2 Samuel 9

Imitating Covenant Faithfulness

Intro

We learn by imitation. The French polymath Rene Girard noticed that the world is mimetic. One scholar put it this way.

Girard discovered that most of what we desire is mimetic (mi-met-ik) or imitative, not intrinsic. Humans learn—through imitation—to want the same things other people want, just as they learn how to speak the same language and play by the same cultural rules. Imitation plays a far more pervasive role in our society than anyone had ever openly acknowledged. (Burgis, Wanting, Location 81. )

After discovering Girard’s insights, I see them everywhere. That imitation plays such a huge role in shaping us, makes sense when you consider we are creatures patterned after our creator. We are made in His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27). Made to imitate Him. God places Adam in a garden, a microcosm of the world, and tells Him to do the same. Go make of the world and Edom, just as I have shown you. With sin, we lost the ability to imitate God in righteousness. But in redemption, that ability is restored. Scripture is mimetic material. The stories and parables, laws and prophecies, poetry and apocalypse all shape our sensibilities. They guide us to imitate God and show us models of men who attempted to do just that.

David is one such model. On multiple levels, his life and actions portray for us an ideal Israelite, a man after God’s own heart, and most importantly–a type of Christ. As we have watched David ascend (finally) to the throne, and seen God establish His kingdom by defeating his enemies and building him a sure house, what has stood out is word which gets repeated in our text this evening. It’s a Hebrew word you’ve no doubt heard before. It’s the word chesed. Often translated in the OT, lovingkindness, or steadfast love, or faithfulness, or as in our text tonight just kindness. It’s a word that describes covenant loyalty, rooted in and flowing from the character of God.

As we consider 2 Samuel 9 this evening, I want you to notice David’s kindness, his Chesed which he shows to Jonathan and the house of Saul. Moved as he is by his covenant obligations David imitates God who has been faithful to keep covenant with Him. The pattern is set for the greatest kindness ever shown to mankind, when Christ, David’s greater Son, gave you a seat at His table. Let us read together.

2 Samuel 9

Keeping Covenant

The relationship of David and Jonathan is legendary. Jonathan, Saul’s oldest Son and heir to the throne, befriends David, a promising Judahite who helps save Israel from the Philistines when he is just a boy. Saul allows this boy to console him with his harp when he gets in a bad mood. As the boy grows, he accompanies Saul and Jonathan with the army until soon, he has amassed great victories and is leading the army. Eventually Saul becomes Jealous of David’s success, and the Lord’s obvious favor. He tries to draw his son Jonathan into the trap of envy, but through it all, Jonathan kept up a high view of David. When things begin to heat up, and Saul is actively trying to kill David, Jonathan is the one who discovers the plot and alerts David so that he can flee. When they were making a plan to discover Saul’s intentions, Jonathan pleads with David to make a covenant with him.

And Jonathan said to David, “The LORD, the God of Israel, be witness! When I have sounded out my father, about this time tomorrow, or the third day, behold, if he is well disposed toward David, shall I not then send and disclose it to you? But should it please my father to do you harm, the LORD do so to Jonathan and more also if I do not disclose it to you and send you away, that you may go in safety. May the LORD be with you, as he has been with my father. If I am still alive, show me the steadfast love of the LORD, that I may not die; and do not cut off your steadfast love from my house forever, when the LORD cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.” (1 Samuel 20:12–15, ESV)

Later, when on the run from Saul David makes a similar covenant promise to Saul, after he had proved his innocence. When Saul realized he had been foolish to pursue David he said this:

And now, behold, I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. Swear to me therefore by the LORD that you will not cut off my offspring after me, and that you will not destroy my name out of my father’s house.” (1 Samuel 24:20–21, ESV)

David had made covenant promises to both Jonathan and Saul that he would not cut off the house of Saul and would show kindness to the house of Jonathan forever. But as it would happen, unfaithfulness in Saul’s house led to his downfall and great loss. It was only after the death of Ish-bosheth, Saul’s other son that David was able to become king over all of Israel. Now, as the Lord has brought blessing to his kingdom, David is in the place where he wants to fulfill some of his covenant vows. So he sends for Ziba, a servant of Saul’s to find out if there is anyone left of the house of Saul that he could show kindness too for Jonathan’s sake.

Ziba knows of one son of Jonathan’s who is crippled in his feet. David sends for him. Mephibosheth’s name could mean “‘one who scatters shame’, or ‘from the mouth of shame,’ but either way, Mephibosheth, like Ish-bosheth includes the word ‘shame’” (Leithart, A Son to Me, 209). And it get’s worse he lives in Lo-debar, literally nothing or no word. Mephibosheth is a member of shamed house living in po-dunk no where, on top of that he is crippled in his feet. But now, David is calling him to the center of everything, and extending kindness by restoring to him his families land and promising that he shall eat at David’s table. What an amazing picture of lovingkindness.

Very often in antiquity behavior such as David displays is unheard of. Routinely new kings would clear out any contenders to the throne by killing everyone who remained of the house of the previous king. David takes this man (and his son) into His home, and feeds him from his own table. David provides a model for us of covenant faithfulness, of being true to your word and honoring the covenants you have made. David does this by imitating God.

Like God

Just as God had been faithful to David, over and over again when throughout David’s life, he preserved him and brought him to the place where he could fulfil his own covenant vows. Those he had given David when he was a boy, the youngest in his father’s house when Samuel had come an anointed him to be Israel’s next king. That was a promise that took a whole lot of time and testing before the Lord brought it to completion. The psalms are replete with David extolling the virtues of the Lord’s kindness, of His steadfast love and faithfulness.

It was the kindness of the Lord that gave David hope as waited for the Lord. And it became the basis for his plea for deliverance. “Turn, O LORD, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love.” (Psalm 6:4, ESV). “Wondrously show your steadfast love, O Savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.” (Ps 17:7). “Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” (Ps 44:26).

But it was also the foundation for the mercy he sought when he confessed his sins. “Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!” (Ps 25:7). “As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me! For evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me.” (Ps 40:11–12).

It’s no wonder that the psalms are filled with testaments of the Lord’s kindness. Where would we be, sinners as we all are without the Lord’s steadfast love? Paul teaches us that it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance (Rom. 2:4). David has learned from, loved, rejoiced over, meditated on, and sought to imitate the kindness of God. But his imitation pales when compared to his greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus came to show kindness to those mired in shame, living away from God in nothingness. He restores our ancestral land, giving as our inheritance the new heavens and the new earth. What’s more, he invites you to His table and feeds you with his own body and blood. What kindness he has lavished on all those who receive Him as king and trust in Him alone for their salvation. What kindness he shows again and again to undeserving sinners such as me.

Application

As we watch David imitate the kindness of God, and we considered briefly how this points to an even greater kindness given to us in Christ, we are reminded that stories such as these are meant to call you to go and do likewise. So there are two things I want to leave you with as we close.

First, imitating God’s kindness means being true to your word. We are to be people of truth and our word should be trustworthy. Trust is something that is sorely lacking from our society today. We don’t trust institutions tasked with leading us, or supposed experts in fields like science and medicine, especially after the farce of the pandemic and lockdowns. Increasingly, we don’t trust pastors and ministry leaders because of abuse and sexual misconduct. As we become inundated with Ai, we increasingly don’t trust that what we read, or watch, is real. Our circles of who trust seem to grow smaller and smaller each day. How can we recover trust? How can we make it so others trust us. Well it starts very small with a radical commitment to the truth. Starting with your own commitment to let your yes be yes, and your no be no. To honor your word. Of course we all fail, even there. I can’t begin to recount all the things I have said I would do that I have not got around to doing. And when that’s the case, we repent. We own our failure to keep our commitments. And then we resolve to do better next time. David promised Jonathan and Saul that he would show kindness to their house, years later he made true on the covenant promise, just as God had done for David.

Second, imitating God’s covenant faithfulness means extending it to others. There is two parts to this. First, like anything the Lord asks you to give, he first gives to you. If you have not received kindness from the Lord, it will be very hard, if not impossible, to show kindness to others. Your kindness must flow out of your seeing and savoring the kindness of God. Began as the Psalmist often does by recounting God’s kindness to you. Consider all the ways his covenant faithfulness has affected you. Not least of which is inviting you into His house to eat at His table. A person who has been so affected by the kindness of God can’t help but show that kindness to others. By doing so, we invite them to taste and see the lovingkindness of God.Then you must extend that kindness to others. If they will know us by our love, then it will your steadfast love that points people to Christ.