Rebuilding Burnt ‘Emotional’ Bridges

Say to Amasa, ‘Are you not my bone and my flesh? May God do so to me, and more also, if you will not be commander of the army before me continually in place of Joab. ‘” Thus he turned the hearts of all the men of Judah as one man, so that they sent word to the king, saying, “Return, you and all your servants.” (2 Samuel 19:13,14 NASB)

David, you’ve just won the battle against your rebellious son and all of Israel.  What are you going to do now?  Well, whatever he should have done, could have done, or might have done; what he did was ball his eyes out demoralizing his faithful victorious troops, sit in the gate to cheer them up, send word to Judah to rebuild relationships, and sort of forgave his enemies all around.  But it’s not really clear whether this is one of David’s shining moments or not.

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The Butler Did It

Then the king said, “And where is your master’s son?” And Ziba said to the king, “Behold, he is staying in Jerusalem, for he said, ‘Today the house of Israel will restore the kingdom of my father to me. ‘”  So the king said to Ziba, “Behold, all that belongs to Mephibosheth is yours.” And Ziba said, “I prostrate myself; let me find favor in your sight, O my lord, the king!” (2 Samuel 16:3-4 NASB)

Ziba is described as the servant of Saul’s household in 2 Samuel 9:2.  The details about Ziba given in the chapter bring a few things to light, and help understand what he does right here.  First, he is the servant to Saul’s household but only Mephibosheth, a cripple living across the Jordan with another family, is left or is he?  At first it looks like Ziba’s essentially been living off Saul’s household.  On the other hand, in chapter 21 they find seven other sons.  So David’s choice of Mephibosheth had more to do with Jonathan than Saul.