Lives of Scripture

Machir son of Ammiel lived in Lo-debar, a town in Gilead east of the Jordan. He first appears sheltering Mephibosheth, the crippled son of Jonathan and grandson of Saul, in the years after Saul's dynasty fell -- when David asked whether anyone remained of Saul's house to whom he could show kindness for Jonathan's sake, he was told Mephibosheth "is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar" (2 Samuel 9:1-5). David then sent for Mephibosheth and brought him into the palace to eat permanently at the king's table. Years later, when Absalom's rebellion forced David to flee Jerusalem, Machir reappears -- now among those who met David's exhausted company at Mahanaim with beds, basins, pottery, wheat, barley, flour, roasted grain, beans, lentils, honey, curds, sheep, and cheese, "for they said, 'The people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness'" (2 Samuel 17:27-29). It is a striking detail that the same man who once sheltered Saul's disabled grandson later provisioned David, the king who displaced Saul's line -- Machir's loyalty was not to a faction but to whoever needed help in front of him. Scripture never records a word he spoke; his character is shown entirely through two acts of costly, practical generosity offered to people with nothing to repay him.