דברי הימים ב, פרק כ״ח, פסוק ט׳

A victorious army returning home is suddenly met not with celebration, but with a severe prophetic warning. The prophet Oded steps out in the city of Samaria to intercept the returning soldiers of Israel, delivering a harsh rebuke for their cruelty toward their defeated brothers from Judah [ביאור שטיינזלץ, מצודת דוד]. He makes it clear that their military success was not earned through their own merit. Instead, Judah fell solely because of God's anger against them [מצודת דוד].

Even in His anger, God acted with an underlying sense of mercy. By delivering Judah into the hands of their fellow Israelites rather than a ruthless foreign power, God expected the victors to remember their shared heritage. They were supposed to recognize that they share one Father and one God, and therefore exercise brotherly compassion rather than seeking total annihilation [מלבי ם].

In reality, the soldiers did not act as measured agents of Divine providence. They allowed personal, unrestrained rage to take over, slaughtering their brothers without a trace of pity [מלבי ם]. The intensity of their fury was so extreme that it is described as a great anger reaching up to heaven [מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. This poetic imagery highlights how far the soldiers of Israel exceeded the punishment God had actually planned for Judah, causing the cries of the victims to rise and pierce the very heavens [מלבי ם].