What Does 2 Samuel 9:3 Mean in the King James?
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 analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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.
“kindness” 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 unto her daughter in law, Blessed be he of the LORD, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen.He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.THE THREAD
But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.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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