Metzorah Quarantine
By Shlomo Katz

Four men, metzora’im, were outside the gate; each one said to his friend, `Why are we sitting here until we die?’ (Melachim II, 7:3)

R’ Akiva Eiger was asked why these four men with tzara’at had been expelled from the city of Shomron when the Mishnah states that metzora’im must be expelled only from cities that had been walled at the time of Yehoshua bin Nun, who led Bnei Yisrael into Eretz Canaan.

Shomron, in contrast, was a new city built by King Omri, as described in Melachim I, 16:24): “Then he bought the mountain of Shomron from Shemer for two loaves of silver, and he built up the mountain, and he called the city
that he built after Shemer, the master of the mountain of Shomron.”

R’ Eiger answered that the Aramaic translation of Yonatan ben Uziel avoids this question by translating the quoted verse, “Then he bought the small city of Shomron from Shemer for two loaves of silver, and he built up the small city, and he called the metropolis that he built after
Shemer, the master of the mountain of Shomron.”

In other words, according to Targum Yonatan, Omri did not build a new city, but rather expanded an ancient city that apparently was already walled in the time of Yehoshua bin Nun.

R’ Meir Simcha Hakohen offers another answer to the above question. Shomron was the capital of the Kingdom of Yisrael, which had seceded from the Kingdom of Yehuda. In an effort to legitimize their reign, the kings of Yisrael applied to their capital the same laws that applied to Yerushalayim. (www.torah.org)