What would you have done if you are in King Solomon’s shoes? Two women came to King Solomon with a dispute. This is what the first woman who spoke told the story:
Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were alone. There was no one else with us in the house; only we two were in the house. And this woman’s son died in the night because she lay on him. And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me, while your servant slept, and laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he was not the child that I had borne.” But the other woman said, “No, the living child is mine, and the dead child is yours.” The first said, “No, the dead child is yours, and the living child is mine.” Thus they spoke before the king.
If it had been today, a DNA test would have been done to tell whose child was the living child. But that technology was not available at that time.
Guess what. King Solomon ordered that the living child child should be cut in half and shared between the two women. The the first woman who spoke, moved with compassion, pleaded that the child should not be killed, at least, he should be given to the other woman. But the other woman insisted that the child should be killed. Then King Solomon learned that the child is for the first woman and he gave the child to her. 1 Kings 3:16-28
The problem was a difficult one that would have required modern scientific solution, but King Solomon solved it with wisdom. This attest to the fact that only a wise person can solve a difficult problem.
