Life of David: 22. David is Kind to Mephibosheth

This is lesson 22 in the Life of David series. It is found in 2 Samuel 9 and I included a genealogy tree for King Saul's family in the application pack.

David is the king of Israel and he brought the Ark of God to the City of David. God told Nathan the prophet that David would be great, and his son would be the next king. He would be the one to build the house for the Ark of God. The next king would be Solomon.

Chapter 8 tells us about more of David’s battles. God is with him and he defeats all of his opponents. Verse 6: And the Lord gave victories to David wherever he went. David knew God was with him. David was also gathering spoils of war. He took animals, bronze, gold and silver.

(Chapter 9) David wanted to show kindness to someone from Saul’s house in memory of Jonathan. Jonathan was Saul’s son and David had loved him like a brother. They called a servant from Saul’s house to come see David. The servants name was Ziba.

David asked Ziba if there was anyone that David could show kindness to. Ziba told David that “There is a son of Jonathan’s still alive. He is crippled.” [Read 2 Samuel 4:4] Mephibosheth was 5 years old when his nurse heard about King Saul and Jonathan’s deaths. She picked him up and ran when she heard the news. She was in such a hurry to leave, Mephibosheth fell down and became lame.

King David asked Ziba where Mephibosheth lived. David sent for Mephibosheth and he was brought to David. Mephibosheth bowed on his face to David. David told Mephibosheth not to be afraid. David intended to show him kindness because of his father Jonathan. David said that he would give him all the land of his grandfather Saul and Mephibosheth would eat at David’s table.

David called for Ziba and told him that David had restored all of Saul’s belongings to Mephibosheth. David said you and the servants will work the land and take the produce from the land to Mephibosheth so that Saul’s grandson will have food to eat. But, Mephibosheth will always eat at my table. Ziba had 15 sons and 20 servants and told David that they would do everything that David commanded.

Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem and he always ate at David’s table. He had a young son named Mica. All the men of Ziba became servants of Mephibosheth.

The printables for David in this series are for an older age group than I usually post. Although this one is, some of these lessons about David are not appropriate for early elementary. But David is a great study. So, as you can see from the above picture, there is a Q&A. This could be used with younger groups by using the answer sheet and just asking the questions for discussion. Each post in this series will have a maze and some type of puzzle. The additional application has thought questions about how the students can apply the lesson to their daily life. Of course this application has scriptures and discusses being kind to others. There are answer sheets for all worksheets except for the last application. Everyone will have a different set of answers. This pack also includes the genealogy tree for King Saul as seen above. Click here to download.