1. And David said. We are immediately alerted to the fact that we are returning from the chronicle summary of chapter 8 (where there is no dialogue) and from the long set speeches of chapter 7 to the main body of the David story because once again the narrative is carried forward to a large extent by dialogue. We are again plunged into a world of personal and political transactions engaged through exchanges of spoken language.

Is there anyone who is still left from the house of Saul. The added emphasis of “still,” ʿod (compare the analogous emphatic phrase in verse 3), reflects David’s genuine uncertainty as to whether, after all the deaths of the Saulides previously reported, there are in fact any surviving descendants of Saul. The courtiers who are queried evidently don’t know, so they propose summoning a retainer of Saul’s in order to put the question to him. The fact that David is later complicit in the execution of seven men of the house of Saul (chapter 21) has led many analysts to conclude that the original place of that episode was before the present chapter. Robert Polzin, on the other hand, argues that the postponement of the report in chapter 21 is deliberately delayed exposition, meant to reveal another troubling facet of David near the end of his story.

3. keep God’s faith. The “faith” in question (ḥesed) is not credal but faithful performance of one’s obligation in a covenant, a term that also has the connotation of “kindness.” “God” here has the force of an intensifier. The covenant that is explicitly alluded to is the one between Jonathan and David (1 Samuel 20:42). That tight link is one of several arguments against the view widely held ever since the 1926 study of Leonhard Rost that this episode marks the beginning of a wholly independent Succession Narrative, which continues until 1 Kings 2.

who is crippled. Ziba’s mention of the surviving Saulide’s handicap is probably intended to assure David that Mephibosheth will not pose any challenge to the throne.

4. Lo-Debar. Mephibosheth was evidently taken to this northern trans-Jordanian town because it was a place of refuge. It is in the general vicinity of Jabesh-Gilead, the town inhabited by Saul’s allies and perhaps kinsmen. Mephibosheth, it will be recalled, was five years old when he was dropped by his nurse and crippled in the flight after the defeat at Gilboa. Since it seems implausible that more than fifteen or so years would have passed since that moment, one may surmise that he is now a man in his twenties.

6. Mephibosheth . . . flung himself on his face and prostrated himself. These gestures of abasement may have been standard etiquette in approaching a monarch, but Ziba is not reported making them. Mephibosheth is clearly terrified that the king may have summoned him in order to have him put to death—David’s possible complicity in the deaths of other figures associated with the house of Saul might well have been a matter of continuing speculation in Benjaminite circles. As Fokkelman aptly notes, it would have been a particularly painful business for a man crippled in both legs to fling himself down in this fashion.

7. I will give back to you all the land of Saul. With the descendants of Saul fled or dead, the king had expropriated Saul’s ancestral land around Gibeah.

9. Saul’s lad. The Hebrew naʿar denotes subservience, but it is unclear whether, as some have claimed, it indicates Ziba’s role as majordomo (the philological grounds for that construction are shaky) or rather his subaltern status in the house of Saul.

10. your slaves. The Hebrew term ʿeved straddles the sense of freeborn underling and slave. Ziba evidently belongs to the former category, and so the designation ʿeved is rendered as “servant” when it is attached to him. It seems likely that the underlings of a prosperous servant would be slaves. Polzin has noted that different forms of this verbal stem occur ten times in the chapter, which is all about establishing lines of dominance and subservience.

and you shall bring food for your master’s house and they will eat. The translation here follows the text of the Septuagint. The Masoretic Text reads: “and you shall bring and it will be food for your master’s son and he will eat it.” That version can be maintained only with strain, for the very next clause informs us that Mephibosheth was not dependent on the yield of his own land but resided in Jerusalem, sustained at the royal table.

11. And Mephibosheth ate at David’s table. Again, the translation follows the Septuagint. The Masoretic Text has “And Mephibosheth is eating at my table,” but the Bible never gives reported speech without an explicit introduction (“and David said”).

13. for at the king’s table he would always eat. The refrainlike repetition of this clause should give us pause. David is indeed treating Jonathan’s crippled son like one of his own sons, “keeping faith” or “showing kindness” to the offspring of his dead comrade, as he had pledged. He surely means his benefaction to be publicly perceived. At the same time, it is clearly in David’s interest to keep the only conceivable Saulide pretender to the throne close at hand, under easy scrutiny. Mephibosheth’s condition is ostensibly that of an unofficially adopted son, but with an uneasy suspicion that it is really a kind of luxurious house arrest.

And he was lame in both his feet. This emphatic concluding reiteration of his physical impairment might be intended, as some commentators have proposed, to explain why he could not travel back and forth between his estate and Jerusalem. But it surely also strikes a plaintive note at the end, underscoring the vulnerability of Mephibosheth, whether cosseted or held under surveillance in the Jerusalem court. As the court becomes more and more the arena of plots and murderous conflict, Mephibosheth will be victimized by someone close to him. This notice at the end about Mephibosheth’s lameness also underscores the continuing antithesis between the fates of the house of Saul and the house of David: King David came into Jerusalem whirling and dancing before the LORD; the surviving Saulide limps into Jerusalem, crippled in both legs