A few years after King Shaul and his son Yonatan were killed in battle against the Philistines, Avner, a cousin of King Shaul and the general of his army, appointed Ish Boshes, a son of Shaul, as heir to his throne. Although Avner knew that Shmuel had anointed Dovid (see Shmuel Beis 3:9) he inferred from a pasuk in this week’s Torah portion of Vayishlach that there had to be another king from the tribe of Binyamin before the kingship went to the tribe of Yehuda. When Yaakov was returning to Eretz Yisrael from his long sojourn with Lavan, Hashem blessed him saying: “I am the Almighty G-D; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a multitude of nations shall come into existence from you, and kings shall come forth from your loins” (Breishis 35:11). Since only Binyamin was not yet born, this meant that more than one king would emerge from the tribe of Binyamin. Thus, although Avner did not deny that Dovid would be king, he felt that Ish Boshes should reign first (see Breishis Rabba 85:2). That this would delay the beginning of Dovid’s reign would not be a rejection of Shmuel’s anointment, since even Shmuel had not given the kingship to Dovid while Shaul was alive.
Yet, the Riv”a, after quoting Rashi that the words of the pasuk, “and kings shall come forth from your loins” refer to King Shaul and Ish Boshes, quotes a question the Chizkuni had, based on a gemara in Sanhedrin 20a: “Why was Avner punished for delaying the House of Dovid’s reign for two and a half years? And though Rashi had explained that he appointed Ish Boshes as king, and if Avner had not appointed him then Dovid would have been the ruler, nevertheless, why was Avner punished for this if his psak, decree, was based on a gezeiras hakasuv, a decree from the Holy Scripture? Rather it must be that his intentions were to humiliate Dovid by delaying his rule by two and a half years.” (Click here for Hebrew text.)
We must put in context what exactly Avner did wrong. Avner wasn’t a bad person; in fact, the Mizrachi, commentary on Rashi, says that Avner was a tzadik, righteous, and in analyzing the pasuk that Avner used to justify the appointment of Ish Boshes, Rashi says:
| and kings. Shaul and Ish Boshes, who were of the tribe of Binyamin, who had not yet been born. (Avner interpreted this verse [in this sense] when he crowned Ish Boshes, and the tribes too interpreted it [in this sense] and became friendly again with Binyamin, as it is written: “No man from us shall give his daughter to Binyamin for a wife” (Jud. 21:1)-they retracted this and said, “Were he (Binyamin) not to be counted among the tribes, the Holy One, blessed be He, would not have said to Yaakov, ‘and kings shall come forth from your loins.’”) [Old Rashi manuscript from Tanchuma Buber Vayishlach 29] | וּמְלָכִים. שָׁאוּל וְאִישׁ בֹּשֶׁת, שֶׁהָיוּ מִשֵּׁבֶט בִּנְיָמִין (בראשית רבה), שֶׁעֲדַיִן לֹא נוֹלְדוּ (וּפָסוּק זֶה דְּרָשׁוֹ אַבְנֵר כְּשֶׁהִמְלִיךְ אִישׁ בֹּשֶׁת, וְאַף הַשְּׁבָטִים דְּרָשׁוּהוּ וְקֵרְבוּ בִּנְיָמִין, דִּכְתִיב אִישׁ מִמֶּנּוּ לֹא יִתֵּן אֶת בִּתּוֹ לְבִנְיָמִן לְאִשָּׁה (שופטים כ”א), וְחָזְרוּ וְאָמְרוּ אִלְמָלֵא הָיָה עוֹלֶה מִן הַשְּׁבָטִים לֹא הָיָה הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אוֹמֵר לְיַעֲקֹב וּמְלָכִים מֵחֲלָצֶיךָ יֵצֵאוּ: |
This pasuk was used to save the tribe of Binyamin from being annihilated in Sefer Shoftim. So, justifiably, Avner, a righteous person, interpreted this pasuk to mean that Ish Boshes was destined to be anointed as king before Dovid. How then can the Riva and Chizkuni say that Avner had malicious intent to humiliate Dovid?
We must say that in fact Avner wasn’t outright malicious, and only on a very miniscule, perhaps even subconscious level, had some level of bias, a negia, to want to humiliate Dovid. Perhaps because he was from the family of Shaul and his general, and for that reason he deserved to be punished by Hashem.
We see from here that it’s possible to be doing the right thing, but if it’s with the wrong intentions, even if it’s not so obvious that the intentions are wrong, Hashem looks into the nook and crevices of everyone’s heart and knows what his or her true intentions are, and exacts judgement. Therefore, we have to make sure when choosing to do the right thing to try to do it with the best intent possible.