2 Samuel, Chapter 9 - The Power of Chesed | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Shalom and welcome to the Prophets of Israel daily. This is the book of Samuel chapter [music] 9 brought to you by the Land of Israel network at the landofisrael.com. Uh Jeremy, it's good to see you. You're in Wyoming, Montana, something like that. >> South Dakota. >> South Dakota. What's the difference? >> I've never been here before. America is huge. You drive for hours in just the open vastness of nothing for hours. It's incredible out here. >> And well, I am a person who loves Yeah, that's what I was going to say. The people I I love humanity, but that whole neck of the woods there, Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, I just everyone I've ever met from there are just the best people. Just goodness upon goodness. Anyways, Jeremy, my friends around the world, let me ask you something. When when a man finally reaches the top, when every enemy has fallen, every throne is secure, every dream he ever dared to dream has come true, what's the first thing he does? Because by the time we arrive at chapter 9, David has it all. The crown of Judah, the crown of all of Israel, Jerusalem conquered and established as his eternal capital, the ark brought home with dancing and singing and celebration, the Davidic covenant. You have a covenant named after you. Right? God's promise that his throne would never end, rest from his enemies on every side, and in that moment of total triumph, David doesn't throw a feast for himself. He doesn't build a monument. He asks one singular question. Verse 1. And David said, "Is there yet anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show him chesed for the sake of Jonathan?" Chesed, loyal covenantal kindness. It is the beating heart of this entire chapter, and it does not mean charity. It does not mean pity. Sometimes you translate things to English and it just loses it's the the depth of it. It just gets clumped into words. Hesed is if you had to put it somewhere say loving-kindness. Hesed is love that keeps its promise long after the moment of promising is past and long after anyone is watching. And let's remember my friends just who David is asking about. He's asking about the descendants of >> Saul. >> That's right. Saul. The king who hunted David through the wilderness like an animal, who hurled spears at him, who forced him to sleep in caves for years. And let's also remember that in those days and you know what, also in ours, the surviving house of a defeated king is politically a house of rivals. Every advisor in the ancient world would have told David the same thing. Any heir of Saul is a threat to your throne. Eliminate them. That is the politics of power 101 basic. But David does the exact opposite. He goes searching not for someone to destroy but for someone to bless. >> You know, Ari, it's just so noteworthy here. David's love for Jonathan. It was so pure. He wasn't thinking like a king or a strategic politician. Ari, I think he loved Jonathan's kids the way that I love your kids. I mean, it's intergenerational. It's a love that is the foundation of the Messianic dynasty. That's what it's built on. This unconditional, beautiful, transcendent, intergenerational love. And David made it a covenant with Jonathan decades earlier when they were just two young men and they had no idea how this story would end. And now David is saying, not through his words, but through his actions, that a promise doesn't expire. Our friendship doesn't expire. That's the soul of a king fit to father the Messianic line. >> That's right. And David acts on his friendship. He summons an old servant of Shaul's household named Ziba and repeats the question. And Ziba answers, right? In verse three. Jonathan still has a son lame in both feet. There is someone left, a son of Jonathan and he is raglaim. Crippled in his feet, both of them. And where is he living? In a place with one of the saddest names that you can think of. He's hidden away in the house of Machir in Lo Debar. Lo Debar, in Hebrew it means almost literally nothing. A place of nothing. A forgotten outpost on the far side of the Jordan. The kind of place you go when you want to disappear from history altogether. >> You know, and Ari, we actually know how this son of Jonathan was crippled. Earlier in the book we're told that when the news came that Saul and Jonathan had fallen in battle, this child was five years old. His nurse snatched him up to flee and in panic she dropped him and he was crippled for life. So, think about that for a moment. He wasn't born broken. He was broken in the chaos of his family's collapse. He carried the wounds of that catastrophe in his own body for the rest of his life, like a permanent reminder, a perpetual constant thing that he had to look at, live with, the fall of his father, his grandfather, and the line of the royal lineage. >> Yeah, the entire that is the Saul's line and and then in what must have been one of the most unexpected visits imaginable, David sends for him. Now, imagine being Mephibosheth. You're the grandson of the king David replaced, you're crippled, you're hidden, and you've spent your whole life assuming that the day the new king learns your name is the day you die. And now, royal messengers are standing at your door in Lo-Debar. Uh he must have been terrified. He brought but he's brought before David, he falls on his face, and listen to the very first words out of David's mouth. Verse 7. Fear not, for I will surely show you hesed for the sake of Jonathan your father, and I'll restore you all the land of Saul your grandfather, and you shall eat bread at my table always. Al tira, do not be afraid. The same words Hashem speaks to Abraham. The same words that echo through the mouths of the prophets again and again. Before anything else, before the gift, before the land, David puts Mephibosheth at peace and removes the fear. And then he gives Mephi- Mephibosheth three things. His name spoken with honor, his ancestral land fully restored, and a permanent seat at the king's table. And how does Mephibosheth respond? With a line of humility, heartbreaking humility, and really brokenness. Verse 8. What is your servant that you should turn to a dead dog such as I? A dead dog. That is how this man sees himself. Not merely worthless, already gone, already buried. I can't help but to think that those are words you'd expect to hear from someone that's been hiding out in a place called Lo-Debar. >> Yeah, or you know, I I really feel for him at the moment. Just because of the gap between how Mephibosheth sees himself and how David sees him It's is enormous. I mean, he looks in the mirror and sees a dead dog. David looks at him and sees the son of his beloved Jonathan, a prince worthy of the royal table. And already that really speaks to me, even just on a personal level, cuz I can't help but feel that so many of us are walking around convinced we're too broken, we're too far gone, too crippled by our past to ever deserve a seat at the table. But that is not how the king sees you. And I think that's exactly the relationship Hashem is trying to have with each of one of us. I mean, we call ourselves dead dogs and he calls us his children and sets a place for us at his table. And the only question is whether we'll have the ability to see ourselves through the eyes of the king. >> Yeah, I I that's what I love about this journey we're on right now. It just speaks to me in national ways and personal ways. Speaks to my heart. You know, the chapter ends, right? Not with a battle or a treaty, but with a dinner table, like we said, right? Verse 13. "Um Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he ate at the king's table always, and he was lame in both his feet." Right? Read that verse carefully. It tells us that Mephibosheth ate at the king's table tamid, continually, always. And then in the very same breath it reminds us that he was still lame in both feet. Right? The text could have easily left out that detail. He's been restored, honored, brought home. Why end on that wound of him being crippled? And And I think it's because the the Tanakh is not trying to build a fairy tale here. If that's not clear by now, it's very clear, especially moving forward here. It's not about fairy tales. David's chesed did not heal Mephibosheth's legs. The brokenness remained, but something even greater happened. His brokenness no longer defined his place in the world. The grandson of the rejected king now sits at the table of the reigning king. The man who walked in walked into that palace expecting a death sentence receives covenantal love instead. And that, my friends, is the power of chesed. Chesed is not merely kindness. It's love Like we said, it's love that keeps its promises. It's the refusal to allow fear, politics, resentment, or or even the passage of time to erase a covenant. David made a promise to Jonathan years earlier, and Jonathan is gone. Saul is gone. The circumstances have completely changed, yet David remembers. And in remembering Jonathan, he restores Mephibosheth. And that's why this chapter stands as one of the most beautiful portraits of King David. Definitely in the book I mean, in I think in all of Tanakh. Right? Not David the warrior or the conqueror, or even David the king, but David the man of chesed. The man who after securing the kingdom uses his power not to destroy a rival, but to honor a covenant. The man who teaches us that true greatness is measured not merely by what we build, but by what we remain faithful to after we've built it. And that's exactly why this story appears here. I believe that's why this story appears here, because the chapter before this one contains the promise of the eternal Davidic dynasty. The kingdom has been established, the covenant's been given to David by God himself, the future's been set in motion, and now it's as if the Torah pauses for a second to ask a question. What kind of kingdom is it? What is the secret that makes David worthy to become the father of Israel's eternal royal line? And the answer is not found on the battlefield. It's found at the dinner table. In in a king who remembers that covenant and who uses his power to restore rather than to destroy. And there's a verse that says this outright. And it does not appear just anywhere. It In the very Psalm that celebrates the eternal covenant with David, the same covenant given one chapter before ours, the entire distilled blessing is in one single line, which we find in Psalm 89. I encourage everybody to read the entire Psalm when you have a chance. But Psalm 89, verse 3. For I have said, "The world is built on chesed." The world is built on chesed. The Psalm that swears David's throne will stand forever is the same Psalm that tells us that the throne stands upon chesed. Not conquest, chesed. Kingdoms are won by strength. The kingdom destined to bless the entire earth is built by a faithfulness to a covenant. And notice by the way, Jeremy, why David shows this chesed. Clearly, it's not because Mephibosheth earned it. Not because of anything Mephibosheth did at all. We see the reason very clearly in verse 7. For the sake of Jonathan. Mephibosheth is loved for his father's sake. He's carried to the king's table on the strength of a covenant his father made before he was even born. And that's not a small detail. Because if you think about it, that's precisely how we stand before Hashem. We call it avot, the merit of of fathers. We're not summoned to the table because we're strong or unbroken or even particularly righteous or deserving. I just had this debate today with someone. It's it's a tough sell. We are summoned by Avot Avraham, Yitzchak, v'Yaakov. For the sake of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. On the strength of a covenant God made with our fathers long before we drew breath. Mephibosheth's entire inheritance flows through a promise he did nothing to earn. And so is ours. And perhaps that's why this chapter feels so relevant, I think, in our generation. Because we're witnessing the restoration of Israel before our very eyes. We're seeing the exiles return and the ancient promises fulfilled. We're seeing Jerusalem restored as the beating heart of the Jewish people. But the question before us is not merely whether the kingdom is returning. The question is whether we are becoming worthy of it. Whether we are willing to do the teshuvah, to return to Hashem in a way that makes a people fit to usher in such a kingdom into the world. Whether we're learning the lesson of David that the purpose of power is not domination but responsibility. That the purpose of blessing is not self-glorification, but it's service. And that the throne of David was never meant to mirror the thrones of men. It was meant to reveal in this world the chesed of God. And that, my friends, is exactly what we're trying to build out here. You know, I want to invite all of you, really, to our weekly fellowship. It's a global family, people from over 35 countries who gather every week from the hills of Judea to learn, to pray, and to to remind each other that no one needs to walk this road alone. It's a covenant, and it's a community, and it's chesed in action. And if something in your heart is stirring right now, there's a place for you in it. So, come find your seat at the table at the landofisrael.com. Chazak v'ematz, my friends. Bezrat Hashem, we'll see you all tomorrow as we dive into chapter 10 with you, Jeremy. Shalom, everybody. >> [music]