Wise Judgment

1 Kings 3:16-28 

    16 Now two women who were harlots came to the king, and stood before him. 17 And one woman said, “O my lord, this woman and I dwell in the same house; and I gave birth while she was in the house. 18 Then it happened, the third day after I had given birth, that this woman also gave birth. And we were together; no one was with us in the house, except the two of us in the house. 19 And this woman's son died in the night, because she lay on him. 20 So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from my side, while your maidservant slept, and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. 21 And when I rose in the morning to nurse my son, there he was, dead. But when I had examined him in the morning, indeed, he was not my son whom I had borne.”
    22 Then the other woman said, “No! But the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.” And the first woman said, “No! But the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.” Thus they spoke before the king.
    23 And the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son, who lives, and your son is the dead one’; and the other says, ‘No! But your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’” 24 Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king. 25 And the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to one, and half to the other.”
    26 Then the woman whose son was living spoke to the king, for she yearned with compassion for her son; and she said, “O my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him!” But the other said, “Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him.” 27 So the king answered and said, “Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him; she is his mother.”
    28 And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had rendered; and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.

Solomon had asked for wise judgment to rule God’s people in a way which would honor the LORD and enable him to rule well for His glory.  Here is the first test to demonstrate that wisdom before the people.  The two women who were at best adulterous and at worst harlots, neither of which would engender other people to judge their complaints nor treat them fairly if they took the time to listen to their disputes.  Solomon was a ruler who listened to the accounts of each and the dispute over whose baby was alive and whose died for the other to replace the dead with the living one.  The account began with the one whose son was dead when she awoke, but she swore it was not her baby, that the other woman rolled on top of and killed her own son and switched babies in the night while the first slept.  The second denied this to keep the child, and they went back and forth with the conflicting arguments before the king until he decided to settle the matter with a sword.  He told them he would cut the child in half so they each could share the baby boy.  This made the real mother offer the child to the imposter because her love for the child overcame her desire to have him back, while the thief whose baby had already died wanted the child killed before giving him up.  This is how Solomon knew the true and settled the matter with godly wisdom and justice in his judgment.  The people saw this wisdom in action and feared doing wrong to attempt deception before their sovereign because they knew this was the finger of God’s wisdom driving justice in their land.  We learn that when God gives wisdom, only then can true justice be seen as He is honored and glorified in the man who is so used by the Lord in obedient exercise of faith in His enabling grace.  We are not Solomon, but the one eternally greater in wisdom than he, Jesus the Christ of God, lives in us as the Spirit of the living God gives us wisdom and a sound mind to do likewise (Luke 11:31, Proverbs 2:6, Daniel 5:14, Ephesians 1:17) in dealing with each other and so to live for God in wisdom and humility (Micah 6:8).