Study Shabbat folio 56B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
your servant. And he slandered your servant to my lord the king; but my lord the king is like an angel of God: Do therefore what is good in your eyes” (II Samuel 19:26–28). “And the king said to him: Why do you speak any more of your matters? I have said: You and Ziba shall divide the estate. And Me
This is what is written: “And the son of Yonatan was Meriv-Baal” (I Chronicles 8:34). The Talmud asks: And was Meriv-Baal his name? Wasn’t his name Mephibosheth? However, since he entered into a quarrel [meriva] with his Master [ba’al], i.e., God, and complained about God having saved David, a bat
To the matter at hand: Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: When David said to Mephibosheth: You and Ziba shall divide the estate, a bat kol emerged and said to him: Rehoboam and Jeroboam shall divide the kingdom.
Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: Had David not accepted Ziba’s slanderous report about Mephibosheth, the kingdom of the house of David would not have been divided, Israel would not have worshipped idols because of Jeroboam, and we would not have been exiled from our land.
R' Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that R' Yonatan said: Anyone who says that King Solomon sinned is nothing other than mistaken, as it is stated: “And his heart was not perfect with YHWH his God, as was the heart of David, his father” (I Kings 11:4). By inference: Solomon’s heart was not equal to the heart