Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageMephibosheth bowed low and said, "Who am I, that you would look with such favour on someone as worthless as a dead dog?"
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GHe bowed himself down and said, "What is your servant, that you should turn your face toward a dead dog such as I?"
KJV
King James VersionAnd he bowed himself, and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?
BSB
Berean Standard BibleMephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog like me?”
Footnotes
"Dead dog" (*kelev met*, כֶּלֶב מֵת) is an ANE idiom of extreme self-abasement. Dogs in the ancient world were not domestic companions but scavenging street animals — the lowest social rung of the animal world. A *dead* dog is utterly without worth or future. Mephibosheth is not performing false modesty; he speaks as one who genuinely expected execution as a potential rival (cf. 2 Sam. 16:9). Remarkably, the same phrase appeared on David's own lips before Saul (1 Sam. 24:14). The echo is deliberate — once David spoke these words in fear; now the son of his covenant-friend speaks them back to him.
