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When David was a fugitive, according to the story of Ziba (2 Samuel 16:1-4) Mephibosheth proved unfaithful to him, and was consequently deprived of half of his estates; but according to his own story, however (19:24-30), he had remained loyal to his friend. 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 (21:7). He is also called Merib-baal (1 Chronicles 8:34; 9:40). (See ZIBA.)
•MERAB increase, the eldest of Saul’s two daughters (1 Samuel 14:49). She was betrothed to David after his victory over Goliath, but does not seem to have entered heartily into this arrangement (18:2, 17, 19). She was at length, however, married to Adriel of Abel-Meholah, a town in the Jordan valley, about 10 miles south of Bethshean, with whom the house of Saul maintained alliance. She had five sons, who were all put to death by the Gibeonites on the hill of Gibeah (2 Samuel 21:8).
•MERAIAH resistance, a chief priest, a contemporary of the high priest Joiakim (Nehemiah 12:12).
•MERAIOTH rebellions. (1.) Father of Amariah, a high priest of the line of Eleazar (1 Chronicles 6:6, 7, 52).
(2.) Nehemiah 12:15, a priest who went to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel. He is called Meremoth in Nehemiah 12:3.
•MERARI sad; bitter, the youngest son of Levi, born before the descent of Jacob into Egypt, and one of the seventy who accompanied him thither (Genesis 46:11; Exodus 6:16). He became the head of one of the great divisions of the Levites (Exodus 6:19). (See MERARITES.)
•MERARITES the descendants of Merari (Numbers 26:57). They with the Gershonites and the Kohathites had charge of the tabernacle, which they had to carry from place to place (Numbers 3:20, 33-37; 4:29-33). In the distribution of the oxen and waggons offered by the princes (Numbers 7), Moses gave twice as many to the Merarites (four waggons and eight oxen) as he gave to the Gershonites, because the latter had to carry only the