We see throughout the Navi that David does not want people killed on his behalf (Saul, Ish Boshet...) yet he does not get to build the Temple and the most common reason that David is told no by Hashem is that he has blood on his hands. Shlomo also has the same type of blood on his hands and he also tells others to kill people on his behalf. How do we understand this explanation of David not being allowed to build the Temple?
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The relevant verse is I Chron. 22:8, where David quotes G-d as having told him: "You have spilled much blood, and waged great wars." Radak there explains that "much blood" refers to people whose deaths David caused indirectly but who didn't deserve this - such as Uriah, the kohanim of Nov, and non-Jewish civilians caught in the crossfire during his raids and wars. So none of this applies to Shlomo: the people whom he ordered executed were all indeed deserving of the death penalty. Malbim takes both clauses as speaking of David's wars: he "spilled much blood" in optional wars (milchemes reshus), and "waged great wars" of necessity (milchemes mitzvah). According to this approach, too, neither of these applies to Shlomo, since the land was at peace in his times (v. 9). |
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