I swear I am loyal to you.......just a little more loyal to me.
As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
When the Lord God visited upon King David the taking of God's Name in vain, when David committed adultery with Bathsheba, got her pregnant and then had her husband Uriah, murdered in battle, it was one of thee most complex reckonings in the Bible.
David was a man of too many wives. His oldest son, Absolum was a beautiful and cunning man. He bribed the officials who were already upset with David's favoritism and had more than a civil war going on, as David and his close group had to flee for their lives.
David obtain the thone from a troubled powerful man, named Saul. Saul had sons, the foremost was Jonathan who was David's blood brother. No man got a rawer deal in the Bible than Jonathan as he was killed on the battlefield with most of Saul's family on the battlefield with the Philistines.
Absolum though would be king. He had though a contender in Solomon from Bathsheba. Again the intrigue was complex as Bathsheba's prominent male of the family, was adviser to King David. thee most trusted in the land. There is a Psalm about him in his betrayal of David as he went to Absbolum. He would later be outwitted by David's Inspired advisers, and losing face, killed himself as he could conclude that David was coming back and he would be killed for treason.
Why this man betrayed David, having such a prominent place, his daughter was the King's favorite wife and this grandson would be King is a mystery of perhaps a man losing face by the wickedness of King David with Bathsheba.
As David was fleeing, the story takes a more complex turn, in a sevant named Ziba appears. Ziba had been assigned to care for Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth who had been crippled in broken feet and ankels as the family had fled when David assumed the throne, when the child was dropped.
He was the heir apparent of the Saul line, but a complete cripple.
So Ziba appears and with food and mules and David asks where Mephibosheth is. Ziba says, "I brought this to you, because my master said this day would the throne be returned to him as David has fled".
David was not amused and told Ziba that everything that Mephibosheth had was now Ziba's.
So there is civil war. Joab and his brothers who are kindred of David, kill the conspirators, dart Absolum as his hard is caught in a tree as he was riding a mule in flight and the accident happened.
David returns with his entourage, and his inlaw who advised Absolum had told the upsurper to go have sex with the King's concubines which he did. David has to put these women away, as there can not be any doubt of sons of the King and bastards.
Who now appears, not having washed or bathed since David left? Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth now has a story of his own. He says Ziba deceived him and that David is an angel to Mephibosheth.
David looks at him and says, "I do not want to hear anymore about this. Ziba and you divide the possessions and be gone".
Mephibosheth in Mideat parlance says Ziba can have it all, but that is because he knows he is one sword slip from Joab in losing his head.
So what happened here? I inquired some on this and the story is something along this line.
Mephibosheth was happy in the civil war. He figured David and Absolum would kill each other and he would get the throne back. He said as much.
Ziba was a cunning man who saw an opportunity to get favor with the king, as David had fed this Mephibosheth at his table and provided for him....enough so this man was wealthy. So Ziba loads up the supplies, tells Mephibosheth he is going to cover their butts with this offering to the King as who knows who will win in this, and is on his way. Mephibosheth later finds out that Ziba has told the King what the traitor was plotting and knows he is going to have his head cut off.
David looks at both of them, and is thinking that his head was about cut off by his own kid. He is only alive by God's Grace for all the sinning he did. Israel will never recover from this, and these two are plotting against each other, trying to sucker the king over who gets the gold cups.
The end result is David knows he can not trust either of this treacherous lot, and divides things up, so neither is in control of that much, and that ends it.
This reading was given to me a few times. I suspect in the offing there is something in my life of people trying to find favor with me in bribery of good will to save themselves. I praise God for that as I will gladly accept through Christ things rendered to me from those it was stored with, who treated me bad.
This is though the saga of Mephibosheth and Ziba, a story never explained nor expanded upon in the Bible, just out of the Bible here. There was so much in this civil war over adultery and murder which took place in one of thee most interesting stories of human interaction and betrayal which makes Hamlet rather one dimensional.
Is a simple lesson. One wife, do not cheat on her and do not father other children, nor try to cover up your sins.
Nuff Said
