Hanun, Who Could Not Receive Grace as Grace

When Hanun comes to the throne, David sends his servants to offer him heartfelt congratulations, wishing to repay the kindness he had received from Hanun’s father, Nahash. But Hanun listens only to his scheming officials and humiliates the envoys as though they were slaves, shaving off half of each man’s beard and cutting away their garments up to the buttocks.

This was to treat David and Israel with contempt, and it amounted to a declaration of war. Because he did not know how to receive as grace a grace given without condition, and because there was no wise counsel at his side, Hanun could not judge rightly. In the end he hired the Aramean army with money to stand against David, but he could not overcome the army of David, who had relied on God from the very beginning.

Mephibosheth knew how much he had to be thankful for in the grace he had received, and so he served David with his whole heart, and David in turn cared for him to the end. Hanun, by contrast, took grace for granted and lost a good relationship, and with it the lives of many people. When a person has the character to know grace freely received for what it is, and to repay it with thanksgiving, God makes that life beautiful and glorious.