Mephibosheth

“ The king is as an angel of God - As if he had said, I state my case plainly and without guile; thou art too wise not to penetrate the motives from which both myself and servant have acted. I shall make no appeal; with whatsoever thou determinest I shall rest contented.
Verse 29
I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land - At first, David gave the land of Saul to Mephibosheth; and Ziba, his sons, and his servants, were to work that land; and to Mephibosheth, as the lord, he was to give the half of the produce. ”

“ But this gratitude, was not lasting; for upon an accusation preferred against him by his servant, David readily bestowed all Mephibosheth's possessions upon that servant; (5) yet, when the accusation was found to be false, instead of equitably punishing the asperser of innocence, and reinstating Mephibosheth in his former favour, he restored to him but half the forfeiture of his supposed guilt, (6) leaving the villain Ziba in the quiet possession of the other half, as the reward of his treachery.—But of this in its proper place. ”

“ To-day shall the house of Israel - What a base wretch was Ziba! and how unfounded was this accusation against the peaceable, loyal and innocent Mephibosheth!
Verse 4
Thine are all - This conduct of David was very rash; he spoiled an honorable man to reward a villain, not giving himself time to look into the circumstances of the case. But David was in heavy afflictions, and these sometimes make even a wise man mad. Nothing should be done rashly; he who is in the habit of obeying the first impulse of his passions or feelings, will seldom do a right action, and never keep a clear conscience. ”

“ Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. 009:011 Then said Ziba to the king, According to all that my lord the king commands his servant, so shall your servant do. As for Mephibosheth, [said the king] , he shall eat at my table, as one of the king's sons. 009:012 Mephibosheth had a young son, whose name was Mica. ”

“ David inquires after the family of Jonathan, and is informed of Mephibosheth his son, [167] . He sends for him and gives him all the land of Saul, [168] ; and appoints Ziba the servant of Saul, and his family, to till the ground for Mephibosheth, [169] .
Verse 1
Is there yet any that is left - David recollecting the covenant made with his friend Jonathan, now inquires after his family. It is supposed that political considerations prevented him from doing this sooner. Reasons of state often destroy all the charities of life. ”

“ He was five years old when the news came about Saul and Jonathan from Jezreel, and his nurse picked him up to flee. And then, as she rushed away away, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.
5 And the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went and came during the heat of the day to Ishbosheth, who was lying in bed at noon. 6 And there they arrived, inside the house, taking wheat, and they mortally wounded his abdomen. ”

“ David was at this time seized with a temporary fit of gratitude toward a lame son of his old friend Jonathan, named Mephibosheth, to whom he restored all the private patrimony of his grandfather Saul, and took him into his family;**** not without due consideration, it is to be supposed ”

“ Civilization prevents barbarity and atrocity; mental cultivation induces decency of manners: those primitive times were generally without these. Who that knows them would wish such ages to return?
Chapter 4 Introduction
Some account of Rechab and Baanah, two of Ish-bosheth's captains, and of Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, [50] . Rechab and Baanah murder Ish-bosheth, and escape; and bring his head to David, [51] . David is greatly irritated, and commands them to be slain, [52] . ”

“ His crime, it is true, was great and God had declared by Nathan what had now come to pass. God is just, and in numberless instances sees right to show his displeasure even at those sins which his mercy has forgiven. In all cases it is a fearful and bitter thing to sin against the Lord.
Chapter 16 Introduction
Ziba, servant of Mephibosheth, meets David with provisions, and by false insinuations obtains the grant of his masters property, [271] . Shimei abuses and curses David, who restrains Abishai from slaying him, [272] . Hushai makes a feigned tender of his services to Absalom, [273] . ”

“ Zadok and Abiathar the priests.
10:015:036 Behold, they have there with them their two sons, Ahimaaz Zadok's son, and Jonathan Abiathar's son; and by them ye shall send unto me every thing that ye can hear.
10:015:037 So Hushai David's friend came into the city, and Absalom came into Jerusalem.
10:016:001 And when David was a little past the top of the hill, behold, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth met him, with a couple of asses saddled, and upon them two hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine. ”

“ When Piānkhi saw this he sent a message to the Memphites, saying: "Shut not your gates, and fight not in the city that hath belonged to Shu [1] for ever. He who wisheth to enter may do so, he who wisheth to come out may do so, and he who wisheth to travel about may do so. I will make an offering to Ptah and the gods of White Wall (Memphis) . I will perform the ceremonies of Seker in the Hidden Shrine. I will look upon the god of his South Wall (i.e. Ptah) , and I will sail down the river in peace. No man of Memphis shall be harmed, not a child shall cry out in distress. ”

“ Memphis was four hundred aters from the City of the Sun, down the river.
The further the king went the happier he was, as though he had, indeed, escaped from prison. It made him happy that the yellow streak of the dead sands and the black of fertile earth stretched on either side of the river simply, quietly and monotonously: life and death side by side in eternal union, eternal peace; that the slow oxen were drawing deep furrows in rich earth and the bright green crops already showed here and there, and the monotonous singing of the ploughman echoed far in the stillness of the fields. ”

“ To secure that triumph, a knowledge of the holy book was required. Portions of it are found written on coffin lids and on the walls of tombs; every Egyptian desired to have it buried with him, and whilst the rich would often have an entire copy laid in his tomb, the poor man coveted at least a fragment.
Memphis was founded by the first King of Egypt, but Abydos and On were linked by tradition to the gods.
One beautiful obelisk of red granite stands solitary among the green fields to mark where stood the City of the Sun, and the wild bees store their honey in its deep-cut hieroglyphs. ”

“ Out of these shady demesnes rose the great white temples of Ptah and Apis, and the palaces of the various Memphian Pharaohs.
About these, the bazaars and residences, facade above facade, and tier upon tier, as the land sloped up to its center, shone fair and white under a cloudless sun.
Memphis was at the pinnacle of her greatness in the sixth year of the reign of the divine Meneptah. She had fortified herself and resisted the great invasion of the Rebu. Her generals had done battle with him and brought him home, chained to their chariots. ”

“ The annual festival in honour of Isis was observed all over Egypt in the same way.
As the Greek traveller approached Memphis the pyramids of Gizeh were shown to him towering over the water on his right. His visit to them was reserved to another day, and he continued to sail on to the ancient capital of the country. Memphis was still in all its glory. Its lofty walls of crude brick, painted white, shone in the sun, and its great temple of Ptah still preserved the monuments and records of the early dynasties of Egypt. ”

“ The capital continued to be Memphis, and from the beginning of the Hid Dynasty to the end of the Old Kingdom and the rise of Herakle-opolis and Thebes, Memphis remained the chief city of Egypt.
The Heliopolitans were naturally the servants of the Sun-god above all other gods, and they were the first to call themselves “Sons of the Sun,” a title retained by the Pharaohs throughout all subsequent history. It was Ne-user-Râ who built the Sun-temple of Abu Ghuraib, on the edge of the desert, north of his pyramid and those of his two immediate predecessors at Abusir. ”

“ Memphis was then a great city; in its crowded streets, its palaces and temples, it was second only to Alexandria. A little to the west stood the pyramids, which were thought one of the seven wonders of the world. Their broad bases, sloping sides, and solid masonry had withstood the weather for ages; and their huge unwieldy stones were a less easy quarry for after builders than the live rock when nearer to the river’s side. The priests of Memphis knew the names of the kings who, one after the other, had built a new portico to their great temple of Phtah ”

“ The history of Memphis, such as it can be gathered from the monuments, differs considerably from the tradition current in Egypt at the time of Herodotus. It appears, indeed, that at the outset, the site on which it subsequently arose was occupied by a small fortress, Anbû-hazû—the white wall—which was dependent on Heliopolis, and in which Phtah possessed a sanctuary. After the "white wall" was separated from the Heliopolitan principality to form a nome by itself, it assumed a certain importance, and furnished, so it was said, the dynasties which succeeded the Thinite. ”

“ Manetho's account of these dynasties is contained in three volumes: Herodotus, Diodorus, Eratosthenes and Manetho, amid their many disagreements concur in this statement – that Menes of This was the first mortal king of Mizraim, the double land, i.e., Upper and Lower Egypt. Here, indeed, their coincidence ends. For Herodotus makes Menes the founder of Memphis, as well as of the monarchy: whereas Diodorus states that Memphis, the embankments which supported its area, and the diversion of the Nile stream were the works of a Monarch, who lived many centuries afterwards. ”

“ A tiny cup of poison was concealed under the fiery yellow carbuncle—'Amon's eye.' On his deathbed the king commanded that if any king of Egypt were false to Amon he was to be killed with that poison.
"My spirit be upon you, my son, and the Spirit of the Secret One!" Ptamose said, laying his hands on Merira's head. "Henceforth, you, Merira, son of Nehtaneb, are the High Priest of Amon. Woe to thy enemies, O Lord! Their dwelling-place is in darkness but the rest of the earth in thy light: the sun of them that hate thee is darkened, the sun of them that love thee is rising!" ”

“ And this is all that remains of Memphis, eldest of cities—a few huge rubbish-heaps, a dozen or so of broken statues, and a name! One looks round and tries in vain to realize the lost splendors of the place. Where is the Memphis that King Mena came from Thinis to found—the Memphis of Ouenephes, and Khufa, and Khafra, and all the early kings who built their pyramid-tombs in the adjacent desert? Where is the Memphis of Herodotus, of Strabo, of Abd-el-Latîf? ”

“ The great colossus marks the site of the main entrance to the Temple of Ptah. It lies where it fell, and no man has moved it. That tranquil sheet of palm-fringed back-water, beyond which we see the village of Mitrâhîneh and catch a distant glimpse of the pyramids of Ghîzeh, occupies the basin of a vast artificial lake excavated by Mena. The very name of Memphis survives in the dialect of the fellah, who calls the place of the mounds Tell Monf [20] —just as Sakkârah fossilizes the name of Sokari, one of the special denominations of the Memphite Osiris. ”

“ It was no secret that even her uncle's wife, worthy Neforis, did not care for her haughty niece and only suffered her to please the invalid. And what business had a Melchite at Memphis, under the roof of a good Jacobite? Every word the dragoman spoke breathed the scorn which a mean and narrow-minded man is always ready to heap on those who share the kindness of his own benefactors.
But this beautiful and lofty-looking daughter of a great man had conquered the merchant's old heart, and his opinion of her was quite unmoved by the Memphite's strictures. ”

“ His name shows him to have been in the first place an incarnation of Atûmû, but he was affiliated to the god Phtah of Memphis when that god became the husband of his mothers, and preceded Imhotpû as the third personage in the oldest Memphite triad. ** Each year, and at a certain time, the goddess came in high state to spend a few days in the great temple of Edfû, with her husband Haroêris. ”

“ Investigation speedily proves that the most ancient vestiges of civilization are situated in the neighborhood of Memphis which, under the kings of the fourth and the sixth dynasties, reached its height of splendor. It is in the land of the north, Meh-ta, that the extremely ancient seven-storied pyramid of Sakkârah lies, and that there exists the area of about thirty kilometers in which eighty pyramids are concentrated, and which constitutes the great burial ground of countless generations of Egyptians of all periods. ”

“ O Memphis, gem of the Ancient Land and home of a hundred kings, how is thy grandeur humbled and thy glory departed! Thy streets and broad places which once rang with the tramp of mighty hosts and echoed with the songs of jubilant multitudes welcoming them home from victory are buried under the drifting desert sands; in the ruins of thy holy temples the statues of the gods lie prone in the dust, and the owl rears her brood on thy crumbling altars, and hoots to the moon where once rose the solemn chant of priests and the sweet hymns of the Sacred Virgins ”