2 Samuel 4:4

A PARENTHESIS REGARDING MEPHIBOSHETH

"Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel; and the nurse took him up and fled; and as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth."

Some have spoken of this verse as "being out of place"; and H. P. Smith called it "an interpolation,"[5] at the same time admitting that the purpose of its inclusion here might have been to show how "The house of Saul had been reduced; the heir to the throne was a cripple."[6] What he did not write, however, is the reason why it would have been any more logical that some interpolator would have so used this verse rather than the author of Second Samuel. We reject such arbitrary and unproved assertions that this or that verse is "an interpolation."

This verse is not an interpolation, "Although it interrupts the narrative, it is not irrelevant, since it brings into the picture the nearest of kin to Saul, apart from Ishbosheth, and lays a foundation for 2 Samuel 9."[7]

"His name was Mephibosheth." Keil rejected the work of some later Jewish scholar in changing Biblical names, replacing "Baal" with [~bosheth]. This son of Jonathan was named Meribbaal, which according to Keil, "means Baal-fighter,"[8] there being no legitimate reason whatever for changing his name. Eshbaal and Jerubbaal (Gideon) are other examples of the same thing.