Solomon marries Pharaoh’s daughter
3
📚And Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter in marriage 📖 and brought her into the city of David 📖, until he had finished building his own house and the house of the LORD and the wall around Jerusalem.Solomon’s love for God
2 📚However the people sacrificed on the high places, because up to that time there was no house built for the name of the LORD.
3:2 The high places were shrines used in idol worship by the people of Canaan before the Israelites entered the land. The Israelites used them as places in which to worship Jehovah the true God. But this violated the law (Deut 7:5; 12:3-6, 13, 14). Later in history they forsook Jehovah and worshipped idols and false gods on the high places.⚜
Solomon’s request for wisdom
3 📚And Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David. However he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
3:3 Solomon loved the Lord, but he failed in this one matter early in his reign. This seed of disobedience or carelessness regarding God’s laws came to full and terrible flower in his later years – 1 Kings 11:4-8.⚜
4 📚And the king went to Gibeon 📖 to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. 5 📚In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream 📖 at night and God said, “Ask. What shall I give you 📖?”
6 📚And Solomon said 📖, “You have shown great mercy to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in truth and in righteousness, and in integrity of heart 📖 with you; and you have kept for him this great kindness, and you have given him a son 📖 to sit on his throne, as it is this day.
7 📚“And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, and I am but a little child 📖. I do not know how to go out or come in. 8 📚And your servant is among your people whom you have chosen, a great people, who are so many they cannot be numbered 📖 or counted. 9 📚Therefore give your servant an understanding heart 📖 to judge your people, so that I may discern between good and bad, for who is able 📖 to judge this your so great people?”
God gives Solomon wisdom and more
10 📚And the speech (that Solomon had asked this thing) pleased the Lord.
11 📚And God said to him, “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for yourself long life and have not asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern judgment,
3:11 Solomon had not asked for the things for which so many kings would have asked for. We should all be very careful for what we ask God for. Compare Ps 106:15.⚜
12 📚see, I have done according to your words 📖; I have given you a wise 📖 and understanding heart, so that there was no one like you before you, and after you no one will arise like you. 13 📚And I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honour, so that all your days there will not be any among the kings like you. 14 📚And if you will walk in my ways to keep my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will prolong your days 📖”.
3:14 Verse 6. David was far from perfect and he sinned grievously in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah. But on the whole he was obedient to God’s laws.⚜
15 📚And Solomon awoke and saw that it was a dream. And he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark 📖 of the covenant of the LORD, and offered up burnt offerings and offered peace offerings 📖, and made a feast for all his servants.
One baby, two mothers, Solomon’s wise decision
16 📚Then two women, prostitutes, came to the king and stood before him.
3:16 People in Israel could bring a case directly to the king. In this particular case Solomon began to show the wisdom God had given him.⚜
17 And the one woman said, “O my lord, I and this woman live in one house. And I gave birth to a child, with her in the house. 18 And it came about the third day after I gave birth that this woman also gave birth. And we were together. No stranger was with us in the house – just the two of us in the house. 19 And this woman’s child died during the night, because she lay on top of it. 20 📚And she got up at midnight and took my son from my side, while your maidservant was sleeping, and put it in her bosom, and put her dead child in my bosom. 21 📚And when I arose in the morning to nurse my child, see, it was dead. But in the morning when I looked at this child, see, it was not my son, the one I had borne”.
22 And the other woman said, “No, but the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son”. And this one said, “No, but the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son”. Thus they spoke before the king.
23 Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This living one is my son. 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 And the king said, “Bring me a sword”. And they brought a sword into the king’s presence. 25 📚And the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other”.
26 📚Then the woman whose son was alive spoke to the king, for she was moved with compassion for her son, and she said, “O my lord, give her the living child, and do not at all kill him!” But the other had said, “Let it be neither mine nor yours, but divide it”.
27 Then the king answered and said, “Give her the living child, and do not at all kill him. She is his mother”.
28 📚And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had given, and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to give judgment.