've discussed before that Joab is quite a brutal guy, but he is serving as David's military general. We've got Jehoshaphat, or Yehoshaphat. He is the secretary.

[26:20] The root of the Hebrew words, mazkiah, for secretary, is to name, to remember, to make known. So you can think of his job as the historian.

[26:32] His job is to help the king and the people to remember history, the official royal chronicle, and he will go on to serve under Solomon too. His name means the Lord has judged.

[26:43] We've got Zadok and Ahimelech. Zadok is very prominent. He will be very faithful to David's family.

[26:54] He will be the priest to install Solomon. His descendants will serve as priests right through until the exile in Babylon. And actually, beyond that, Ezra is descended from Zadok.

[27:10] Ezekiel, who saw that amazing vision of the third temple, it says that a group descended from Zadok will minister there. And actually, one thing I discovered was that the Zadokites, in Jesus' day, does anyone know what they were named as?

[27:31] Sadducees. Yeah. It's actually the same. Tzaddik is the Hebrew and that Tzadik often gets translated to Zed in English but S in the Greek.

[27:43] So, Sadducees. Now, whether they actually descended from Zadok, who can say? They would have claimed that. Tzaddik, by the way, is a Hebrew word that means righteous. So, you know, they're the righteous ones.

[27:55] They're the Sadducees. So, anyway, very interesting group and a very interesting man is Zadok. I haven't got anything anywhere near as interesting to say about Himalach.

[28:07] Sorry. Saraya. Saraya is a sofer or sofer, which means to count or to write.

[28:19] It's still the same word as the root for the modern Hebrew word for book. 2 Kings 10 has an example of this role. doing the task of counting and recording money.

[28:32] So, it seems to me that the sofer, his job is to oversee the royal documentation, the financial records, to make sure that every detail of the taxes and the land and the law is all good.

[28:50] Saraya. And then we've got Benaiah, who is over the Herathites and the Palathites. As far as we can tell, this is a group of mercenaries. You remember that when David was fleeing from Saul, we read how he amassed a whole bunch of, well, basically, the downcast and the low and they all came to him and they were faithful to him and we understand the Herathites and the Palathites refer to these men, but it's not sure.

[29:21] Benaiah is among David's mightiest men. Do you remember in Chronicles it talks about David having these mighty men and there's a three and there's the thirty? Benaiah is amongst the thirty.

[29:32] Not strong enough to be amongst the three, apparently. And then lastly we read about David's sons. Now this is interesting because the NASB has translated the word Kohanim as chief ministers, whereas Kohanim would normally mean priests.

[29:48] Priests. David's sons were priests so is it that the New American Standard Bible translators were uncomfortable and decided to mistranslate it? Well, no.

[30:00] Again, our parallel passage is 1 Chronicles 18 and there, verse 17, the word Rishonim is used for the sons and that means the heads or leaders.

[30:12] So it would seem evidently that the word Kohanim isn't exclusively for Levitical priests, at least not at this stage. I think it certainly becomes that way perhaps by the time of Ezra.

[30:25] But in any case, they aren't serving as priests in the temple, David's sons. They are rather serving as, well, chief ministers, which is what the New American says. And I did read a very long discussion on that, but I'll save you the time and just say chief ministers is good.

[30:41] So as we close the chapter, I did want to point out one thing that you may not be aware of. The Psalm 60, it seems to be about this time.

[30:55] On the screen there is the title for Psalm 60 and it reads this, for the music director, according to Shushan Iduth, which just means, it's probably a musical direction, Mikhtam of David, to teach.

[31:10] when he fought with Aram Naharayim and Aram Zobah, and Joab returned and killed 12,000 of Edom in the Valley of Salt.

[31:23] Aram Naharayim means Aram of the two rivers, and of course Aram Zobah is where Hanadezer was king, and it refers to a battle with Edom in the Valley of Salt.

[31:35] I feel like we've just read something about that. The only real discrepancy is here in the psalm, it says 12,000 were killed, whereas in our text in Samuel and indeed in Chronicles the number is 18,000.

[31:50] If we want them to be two different events on the basis of that discrepancy, then there's no other event in the life of David that comes close, at least not that's recorded.

[32:03] The difference in the count could be explained by an initial and then a revised count of the dead. It can take a long time to tally up after a battle. But if they are the same event, if Psalm 60 is recalling what we've just read in 2 Samuel, then as I said, it would appear that what happened was David is up north fighting and Edom is coming in taking advantage in the south.

[32:33] And the psalm reads, when you read the psalm, it comes across as quite a desperate prayer, or at least it begins as a very desperate prayer, expressing that God has rejected and broken. He's made the land quake.

[32:46] And then it concludes with these two verses. Verse 11 and 12, Oh, give us help against the enemy, for rescue by man is worthless. Though God, or through God, we will do valiantly, and it is he who will trample down our enemies.

[33:04] And we read that psalm way back in February 24 in our scripture reading before the sermon. And I said how, at the time, how you can, when we see an event, we can frame it in different ways.

[33:22] When you have a hard time in your life, you can frame that in different ways, and you can speak to yourself in your mind and in your heart and soul differently about that event.

[33:32] You can focus on that which is hard and difficult and scary, or you can focus your mind on a God who can do anything and has promised victory in the end. When we read through chapter 8 of 2 Samuel, and all the hardship of war and the fear and the loss that David and his men must have experienced, all we read was victory, victory, victory, victory.

[33:58] And it reminded me of Hebrews 11, where you got that famous hall of faith, and it's like, Jacob by faith did this, and so and so by faith did that, and you're thinking, hang on, Jacob?

[34:10] Faith? And then it's like, Samson gets a name check, and you're thinking, Samson? And I've studied that chapter in the past, and what you realise is, in the end, if you and I spend 90% of our lives just suffering and in failure, and then 10% in faith, it is only that 10% that will be remembered, in the end.

[34:37] And I was like, and it is such a relief, it is such a relief, because there are moments that we would rather not remember, and in the end we won't, and only the good, only the faith and the times of trust will be remembered and rewarded in eternity, and I find that so encouraging, and I think that's what we're seeing, the Psalm 60 does present the on the ground, the hardship and the difficulties, and we should, in those times, direct it to the Lord and express it as prayer, but in the end, all will seem as the victory of faith.

[35:12] Chapter 9. Chapter 9, and this colourful guy, Mephibosheth, I did aim originally to do three chapters today, just thought I'd let you know that.

[35:24] Chapter 9, verse 1, then David said, is there anyone still left of the house of Saul, so that I could show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? Now there was a servant in the house of Saul, whose name was Zeba, and they summoned him to David, and the king said to him, are you Zeba?

[35:41] And he said, I am your servant. Then the king said, is there no one remaining of the house of Saul, to whom I could show the kindness of God? And Zeba said to the king, there is still a son of Jonathan, one who is disabled in both feet.

[35:57] So the king said to him, where is he? And Zeba said to the king, behold, he is in the house of Mahir, the son of Amiel in Lo-Debar. Wow, there's some things we need to unpack.

[36:10] David wishes to show kindness, or chesed. Chesed is one of my favourite Hebrew words. I've talked about it at length, I'm not going to do it again, other than to say loving kindness, loyalty, covenant love, are some of the various English words and phrases that are used to try and capture this amazing Hebrew word, chesed.

[36:36] Kindness, and not any chesed, David wants to show the chesed of God, chesed Elohim. You know, Jonathan was the son of Saul, Saul was the king before David, we know, and unlike his father, Jonathan was a man of great faith and bravery and he was a very close friend to David.

[36:58] By rights, they should have been bitter enemies because Jonathan was crown prince to the king of Israel and David was this young upstart who, and there's rumours going around that Samuel was defected and anointed him as king.

[37:15] They should have been enemies, but their shared common faith and bravery made them the greatest of friends, faith in God, and it made them closer than brothers. Now, Jonathan was killed when Saul, his father, died in that battle at the end of 1 Samuel, the battle with the Philistines, along with his two brothers, or two of his brothers, and you remember there was Ish-bosheth who was the last runt son of Saul, it would seem.

[37:42] He was installed as king and then he was assassinated. So was there anyone left? Or to quote David, is there no one remaining? So he expects a negative answer, it would seem.

[37:55] But it turns out there is one. One son of Jonathan remains, crippled in both his feet. And we were introduced to Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 4 verse 4.

[38:06] So we know the name, his name hasn't come up yet in our reading, but we know the name from verse 4 of chapter 4. And we read that he was five years old when his father Jonathan was killed, and in the rush to flee, the nurse dropped him.

[38:20] And being dropped to the floor, it would seem to have broken his legs, and he was from then on a cripple. And it would seem that he is the only son of Jonathan, at least he's certainly the only one named in Scripture, Mephibosheth.

[38:36] And where is he? He is in the house of Machir, the son of Amiel in Lodibar, where he has evidently been since the age of five. This is probably 15 years later.

[38:51] Hard to be sure. He is old enough to have a son, as we'll read. Josephus, in his historical telling, still refers to him as a youth. So they did have children a little younger than we do today.

[39:06] So he is probably in the region of 20 years old, for your mental picture, Mephibosheth. Now, let's talk about these names.

[39:19] Mephibosheth is named Merib-Baal in 1 Chronicles 8.32. And again, I've already alluded to this fact, Bosheth is a word that means shame. Baal is a name for this pagan god, and it would seem that a lot of the times the word Baal comes up in these texts, the author has replaced it with the word shame, Bosheth.

[39:43] Ish-Bosheth similarly was previously known as Esh-Baal, and we've talked about that before. There's a disagreement over the meaning of the Mephi or the Merib, or the Meri.

[39:57] Best I can tell, that prefix means from increasing. So it means Mephibosheth, from increasing shame. Wow.

[40:10] It's possible that it may mean to scatter, and in that case Mephibosheth would be the one who scatters shame. It's not flattering either way, is it?

[40:24] Mephibosheth. And where is he? He's in the house of Machir. Machir means the one who sells, sells out, the one who betrays. Oh. Son of Amiel, son of people of God.

[40:38] Ami means people, El means God. Ami, El, the people of God. Wait a minute. The one who sells out the people of God, in lo debah, which means lo, is a Hebrew word that just means no, still used today.

[40:57] Do you want some of that? Lo. No. Debah, that can mean two things, depending on context, and there isn't enough context to say for sure, so it means either or both of pasture or word.

[41:11] Lodibah, there's no pasture, there's no word, there's nobody to speak into the situation, there's nothing, there is nothing. And Amos 6.13 refers cryptically to this same place, Lodibah, in a figure meaning nothingness.

[41:27] So it sounds pretty good, huh? The man of shame, the man or rather the man of from increasing shame, born to the first born son, born to the crown prince of the king of Israel, when he was born, he would have been the son of the crown prince, he would have been heir, presumptive, after whatever the right term is, he would have been the heir, and now he is the man from increasing shame who lives with the betrayer of God's people in a land of no pasture and no word.

[42:05] Oh my gosh. Well, what's going to happen to this guy? Verse 5, then King David sent messengers who brought him from the house of Machir, the son of Amiel from Lodibar, just to remind us of those names.

[42:19] Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and prostrated himself, and David said, Mephibosheth, and he said, here is your servant. So, the last surviving rival to the throne of Israel, you are summoned before the victorious king who has subdued and suppressed all his enemies in the context of a society in which it would be perfectly normal for the king to seek out and eliminate his rivals.

[42:50] Mephibosheth, how are you feeling? well, he fell on his face and then David said to him, verse 7, do not be afraid, do not be afraid, for I will assuredly show kindness to you for the sake of your father Jonathan and I will restore to you all the lands of your grandfather Saul and you yourself shall eat at my table regularly.

[43:17] Again, he prostrated himself and said, what is your servant that you should be concerned about a dead dog like me? Do not be afraid, I will show you chesed, that faithful covenant-based kindness.

[43:31] And we remember the commitment of David and Jonathan together, their covenant. Did Mephibosheth know about that? It seemed to me quite unlikely.

[43:41] Again, he was five years old. I can't remember much from when I was five or earlier than that. Could Mephibosheth even remember his father? Could he remember? Would he have known that Jonathan and David had this close friendship?

[43:56] Who knows? And yet, I will restore to you everything that you have lost, everything that could have been yours, things that you didn't even know were yours.

[44:08] And more than that, you will eat with me continually. The word is tamid. It says regularly in the New American. That's not strong enough.

[44:18] It's continually. Tamid. Continually. Let's finish the chapter. Verse 9. Then the king summoned Saul's servant Zeba and said to him, everything that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master's grandson.

[44:33] You and your sons and your servants shall cultivate the land for him and you shall bring in the produce so that your master's grandson will have food to eat. Nevertheless, Mephibosheth, your master's grandson, shall eat at my table regularly, continually.

[44:48] Now Zeba had 15 sons and 20 servants. And then Zeba said to the king, in accordance with everything that my lord the king commands his servant, so your servant will do.

[45:00] So Mephibosheth ate at David's table as one of the king's sons. Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micah, Micah, and all who lived in the house of Zeba were servants to Mephibosheth.

[45:13] So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem because he ate at the king's table continually and he was disabled in his two feet. So this servant then, to pronounce the name correctly, it is Zeba, Saul's servant.

[45:32] This is the first that we've read of him. We didn't read about him throughout all of our narrative concerning King Saul, but evidently he was a servant who is still hanging around.

[45:46] We observe in the text that he had a very large family and he had servants of his own, so fairly well off, fairly well to do. And the king says to him, from now on you're going to serve that cripple, you and your whole family.

[46:02] And you think, hang on, who was he serving until now? Probably no one. Probably he was actually living as a freed man. he was a servant to Saul, not whoever else.

[46:15] Maybe he served Espracheth, I don't know, but he would have seemed to be a freed man. And David says, now you're serving him. I wonder how that went down. He says he will do it.

[46:28] Spoiler alert, we will find later in chapter 16 that he proves unfaithful and untrustworthy and self-seeking. But we'll get there. Mephibosheth has a son named Michah, and I was interested to discover that's one letter different from Michal, who would have been his great aunt.

[46:48] Interesting, if you like that sort of thing. So just this son, Michah, if we read 1 Chronicles 8 from verse 33, we discover that this one son had four sons.

[47:01] And if we traced just one of those four sons, then we'll come to some more sons, and to more sons, and eventually we land at 150 valiant and mighty men, all from just one of those four sons of Michah.

[47:16] And so we end up with a significant family in Benjamin, all who came to being because of David's chesed, or rather God's chesed shown through David. Amazing.

[47:26] I love it. Now, a few thoughts to wrap it up, which hopefully won't take too long. But these are important. David, the conquering warrior king, and that's what we see David as.

[47:44] We see him as administering justice and righteousness for all his people. And in this, David is prefiguring his son, the son of David, who will indeed come again as a conquering warrior king.

[47:57] A reading from Isaiah 45. Turn to me and be saved. All the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none other.

[48:08] I have sworn by myself, the word has gone out from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.

[48:19] they will say of me, only in the Lord are righteousness and strength. People will come to him and all who are angry at him will be put to shame. In the Lord, all the offspring of Israel will be justified and will boast.

[48:37] Now, Paul explicitly ties this to Christ when he says this in Philippians 2, from verse 9. He says, Every knee will bow before Jesus Christ.

[49:08] And there are really two choices. You either do it like toy, willingly, or you do it like those other defeated kings, bowing in defeat and shame.

[49:21] Now, we haven't seen this day yet, have we? You may have noticed that there are some knees that refuse to bow to Jesus Christ this very day, but the day will come.

[49:32] So in this day, there is opportunity to be like toy and bow willingly. But the day will come when the opportunity is gone. the day will come when Christ will administer righteousness and justice and we will have that 1,000 year reign of perfect peace, which we see in Revelation 20 and all throughout the prophets.

[49:54] And the victories of David that we read in chapter 8, they're presented in a way which implies little effort, as I've said.

[50:05] And the Arameans come to help and David's like, bang, 22,000 dead among them. And in Revelation 19, when Jesus comes, it says he will destroy his enemies by the sword of his mouth.

[50:18] It's easy for him. It says that he comes with the armies of heaven, clothed in fine linen. That's the church, clothed in fine linen, which he provides, the robes of righteousness.

[50:33] But he doesn't need us. We come with him, but he's like, and they are gone. He swoops in and he destroys them all. And we just partake in his victory. And I think David's victories, it seems to me, are presented in a similar way to prefigure it.

[50:48] Again, we know from Psalm 60, it was hard. But what we see in type in Samuel is this just victory, victory, victory.

[51:00] So there's one lesson. Another lesson from David was, we read twice in our chapter that the Lord helped David wherever he went. That was, I guess, expounded for us in chapter 5 when we read about David going to the Lord for direction.

[51:16] Should I go and fight the Philistines? Yes, David, you should go and fight the Philistines. How about now? Yes, and this is how you should do it. And the question that it provokes for you and for me is, do we do similarly?

[51:29] Do we similarly trust and depend on the Lord to help us wherever we go? It's a very healthy mindset, whether you're going to work, coming to church, whether you're going to see friends or relatives, may the Lord help us wherever we go.

[51:44] Lord, may our days bring you glory wherever we go. Next, a picture from Mephibosheth. David wished to show the chesed of God, not his own chesed, but the chesed of God.

[52:00] What is God's kindness like? When we rightly perceive the kindness of God, we would, like Mephibosheth, say, why should you be concerned with a dead dog like me?

[52:14] We sang this morning, how amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a not-too-bad-a-person like me. A wretch. We are dead dogs.

[52:26] We are wretches apart from Christ. We are the lame from nowhere's bill who just is increasing in shame. that is us before Christ. That is a picture of us.

[52:37] But David is a king who gathers to himself the weak and the lowly, and he says, come and eat at my table. That sounds like another king. That sounds like a picture of the chesed of God.

[52:50] Because we are the lame in nowhere land, away from the promises and the covenant of God, lacking any reason for hope, or certainly eternal hope, and all we could reasonably expect from the king is death.

[53:06] And that is what Mephibosheth would have expected. In his case, Mephibosheth would have expected death because of his grandfather Saul. In our case, we would expect death because of our father Adam.

[53:18] Because we are the offspring of the original sinner, Adam, who chose disobedience. And in Romans 5, it says, because of Adam, sin entered the world and death through sin.

[53:30] spreading to all mankind because we also sin like our father. But God is not willing that any should perish. He doesn't desire it and he takes no pleasure in the death, not even the death of the wicked.

[53:46] And I think, just to pause on that point because the Lord takes no pleasure in the death of Hamas. He doesn't take pleasure in the death of the individuals. He would see that organisation torn down, of course, but the individuals, he would see them saved and he came to die.

[54:03] And we should pray, we should pray, as we did this morning, that the Lord would save. But God gathers the despised and the lowly. Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

[54:17] So, like David called Mephibosheth and said, come, there's a place for you amongst my sons at my table, the Lord calls to us and says the same. There's one condition, faith, or faithfulness.

[54:30] He calls you and me to show faith through faithfulness to him. And he brings us out of the mire of nowhere land and into his incredible kingdom.

[54:42] Colossians 1, 13, for he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Lord, we do thank you for this.

[54:53] We praise you for that clear picture. We praise you for the great salvation, that you freely offer, received merely by faith, by believing and receiving and choosing you, bowing to you.

[55:08] Lord, we thank you that you are our conquering king who will come again. And for you there is nothing that's impossible, there's nothing that's difficult. You will come again and you will put all your enemies under your feet.

[55:22] But Lord, we pray and ask in the name of Jesus that in these days you would be our help because the help, the Ezra of man is worthless. Lord, it is you to whom we look for help in these days.

[55:36] Lord, we thank you that our weaknesses and our failures will not be remembered in eternity. Lord, we would walk by faith, day by day, and Lord, we look to you for strength to do this.

[55:47] We look to you to increase the Holy Spirit within us, to stir him up, to lead us in love and good works. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

[56:00] Amen. Bless you guys.