Parashat Hashavua: Reddish! Is that Good? – Part II | Rabbi Yossef Carmel | Beit Midrash

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Parashat Hashavua

קטגוריה משנית

Torah Portion and Tanach
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We saw last week that the fact that David was described both as reddish and having nice eyes (Shmuel I, 16:12) hints at David not being comparable to Eisav’s spilling of blood, as David did it as part of wars that followed Halacha, which turns them into mitzvot.

This brings us to the question why Hashem did not let David build the Beit Hamikdash (rather, his son Shlomo did) despite his fervent desire to do so. Ostensibly, p’sukim in Divrei Haymim (I, 22:7-8) give the answer: "David said to Shlomo: My son, it was in my heart to build a house for the name of Hashem, my G-d. [But] Hashem said to me: You spilled a lot of blood, and you waged great wars; you shall not build a house for My Name, for you have spilled much blood to the ground before Me."

A midrash (Pesikta Rabbati 2) gives reason to believe that the pasuk is not to be taken literally. The midrash relates that David was concerned that the fact that he did not have permission to build the Temple bode poorly for the divine view of his bloodshed, but Hashem reassured him that the blood he spilled was equivalent to the blood of proper sacrifices. If the blood was compared to a sacrifice, then it could not have been the reason for his disqualification! Simple logic also begs to distinguish between the murder of innocents (which Eisav was guilty of) and between the spilling of the blood of the enemies of Bnei Yisrael, who came to destroy in a fight against the people and Hashem. Can it be that those who were not brave enough to fight are fit to build the Beit Hamikdash and one willing to put his life on the line is not?!

Before completing an answer to these questions, we point out that a pasuk (Shmuel I, 25:28) explains that the reason Hashem agreed to a Temple that was attributed to David was the fact that he "fights the wars of Hashem." Therefore, it makes sense that the problematic blood mentioned in Divrei Hayamim was the blood of other wars, i.e., the civil wars of two periods. One period was after the death of Shaul, when the nation was split between those who were loyal to David and between the followers of Shaul’s son Ish Boshet and his general Avner. The second war within the nation was between the devotees of David and the rebels who followed his son Avshalom.

This approach will help explain the ostensible redundancy in the pasuk in Divrei Hayamim – it refers both in the beginning and the end of the pasuk to the great amount of blood that David spilled. What does the second refer to that the first does not? Rather, the first part of the pasuk is the reason that David was appropriate to build the Temple (he fought Hashem’s wars against the enemies), and the second mention of blood was the reason that he nevertheless could not build it (because of the killing within the nation).

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Parashat Hashavua