What Does 2 Samuel 9:3 Mean?
And the king said, Is there not still anyone of the house of Saul, that I may do the faithful love of God with him? And Ziba said to the king, Jonathan still has a son, who is struck in his feet.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the king said, Is there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I may shew the kindness of God unto him? And Ziba said unto the king, Jonathan hath yet a son, which is lame on his feet.THE KEY
God’s faithful love is revealed as a king’s search for the vulnerable person others might define by his limitation.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you with a picture of faithful love seeking its recipient, even where vulnerability is the first thing others name. Your weakness does not place you beyond the reach of God’s kindness. Here, that love takes shape in a particular person’s care.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that bodily limitation places someone beyond God’s care dissolves: Jonathan’s son is named as the one toward whom the king intends to show God’s kindness.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
ḥesed
GROWS FROM
ח־ס־ד
ḥ-s-d
To act with loyal kindness; faithful love expressed through dependable care.
“faithful love of God” in this verse is ḥesed. Chesed is more than passing niceness: it is faithful love made dependable in action. Its related words keep that love tied to enacted loyalty, so God’s nature becomes visible through the care the king intends to show this man.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsad: To show kindness or act loyally.
חָסַד
The verb makes clear that this love is something done; the king seeks a person toward whom it can be enacted.
ḥāsîḏ: Faithful, devout; one marked by loyal love.
חָסִיד
This related word describes a person through the same quality of loyalty that the king intends to embody.
THE PATTERN
Faithful love becomes visible through concrete acts of care and enduring commitment.
And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, Blessed be he of the LORD, who has not let go of his faithful love to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said to her, The man is near to us, one of our redeemers.He has shown you, O human, what is good. And what does the LORD seek from you, but to do justice, and to hold fast to faithful love, and to walk low with your God?So that in the oncoming ages he might show the overflowing riches of his favor, in kindness toward us, in the Anointed One, Jesus.THE THREAD
But my faithful love shall not turn aside from him, as I turned it from Saul, whom I turned aside from your face.The Hebrew word rendered “mercy” here is חַסְדִּי (ḥasdî, “my faithful love”), from the same root as the kindness David seeks to show. The shared word makes his intended care an expression of faithful love that does not depart.
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