Sarah
King David had just crossed over the top of the hill and had not gone very far when Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, came rushing out to meet him.
Ziba had two donkeys all saddled up and ready to go. The donkeys were carrying quite a bit of food:
200 loaves of bread
100 raisin cakes
100 cakes made from summer fruit
A skin of wine
David took one look and thought, “What in the world is this guy doing here with all this stuff?”
So David asked Ziba,
“What are you doing here? What’s all this food for?”
Ziba quickly answered,
“My king, the two donkeys are for your family to ride. The bread and fruit are for the young men to eat. And the wine is for people to drink when they get worn out in the wilderness.”
David thought, “Well, this guy sure knows how to show up at the right time.”
Then David asked,
“Where is your master Mephibosheth? Why didn’t he come?”
Ziba immediately answered,
“Oh, my king, he didn’t come. He’s still back in Jerusalem!”
David asked,
“What’s he doing there?”
And that’s when Ziba started telling on his master.
He said,
“My king, he doesn’t really have your back. He said, ‘Today the people of Israel will give my father’s kingdom back to me!’”
When David heard this, his heart sank.
David was already running for his life. His own son Absalom had rebelled against him, Jerusalem had fallen into Absalom’s hands, and David was going through one of the hardest moments of his life.
Then Ziba came along and basically told him:
“You think Mephibosheth is on your side? He’s just sitting there waiting for you to lose everything so he can get his grandfather Saul’s kingdom back!”
David didn’t stop to investigate the whole thing.
He simply said,
“Fine. If that’s what Mephibosheth is thinking, then everything that belongs to him is yours.”
Ziba immediately bowed down before the king and said,
“I bow before my lord the king! If I can find favor in your eyes, that’s all I need.”
But here’s the thing:
Later, it turned out that Ziba’s story was not the whole truth.
Ziba took advantage of David’s difficult situation. He brought a bunch of supplies to show his loyalty, but at the same time, he threw his own master under the bus.
David was running for his life. He was under enormous pressure and didn’t have time to investigate everything carefully. So he believed what Ziba told him.
And this gives us a lesson we can all understand:
When life gets really hard, it’s easy to believe whatever people tell us.
So we need to slow down and be careful.
Hearing someone’s story doesn’t automatically mean the story is true.
💬 Discussion Question
If you were David, would you have believed Ziba’s words? Why or why not?
Have you ever experienced a situation where you heard only one side of a story and later discovered that there was more to the truth?