Eight thousand Pharisaic soldiers now fled the country. The remaining Perushim, seeing no reasonable prospect of a peaceful resolution, resigned themselves to calmly wait out the rest of Yannai’s days.
Yannai would live for an additional twelve years, until 76 BCE. Most of those were spent on military campaigns, far removed from the people. During that time he recaptured much of the territory east of the Jordan he’d previously lost, including the Decapolis and Golan. However, his final years were difficult ones for the rejected and despised leader. Isolated, and suffering from rapidly deteriorating health, the king met his death at the early age of forty-nine, during a protracted siege of the Transjordanian fortress Regev.
Before Yannai’s death, Shlomtzion had expressed tremendous concern about the trying situation she and her sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, would soon face. Where would they find public support and stability, with all the ill will the nation bore against him?
“King Yannai said to his wife, ‘Fear not the Perushim and the [Tzadukkim] but the hypocrites who imitate the Perushim’” (Sotah 22a).
All along Yannai had understood that the majority of the Jewish people were not his true enemies. All they had wished for was peace and security. Now, as he was transferring hid rule to his wife, he instructed her to be reconciled with the Perushim. To gain their support she would need to transfer some power into their hands and promise to give them a voice in national affairs.
Shlomtzion followed her husband’s last wishes. In so doing, she managed to achieve reconciliation with the Perushim – so much so that they provided Yannai a splendid burial in Jerusalem, paving the way to national unity.
More important, the Torah had survived a period of temporary desolation due to the courage, bravery, and dedication of Shimon ben Shetach and the commitment to Torah education demonstrated by Yehoshua ben Gamla.
