Mephibosheth

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Mephibosheth

Meri-baal - "beloved of Baal

Baal

Ba'al is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant, cognate to East Semitic Bel ....
"/"beloved of the Lord". In view of later religious sensibilities, textually later parts of the Bible rename Meribaal to Mephibosheth - "exterminator of the shameful one", while textually earlier parts preserve the name Meribaal. This change from "-Baal" to "-Bosheth" is common throughout other Biblical names, the exception being Beliah (Yahweh
Yahweh

Image:Tetragrammaton scripts.svg[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]] and Hebrew alphabet Yahweh is the English rendering of , a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton that was proposed by the Hebrew scholar Gesenius in the 19th century....
is Lord/Yahweh is Baal) since this couldn't be allowed to become Boshethiah or Jebosheth (Yahweh is shameful).

(1.) The name of Saul

Saul

Saul or Shaul may also refer to:...
's son by the concubine Rizpah

Rizpah

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Meri-baal - "beloved of Baal

Baal

Saul

Saul or Shaul may also refer to:...
's son by the concubine Rizpah

Rizpah

Rizpah - was the daughter of Aiah, and one of Saul the King's concubines. She was the mother of Armoni and Mephibosheth .It happened that a famine, which lasted for three years, fell upon the land during the earlier half of David's reign at Jerusalem....
, the daughter of Aiah. During the reign of King David, some members of Saul's family were punished for what had been done unto the Gibeonites. He and his brother Armoni

Armoni

Armoni was the first-named of the two sons of Saul and Rizpah. He was one of seven descendants of Saul to be given by David to the Gibeonites to be hanged. ....
were with five others "hanged on a hill before the Lord" by the Gibeonites, and their bodies exposed in the sun for five months .

(2.) The son of Jonathan

Jonathan

Jonathan is a common male given name. The first known David and Jonathan was a son of King Saul in the Hebrew Bible, a close friend of David.Alternative spellings of Jonathan include Jonathon, Johnathan, Jonatan, Jonothon, Jonothan, Johnathon, and Yonatan ....
, and grandson of Saul . He was lame in his feet. He was five years old when his father and grandfather fell in the Battle of Mount Gilboa. The child's nurse hearing of this calamity, fled with the boy from Gibeah

Gibeah

Gibeah ? could be a variation of the Hebrew word meaning ?hill,? other names include Gibeah of Benjamin and Gibeah of Saul. The site is believed to be identical to Tell el-Ful meaning ?mound of horse beans? in Arabic, a hill next to the modern Jerusalem neighbourhood of Pisgat Ze'ev....
, the royal residence, and stumbled in her haste, dropping the child on the ground, causing his paralyzing . He was carried to the land of Gilead

Gilead

From the Scriptures, "Gilead" means hill of testimony or mound of witness, , a mountainous region east of the Jordan River, situated in the present-day Kingdom of Jordan....
, where he found a refuge in the house of Machir

Machir

Machir/Makir - meaning selling/bartered - was the name of two figures in the Bible.1. Machir, the son of Manasseh, and father of Gilead ....
, the son of Ammiel

Ammiel

"Ammiel" means "people of God."#One of the twelve spies sent by Moses to search the land of Canaan . He was one of the ten who perished by the plague for their unfavourable report ....
, at Lo-debar

Lo-debar

Lo-debar was a town in the Old Testament in Gilead not far from Mahanaim, north of the Jabbok in Land of Israel. It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the home of Machir, a contemporary of David....
, by whom he was brought up.

Some years after this, when King David had subdued all the adversaries of Israel

Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
, he began to think of the family of Jonathan

Jonathan

Jonathan is a common male given name. The first known David and Jonathan was a son of King Saul in the Hebrew Bible, a close friend of David.Alternative spellings of Jonathan include Jonathon, Johnathan, Jonatan, Jonothon, Jonothan, Johnathon, and Yonatan ....
, and discovered that Mephibosheth was residing in the house of Machir. So he sent royal messengers there, and brought Mephibosheth and his infant son Micah

Micah

This article is about the given name. For other uses, see Micah .Micah is a Hebrew name". Suffix theophory in El results in Michael , meaning who is like God?, or possibly one who is like God;...
to Jerusalem

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and its List of Israeli cities in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if Positions on Jerusalem East Jerusalem is included....
, where he resided from that point on .

When David was a fugitive, according to the story of Ziba Mephibosheth proved unfaithful to him, and Ziba was subsequently awarded all of Mephibosheth's estate. However , Mephibosheth later spoke with David and stated that he had remained loyal to David, and that Ziba had lied. David then ordered the estate divided between the two; Mephibosheth allowed Ziba to keep everything as he was simply content in knowing that David was safe.

After this incident he is only mentioned as having been protected by David against the vengeance the Gibeonites were permitted to execute on the house of Saul .