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Re: Melachim II 011: Asalyah and her Murderous Plans
David Goldman asked:
>>Greetings. I was thinking over these issues on Yomtof, and was wondering
what you may think about these matters. I don't find them addressed in
meforshim, especially the Meam Loez..........
1) The killing by Shaul Hamelech was not of ALL Kohanim, only those in Nov,
except for Aviatar, yet the punishment Chazal describe of the House of
Dovid Hamelech was on ALL his descendants for affiliating with the house of
Achav (except for Yehoash). Thus this is lechoyra a lack of symmetry.
This was in addition to the destruction by Yehoram, Asaliah's husband of
all his own brothers, and then subsequently the loss of all his sons in the
war with the Arabs/Emorites, except for Achaziah, the father of Yehoash,
and all their sons (grandsons of Yehoram) by Yehu.
2) The gezeyra given to Yehu ben Nimshi was apparently ONLY on the males of
the house of Achav (aside from Izevel). Likewise, although Asaliah sought
to kill "kol zera hamelucha" she did NOT seek to kill her daughter,
Yehosheva/Yehoshvat, who may equally have had children of Beis Dovid by her
husband, Yehoyada.
Thus, one could certainly ask how Asaliah planned to exterminate the house
of Dovid if her daughter and possibly other females survived and had
children who were descendants of Dovid.
3) Had Achaziah not been killed, presumably Asaliah would not have planned
to destroy all the members of the House of David, so why was it that only
with the death of Achaziah the Sefer Melachim indicates that she decided to
carry out this revenge, and not upon the deaths of her own parents by
Yehu?! Why didn't she seek to destroy Yehu, who was the one who killed them
instead?
4) Why did Asaliah not decide to be the same type of (negative) influence
over a young king Yehoash that she was on his father, her son, Achaziah as
the queen regent?
5) Apparently Yehoash's mother Tsivia was dead when Asaliah took over,
otherwise Tsivia would have become the Queen mother.
6) Why did Asaliah run out to the Beis Hamikdash unprotected by her own
retinue of guards to condemn the crowning of the child instead of accepting
it and waiting for a time when she could affect the child king, especially
since it was her own grandchild, of the house of Achav?? By killing all the
zera hamelucha, who was she planning to succeed after her own death if not
Yehosheva herself or Yehosheva's child?<<
The Kollel replied:
>>1.
a) We can understand this if we look carefully at the Gemara in Sanhedrin
95a-b. The Gemara tells us that ha'Kadosh Baruch Hu said to David, "Until
when will this sin be hidden in your hand? Through you, Nov, the city of
the Kohanim, was slaughtered... Do you want your seed to be destroyed or do
you prefer to be given over to the hands of your enemies?"
b) The Maharsha (DH Retzoncha) explains that the alternative presented to
David was that his seed should be destroyed in the same way that the seed
of the Kohanim was destroyed. The Maharsha refers us to the Gemara on 95b
which cites the verse that Asalyah destroyed all of the seed of the
kingship. The Gemara questions this, since she did not actually destroy
everyone, because Yoash survived. The Gemara answers that Evyasar, from the
Kohanim of Nov, also survived. Rav Yehudah then states in the name of Rav
that if Evyasar had not survived as a descendant of Achimelech, then
absolutely nobody would have survived from the descendants of David.
c) We see from here that the disaster that befell David corresponds to the
disaster that befell Achimelech. Because David caused the destruction of
the seed of Achimelech, he himself received a punishment that his seed was
destroyed. Not all if the Kohanim in the world were killed in Nov, but
neither was the punishment that all of David's family, the Shevet Yehudah,
should be destroyed. We now can see how the punishment is symmetrical.
I have only answered the first question, and there is still a lot more to
write, but I am going to send this off for the moment, and continue later,
b'Siyata d'Shmaya.<<
---
The Kollel adds:
1. I am now going to start, b'Siyata d'Shmaya, to answer question #2 and
relate first to the question of whether the Gezeirah given to Yehu ben
Nimshi applied only to the males of the House of Achav. I also think that
we will see here that there was a big difference between the Gezeirah of
Yehu ben Nimshi and the murderous lust of Asalyah.
a) We read in Melachim I 21:21 that Eliyahu ha'Navi told King Achav that
Hashem decreed that all "Mashtin b'Kir" ("urinaters on the walls") would be
cut off from the House of Achav. The Ralbag and the Metzudos David there
write that this refers to the males, because males make an arch when
urinating. However, the Radak there appears to disagree with this. He
writes that the phrase "Mashtin b'Kir" is an exageration and signifies that
even the dogs of the House of Achav will not survive. Radak also explains
the phrase "Atzur v'Atzuv" (used there by Eliyahu) to mean that nothing at
all will remain, such that no one will be able to say, "This remains from
the House of Achav." No living thing will be left over that was not killed,
because it will all be destroyed.
b) I am going to suggest that there is support for the opinion of the Radak
from the Gemara in Bava Basra 19b. The Gemara explains "Mashtin b'Kir" to
mean "even something whose way is to urinate on the wall will not be left
over. What does this mean? It means a dog."
The Toras Chaim on Bava Basra writes that the reason for all of this is in
order that the name of Achav should not be remembered, so that people
should not say, "This dog is from the House of Achav." He then compares the
destruction of Achav with the Mitzvah of Mechiyas Amalek and cites what is
mentioned by Rashi in Devarim 25:19, that even the oxen and sheep of Amalek
must be destroyed so that people should not say that this animal is from
Amalek.
c) We learn from here that the Gezeirah given to Yehu ben Nimshi can be
compared to the Mitzvah of destroying Amalek. The aim is to destroy evil
from the world. We should not forget that it originated from the prophet
Elisha. However, the problem was that afterwards Yehu himself and his
descendants regressed back into worshipping idols. This is why Hoshea (1:4)
said, "And I will visit the blood of Yizre'el on the House of Yehu." Rashi
writes that Yehu killed the idol-worshippers but then he himself went and
worshipped idols. Therefore, it is considered as if Yehu spilled innocent
blood.
2. Now I will attempt to answer the second part of question #2 concerning
the murderous plans of Asalyah.
a) I will cite what the Abarbanel writes on Melachim II 11:1 (his words are
quoted in Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez, page 129). He writes that the reason why
Asalyah killed all of the royal seed was because she wanted to be the sole
ruler, so that no man should remain alive who would be able to claim for
himself the throne of David. Abarbanel adds that Chazal say that she was an
evil woman who had already been unfaithful to her husband and had given
birth to children from another man.
b) This shows us that Asalyah was a very immoral person who had a lust for
power, which was her main motive. Accordingly, we can understand that she
did not feel it necessary to exterminate people who did not present a
threat to her bid for sole power. This certainly could be a sufficient
reason to explain why she did not kill her own daughter, Yehosheva. Besides
the fact that she would have had to be extremely perverse, to say the
least, to kill her own daughter, she did not see the need for this because
she would not have expected Yehosheva to be a competitor to herself to the
throne, as long as she herself was alive.
c) In fact, the Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez (page 130, DH v'Nikreis) cites a
commentary who writes that we can see the piousness of Yehosheva, in her
saving of Yoash. If she would not have saved Yoash the throne would have
automatically passed over to her after her mother died. By saving Yoash,
Yehosheva was in fact forfeiting the throne for herself. We learn from this
explanation that Asalyah was expecting that the royalty would pass on to
her daughter after her death, but she did not anticipate a challenge from
Yehosheva, who, on the contrary, was prepared to forego her opportunity.
d) We also observe from what the Abarbanel writes -- that she wanted that
"no man should remain" to challenge the throne -- that she was concerned
only about male competitors, who were evidently likely to gain more popular
support if they would bid to be king.
3. According to the above ideas, we may now also have an answer to question
#3. Asalyah's main aim was not to gain revenge against Yehu but rather to
grab power for herself. (Possibly there was a certain element of revenge
involved, but at any rate it was not the chief motive.) Therefore, as long
as Achazyah was alive, she did not see that the door was yet open to her
gaining power.
Before I go further, I should just note that I forgot to write above that
the explanation of the Abarbanel is quite similar to that of the Yad David
to Sanhedrin 95b that I cited in my earlier reply, namely that the aim of
Asalyah was principally to kill all of the royal seed who might present a
challenge to her claim to the throne, and not necessarily to kill all of
the seed of David.
(It is interesting to note that the Abarbanel was a government minister in
the Portuguese and Spanish government, and that the author of Yad David was
the head of the so-called "Sanhedrin" which Napoleon tried to establish, so
both were familiar with political life.)
Now I will attempt to answer your questions #4, #5, and #6.
4) It appears that Asalyah knew nothing about the survival of Yoash until
she saw him actually wearing the king's crown. With the exception of
Yehosheva and her husband Yehoyada the Kohen Gadol, absolutely nobody knew
about him until Yehoyada showed him to the princes (Melachim II 11:4). This
latter fact is stated by the Seder Olam Rabah #18 (which was written by the
Tana, Rebbi Yosi) and the commentaries thereon. By this time it was too
late for Asalyah to do anything about it. If we recall that Asalyah
actually wanted to kill her grandson Yoash, it would be rather difficult
for her to make a turn-around and suddenly try to influence him the way she
influenced his father. She must have been stunned to see this new king, and
she immediately declared that it was a plot, so Yehoyada and the
considerable numbers of supporters of the child king (see Divrei ha'Yamim
II 23:12, that the crowds praised the young king) understood that Asalyah
was the greatest threat to Yoash (who, until now, she had tried to murder),
so they were very happy to get rid of her as soon as possible before she
could cause any further harm.
5. It seems to me that it is possible that Tzivyah was still alive at the
time that Asalyah took over, but according to the laws of the Torah she may
not have been entitled to reign (and even if she was, it is unlikely,
amidst the mayhem created by Asalyah, that the Sanhedrin would have been
given the opportunity to rule on this rare question where no male
descendants of David had survived to inherit the throne).
6.
a) I have argued above (in 4) that Asalyah was taken off guard by the
appearance and crowning of Yoash. She had been discredited by her murderous
activity. The decisive conduct of Yehoyada the Kohen Gadol and the popular
support for Yoash gave Asalyah no chance of hanging on.
b) Earlier, I cited the Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez to Melachim II, page 130, DH
v'Nikreis, who cites a commentary that Asalyah was expecting her daughter
Yehosheva to be her successor. However, Yehosheva showed a great degree of
self-sacrifice and gave up this opportunity in order to save Yoash and
enable him to become the king.
I think I have now answered all of your very interesting questions, and I
have very much enjoyed researching this fascinating topic.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom
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