Jonathan, Ittai, and Mephibosheth: Faith in a Victorious Christ; Love for a Rejected Christ; and Hope in a Returning Christ

 •  23 min. read  •  grade level: 7
 
“And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David; and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”
“And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.”
“And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.” (1 Sam. 18:1414And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways; and the Lord was with him. (1 Samuel 18:14).)
“Then said the king to Ittai, the Gittite, wherefore goest thou with us? return unto thy place, and abide with the king, for thou art a stranger, and also an exile. Whereas, thou earnest (but) yesterday, should I this day make thee to go up and down with us? seeing I go whither I may, return thou, and take back thy brethren: mercy and truth be with thee.”
“And Ittai answered the king, and said, As the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also shall thy servant be.”
“And Mephibosheth, the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace.”
“And it came to pass, when he had come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said unto him, Wherefore wentest thou not with me, Mephibosheth?”
“And he answered, My lord, O king, my servant deceived me; for thy servant said, I will saddle me an ass, that I may ride thereon, and go to the king, because thy servant is lame.”
“And he hath slandered thy servant unto my lord the king; but my lord the king is as an angel of God; do therefore what is good in thine eye.”
“For all my father’s house were but dead men before my lord the king; yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table. What right, therefore, have I yet to cry any more unto the king?”
“And the king said unto him, Why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land.”
There are three men in the above passages of scripture whose histories stand out with more or less prominence, during the early days, as well as the reign, and the restoration of David, King, of Israel. There are others, too, in other scriptures, whose names are found amongst the “worthies,” or “mighty men” of the king; but these three teach us their own special lesson in the connection in which we would now view them,
They may be looked at as affording types, with their deep instruction for our souls; or they may be viewed as individuals, and their history, whether long or short, may give us details of deepest profit. But I would now look at them simply in the light of an illustration of Faith, Love, and Hope.
Jonathan presents, as thus viewed—Faith that strips itself for a victorious Christ; Ittai— Love that follows a rejected Christ; and Mephibosheth—hope that waits for a returning Christ!
All three may, and they will, be found practically in the actions and heart of the devoted Christian. Indeed, we find this, in the New Testament, fully and strikingly presented to us in the devoted Apostle of the Gentiles—Paul, who occupies a most peculiar place in the present period, or interval, which is known by the name of Christianity: the peculiar parenthesis, as we may term it, which lies between the first and the second advents of our Lord.
It has a very different character than all which went before, and from all that will come after: as an interval it stands alone in all God’s ways. Jesus, rejected by the world and His own people, and cast out as a malefactor, has gone on high to the right hand of God. There He remains as Man until “His enemies be made his footstool,” and then He will come forth from the heavens with power and great glory to take to Him His great power and reign for a thousand years. Meanwhile, the Holy Ghost, sent down from heaven, dwells with His people, as the other Comforter, who would abide with them forever.
Paul, the apostle, introduced the peculiar characteristics of this period, and became in his own person, as well as in his teaching, the great exemplar and representative man of the interval, of whom it could be said (and of no other) “Be ye followers (imitators) together of me.” This, too, without any qualification whatsoever. And while Christ is the true and only model for us, it is remarkable and blessed to find that in the peculiar line of truth presented in Phil. 3, where this is said, Paul is the very one by whom the Spirit of God could and would with wisdom say the words cited above.
The reason is plain. Redemption had set this “chief of s inners” free, to be forever after the bondsman of Jesus. In one moment he was arrested in his dread career of sin, and brought captive to his Savior’s feet, thenceforth to run for the goal for which he pressed day after day—complete likeness to Christ, his Lord, in the bright scene of glory from which his Lord had spoken to him, and for which he was redeemed. All things, then, were dross and dung for the excellency of His knowledge. But he ran to obtain the full result of all; day by day he pressed towards the mark of the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus.
Now Jesus never ran to obtain anything which could make Him more perfect than He was. He ran the race from its beginning to its ending, as the author and finisher of faith, most surely. In this He is our great example. But the moment it became a question of running to obtain, the Spirit took up a vessel, and emptied it out of self and all; displaced this by the Christ he had seen in glory on the day of his conversion, and gave complete perfection, in likeness to Him in glory, as a goal for Paul to attain. Paul, then, rightly and fitly, by the Spirit can say, “Brethren, be followers together of me.” ‘run to obtain; do you the same’!
In Him, then, we find the living picture of all that these three illustrate, combined in Himself, in this Epistle to the Philippians. Not only have we the “Faith that strips itself for a victorious Christ” (ch. 3:7-9), and the “Love that follows a rejected Christ” (ch. 1:20), but we also find the “Hope that waits for a returning Christ,” characterizing Him as a heavenly citizen, who waited for his Lord; all then that remained of his condition while here below would drop off, and he be changed by the mighty hand of this returning Savior from the glory (ch. 3:20, 21).
Let us examine them shortly. The solemn day of Israel’s trial had come under the king of their choice. Saul, with the Philistines, headed by their champion, Goliath of Gath—Satan’s man, armed with his coat of mail, was there, terrifying the poor trembling Hosts of Israel. Man’s man-Saul, was there too, and with the people he was “dismayed and greatly afraid.” (1 Sam. 17:1111When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid. (1 Samuel 17:11).) God’s man, too, the eighth son of Jesse, despised by his brethren, and but a stripling, was “feeding his father’s sheep at Bethlehem” (v. 15). In his retirement he had learned to slay the lion and the bear with the strength of God. He had not sought to do this; but when the time had come in the path of duty, he did it in the strength of God; and no man seemed to have known it. If with “the Lord” they were but things of naught, so were they to the lovely faith of this blessed type of the true David himself. What or who, then, was this Philistine, before whom the armies of the living God were, alas, trembling?
I do not dwell on this exquisite scene—thank God now familiar to so many. Israel, like captive sinners, were in the power of the strong man armed; none dared to move unless at his bidding. But a stronger than he had come, and took from him the armor in which he trusted, and divided the spoils! David chose him five stones of the brook; the weakness of man, which five typifies, passing through the waters of death, was the instrument to destroy this mighty captor. With a sling and a stone David prevailed over the Philistine (v. 50) and slew him, and there was no sword in his hand. Mark the lovely word “prevailed.” How it reminds of that other scene—other than the battle-field of Elah—when the elders told John, whose tears were falling on the crystal floor of heaven itself, (strange that heaven should have witnessed tears, and that tears fell on its very floor!), when the elder said to the weeping seer, “Weep not; behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, hath prevailed to open the book,” &c. How sweet the word! It was not by power, but by apparent defeat, for the cross was the “weakness of God;” yet there was strength displayed, as we sometimes sing—
“By weakness and defeat
He won the meed and crown;
He trod our foes beneath His feet,
By being trodden down.”
Satan was vanquished in his last stronghold. Jesus entered into that prison house; but only to burst its bars asunder, and annul its power forever! He went down that “He might destroy [the power of] him that had the power of death—that is the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Thus He prevailed. “But there was no sword in the hand of David” (1 Sam. 17:5050So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. (1 Samuel 17:50)). And “he ran and stood on the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith.” Then he returned with the spoils of his victory, the strong man’s armor in which he trusted, the sword of the enemy, and his head in his hand.
Like the risen Jesus, triumphing over the whole domain of death, taking for His people, into His own hands, the power of death—that terrible foe! —and the “bruised head” of their mighty enemy.
At this moment, as David returned, we learn how it went with Jonathan. He (like Saul and the rest of Israel) was sharing the common results of deliverance from their common foe. Perhaps uncared for, and regarded with jealous looks by others, he passes on. Saul, like the Pharisee, Simon (Luke 7), knew him not as the Lord’s anointed; while the need of a broken-hearted woman of the city learned him as a Savior! How deeply we feel— yea, are taught to feel this—that need alone, felt and owned by conscience before God, learns Him. Just as the need of the soul is learned, as page after page of its history now lies open before the opened eve of the once-blinded sinner, so does page after page of the tender mercies of His heart unfold themselves to our soul’s consciousness.
But to return. Jonathan—yea, all Israel, as the people of God, were David’s object in ch. 17, and now (ch. 18.) David becomes his. He beholds him with the tokens of his victory in his hand, and his soul was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul! Touching history of that moment! The victor, not the victory, absorbed his heart!
What a picture of the risen Christ does this scene present! as He pointed to the wounds in His hands and His side on the evening of His resurrection; and the disciples’ hearts were glad when they saw their Lord!
But another action characterized Jonathan. His heart was ravished with David as he stood before him. His faith saw in him the future King of Israel. And Jonathan stripped himself of his robe, his garments, his sword, his girdle-all were surrendered with a willing heart to David. All that made him honorable in the eyes of men, as the son of the King (his robe); all that surrounded him (his garments); his sword, for he was now a captive to the love that filled his heart. When a man surrenders his sword, it implies this. And his girdle; his service, too, was all at the disposal of him whom he loved. This was faith.
Is my reader prepared for this? Alas! how many there are who find, for the soul’s everlasting joy and salvation, the victorious work of the Lord Jesus Christ (and surely we would wish their number was an hundredfold)! They learn their utter powerlessness to deliver themselves from the enemy, and they learn to bow to the victory of Jesus as their Savior. Then comes the first bright moment of the soul’s history, when the liberty wherewith He sets His people free is taken into the heart like cold water to the thirsty soul, and Jesus is truly precious. He stands before their souls as the peerless One. But when they find that Jesus looks for their hearts to be entirely His; He, who was fully for them in self-surrendering love on the cross, looks for them now to be fully for Him, and that this involves the surrender of that which makes them of repute in the world. Then their admiration wanes, alas! But what did Jonathan at this lovely moment? All was surrendered, and the heart was glad to do it to show its love. Yea, the actions were doubtless not thought of for the moment; for, where true love is, the heart is but too happy thus to bestow its all, and thinks not of what it gives its object.
How sad when we think of Jonathan’s fate after this precious moment! How bright to think of Paul’s, after his long and checkered career in his Master’s service. The first moment when his captor spoke to him, arresting him in his work of destruction, and made him His captive bondsman forever after; that moment at which, he writes, he had counted all things loss for Christ. The long and trying years of service and sorrow for his Master had not cooled this first love of his devoted heart; and the same faith that stripped itself in his early days of discipleship for his victorious Lord, was fresh and bright to the end, when in the prison at Rome, he writes those words, “I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him!”
Does the eye of one who is but a sinner still, rest on these words? If so, I desire a word with you. God asks nothing, nor will he receive anything from you but your sins! Strange that this is the very first thing the sinner is called upon to surrender to Him. Ten thousand times ten thousand they may be. Well, is not the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ enough to answer for them to God? Surely it is. Has it not answered Him, and presented to Him that which has met all the righteous claims of God? It has set Him so free in righteousness to bless you; so that were you the vilest sinner that ever trod this earth, He can, and will, in all the perfection of His grace, pardon you, and cleanse you, and give you a place in His love, and His house with Jesus forever!
But the human heart refuses this. It is humbling to the proud heart of man to find that he can give nothing to God but his sins; to find that God will receive them from him, and blot them out with the precious blood of Jesus. But this needs a humble and a contrite heart—a soul sensible of its own complete and hopeless ruin. It is then, when the heart submits to this, that God meets it with fullness of pardon and grace. As long as there remains in the soul of the sinner one lingering thought that there is even the capability of receiving and enjoying with grateful heart this grace of God, it has not come to the end of all hope in self, and as long as this is so, faith in God and the fullness of His grace is unknown.
How sweet, then, for the sinner to find himself at the deepest spot of ruin, and to discover that his total condemnation is met by the sovereign grace of God, and then all is free. Has my reader reached that trusting-place with God? Has he found that the cross of the Lord Jesus, where his total ruin speaks with an eloquence far beyond what human language can express, is the spot where the living grace of that God whom he there finds, flows out to him in righteousness, to save, to pardon, and to bless?
Just as David, single-handed and alone, vanquished the mighty enemy at that day, and Jonathan’s full heart, bowed to the victory which he had accomplished, so has the powerless sinner but to bow in simple, unquestioning faith to the mighty victory of the greater than David—Jesus, Son of David, Son of God, and enter upon the spoils and fruits of the triumph of his Lord.
And if this faith be thine, it will go on (as Jonathan’s at the moment of which we speak) to strip itself, and lay itself -its all, at the feet of the Conqueror, thenceforth to be the bondsmen of such a Master and Lord.
Reader, have you the “Faith that strips itself for a victorious Savior?”
But we now turn to another picture. David, at the revolt of Absalom his son, in passing forth from Jerusalem, a rejected king. A usurper occupies his throne.
And is not this the day of the rejection of Jesus? A usurper fills the throne of the world as its prince. Satan is entitled “The prince of the world.” He received this title for the first time when he had (apparently) driven the true prince out of it (cf. John 14:3030Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. (John 14:30)).
A sorrowful scene, yet full of tenderest associations, presents itself to us in 2 Sam. 15 David is passing forth from Jerusalem, leaving the throne in possession of his rebel son. His counselor, Ahithophel, had sold him by his treachery. David might then, in spirit, say, “Mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up (his) heel against me.” (Psa. 40:99I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. (Psalm 40:9).) How much more deeply, yea, in its depths, might Jesus say those words, and feel them in all their intensity (John 13:1818I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. (John 13:18)), when about to pass through Jerusalem (John 15-17) on His way across “the brook Kidron” (John 18:11When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples. (John 18:1); and 2 Sam. 15:2323And all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over: the king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over, toward the way of the wilderness. (2 Samuel 15:23)) to His passion, His cross, His grave!
At this moment Ittai the Gittite appears. (2 Sam. 15:1919Then said the king to Ittai the Gittite, Wherefore goest thou also with us? return to thy place, and abide with the king: for thou art a stranger, and also an exile. (2 Samuel 15:19).) He was but a stranger and an exile; he had come but yesterday. And David owns this, and gives him the opportunity to return. He would not command the affection of others, and involve them in his own rejection; he would value it and accept it when it came in all its freshness from the heart of one who was devoted to him.
And Jesus looks not for the forced services and forced discipleship of any whom He has served and saved. He, too, would test the hearts of those who follow Him in the day of His rejection, when a usurper fills His throne.
“Should I this day (said David to Ittai) make thee go up and down with us? seeing I go whither I may, return thou, and take back thy brethren: mercy and truth be with thee.” It was a critical moment in his career. He “might have had opportunity to have returned.” He might have lived on, in ease and quietness at Jerusalem, having shown his willingness to go with the king. He might have enjoyed a character for devotedness which cost him but little. But this did not meet what his heart desired. David was rejected and would he not share this rejection with him whom he loved? Mark his reply. “And Ittai answered the king, and said, (As) the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be”! No other place would suit his devoted heart.
One can almost picture to oneself this lovely scene. The mournful refusal of the king to force the identity of others with his trouble. The earnest words of Ittai, as they two stood and talked together. How then refuse such devotedness? No, David would not: the test was applied to his heart, and he stood firm. “And David said to Ittai, Go, and pass over.” It was enough! Too many words would but spoil the scene. It illustrates in the most lovely way the love that follows a rejected Christ.
How like the response of heart to His own words when He speaks of His rejection and death (John 12:2626If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honor. (John 12:26)), “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, (‘in death or in life,’ may we not say?) there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honor.”
Look now at the Ittai of the New Testament, as we may say—Paul, the prisoner of Jesus, in his prison-house at Rome. There he sat—the sufficiency of Christ filling his heart; and his appearance before Nero fast approaching, of which death seemed the issue, for his rejected Master. He writes, “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain!”
Has my reader the “Love that follows a rejected Christ”?
“The hope that waits for a returning Christ” we find touchingly illustrated in Mephibosheth. The days of the king’s exile bad passed by. No doubt they were slow and full of mourning to him who waited for his return to his throne. At last the day of reckoning had come, and judgment had overtaken Absalom (chapter. 18) the usurper; while Ahithophel had, like Judas, hanged himself (ch. 17). The king would now render to each their due. Amongst the others came Mephibosheth to meet the king. While he was absent, Mephibosheth was like a man who waited for his own Lord (cf. Luke 12:3636And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. (Luke 12:36)). He had “neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed, until the day he came again in peace” (2 Sam. 19:2424And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace. (2 Samuel 19:24)). His heart went with David, though his feet were lame, and he could not walk. Some may have said that all this appearance of mourning was feigned, judging from the outward appearance, for Mephibosheth had stayed at Jerusalem. But “man looketh (and generally faultily) on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” How true, if this was so, in their judgment of him, as of his master of old, when he was chosen king (see 1 Sam. 16:77But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)), “As with his master, so with his servant.” And David himself asks him, “Wherefore wentest not thou with me, Mephibosheth?” But we read his pleading answer feelingly—for appearances were against him (like many another that had met the same), and he felt it ill to plead his own cause with the one he truly loved, when appearances spoke differently. (See vv. 26-28.) Again, David’s words were but barbed arrows in his devoted follower’s heart.
Are there not times when the Lord’s servants have to feel these things too—when no eye but His who knows their inmost heart can tell what is there, in spite of all that speaks with eloquence, as it would appear, against them—yea, when even their Lord Himself seems to throw them back from Him? But oh, what tenderness is His in this seeming harshness of His ways! It was but to reach through the failures, to the true spot in their hearts, only known to Him, when even the servant himself hardly dares to assert his affection for his Master—all looks so contrary. But when He does so, it is but to remove that which clouded the bright spot of which He is aware, and which His own grace had produced or placed there, that He may take them more into His confidence, and fill their hearts with His love more than ever! How Peter learned this, when the Lord so probed his heart, that he was “grieved,” and then he was forced to appeal to “Him who knew all things,” to find that real affection for Him which was in his heart, which none else could see but Jesus; and surely appearances were against him when, with curses and oaths, he denied Him in Pilate’s hall!
The test was applied to Ittai’s love, when David wished him well, and told him to return; and he refused. David, and David’s path of rejection was Ittai’s, and he would have no other. Now comes the testing of Mephibosheth’s hope. Did he await David’s return that he might gain thereby I Was the land his object, or the blessings he would then receive?
“And the king said unto him, Why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land.” And Mephibosheth’s heart withstood the test. He wanted only the king, and his grateful heart found object enough in his lord. “And Mephibosheth said, Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace to his own house.”
David and David’s rights were all his thought. It was not for the advantage he would most surely have when the king returned to his own, which he sought. His mourning was ended, and the reality that he was not only “like a man who waited for his lord,” but was so proved. David had returned, and this was enough; till then he felt that Jerusalem was not his home.
And so Paul could say, “For our citizenship (πολιτευμα) is in heaven, from whence we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body that it maybe fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able ever to subdue all things to himself,” (Phil. 3:20, 2120For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 21Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. (Philippians 3:20‑21).)
Reader, have you the “Faith that waits for an absent but returning Christ”?