References (13)
Now there was a servant of Saul's house named Ziba, and they called him to David, and the king said to him, "Are you Ziba?" He said, "Your servant is he."
The king asked, "Is there anyone left of Saul's house (family) so that I may show God's (Elohim's) kindness (Hebr. chesed) to him?" Ziba answered the king, "Jonathan still has a son who is crippled in both feet."
And the king said to him, "Where is he?"
Tsiva answered the king, "Behold, he is in the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, in Lo-Debar."
Then the king called for Ziba, Saul's servant, and said to him, "I have given all that belonged to Saul and his whole house to your master's son.
And you shall work the land for him, you and your sons and your servants, and you shall bring in the fruit, so that your master's son may have bread to eat, but Mephibosheth, your master's son, shall always (continually) eat bread at my table." Ziba had 15 sons and 20 servants.
And Ziba said to the king, "According to all that my lord the king has commanded his servant, so shall your servant do; but Mephibosheth shall eat at my table as one of the king's sons." [The Hebrew has "my table," referring to King David's table.]
Mephibosheth had a young son named Micha. And all who lived in Ziba's house were servants to Mephibosheth.
And when David had passed the top [of the Mount of Olives], behold, Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, met him with a pair of donkeys, and on them 200 loaves of bread and 100 cakes of raisins and 100 summer fruits and a jar of wine.
Then the king said to Ziba, "What do you mean by this?" Ziba said, "The donkeys are for the king's household to ride on, and the bread and summer fruit are for the young men to eat, and the wine is for those who are faint in the wilderness to drink."
The king asked, "Where is your master's son?"
Tsiva answered the king, "Behold, he is staying in Jerusalem, for he said, 'Today the house of Israel will restore to me the kingdom of my father. [This was probably a lie from Tsiva, if Mephibosheth's account later on is correct, see .]
And the king said to Ziba, "Behold, all that belongs to Mephibosheth is yours." And Ziba said, "I humbly beg you, let me find favor (undeserved love – Hebr. chen) in your eyes, my lord the king."
And there were 1,000 men of Benjamin with him, and Ziba, the servant of the house, and his 15 sons and his 12 servants with him. And they hurried down to the Jordan [and crossed it] before the king.
And the king [David] said to him [Mephibosheth], "Why do you keep talking about this? I say, you and Ziba shall divide the land."
[David fulfills his promise to Ziba (), but his actions toward Mephibosheth are not right. The Talmud considers this a huge failure on the part of King David. For this misjudgment, God later punished David by dividing his land in two during the days of his grandson Rehoboam. Intellectually, David knew that Ziba had misled him with his malicious slander of Mephibosheth. But the emotional impact of the anger he had originally felt when he heard that Jonathan's son had betrayed him lingered within him.]
