1 Kings 3:23

3:16-28 An instance of Solomon's wisdom is given. Notice the difficulty of the case. To find out the true mother, he could not try which the child loved best, and therefore tried which loved the child best: the mother's sincerity will be tried, when the child is in danger. Let parents show their love to their children, especially by taking care of their souls, and snatching them as brands out of the burning. By this and other instances of the wisdom with which God endued him, Solomon had great reputation among his people. This was better to him than weapons of war; for this he was both feared and loved.

Then said the king,.... As judge, summing up what had been said on both sides, which were only bare assertions without proof; the one affirming what the other denied, and the other denying what the other affirmed: the one saith, this is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead; and the other saith nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living; this he repeated to show to all present that no determination could be made by what had been said on each side, and that some other method must be taken.

Solomon determined to inaugurate his reign by a grand religious ceremonial at each of the two holy places which at this time divided between them the reverence of the Jews. Having completed the religious service at Gibeon, where was the tabernacle of the congregation, he proceeded to Jerusalem, and sacrificed before the ark of the covenant, which was in Mount Zion 2 Samuel 6:12 . A great feast naturally followed on a large sacrifice of peace-offerings. In these the sacrificer always partook of the flesh of the victim, and he was commanded to call in to the feast the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow Deuteronomy 14:29 . Compare 2 Samuel 6:19 ; 1 Chronicles 16:3 .

1Ki 3:16-28. His Judgment between Two Harlots. 16. Then came there two women—Eastern monarchs, who generally administer justice in person, at least in all cases of difficulty, often appeal to the principles of human nature when they are at a loss otherwise to find a clue to the truth or see clearly their way through a mass of conflicting testimony. The modern history of the East abounds with anecdotes of judicial cases, in which the decision given was the result of an experiment similar to this of Solomon upon the natural feelings of the contending parties.

Verse 23. - So King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and wisdom [Cf. 1 Kings 3:13 . "There is something ominous of evil here. Riches are put before wisdom. This was not the case in the beginning of Solomon's reign ( 1 Kings 3:11 )" - Wordsworth. 1 Kings 10:23

Solomon's Judicial Wisdom. - As a proof that the Lord had bestowed upon Solomon unusual judicial wisdom, there is appended a decision of his in a very difficult case, in which Solomon had shown extraordinary intelligence. Two harlots living together in one house had each given birth to a child, and one of them had "overlaid" her child in the night while asleep (עליו שׁכבה אשׁר, because she had lain upon it), and had then placed her dead child in the other one's bosom and taken her living child away. When the other woman looked the next morning at the child lying in her bosom, she saw that it was not her own but the other woman's child, whereas the latter maintained the opposite. As they eventually referred the matter in dispute to the king, and each one declared that the living child was her own, the king ordered a sword to be brought, and the living child to be cut in two, and a half given to each. Then the mother of the living child, "because her bowels yearned upon her son," i.e., her maternal love was excited, cried out, "Give her (the other) the living child, but do not slay it;" whereas the latter said, "It shall be neither mine nor thine, cut it in pieces."

Verse 4. - And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places. The special sin of Ahaz here noted is that he not only allowed the high-place and grove worship, as so many other kings of Judah had done, e.g. Solomon ( 1 Kings 3:2 ), Rehoboam ( 1 Kings 14:23 ), Asa ( 1 Kings 15:14 ), Jehoshaphat ( 1 Kings 22:43 ), Joash ( 2 Kings 12:3 ), Amaziah ( 2 Kings 14:4 ), Azariah ( 2 Kings 15:4 ), and Jotham ( 2 Kings 15:35 ), but himself countenanced and took part in it, which no other king appears to have done. It was probably the stimulus that his example gave to the cult which induced Hezekiah to abolish it (see 2 Kings 18:4 ). And on the hills, and under every green tree (comp. 1 Kings 14:23 , with the comment). 2 Kings 16:4