Well, now, you don't see THAT verse every day! Let's see what we can find out about this story!
When two women came to him, they presented Solomon with a problem. The first woman spoke: "Both of us live in the same house and we both had babies within three days of each other. During the night this woman's baby died, so she got up and traded the babies while I was asleep. When I woke up to nurse my son, I found the dead baby. But, when I looked at him closely, I could see that this was not the little boy I had given birth to."
But, the second woman insisted, "No! The dead child is hers and the living one is mine!" The two women argues back and forth before the king. Then Solomon said to the guards, "Bring me a sword." They did so. Then he gave the order: "Cut the baby in two and give half to one woman and half to the other."
(Oh, my! I remember hearing this Bible story when I was a child. Being fairly sensitive and one with an active imagination, I always feared that the end of the story would change! oh, no! And something terrible would happen to the little baby! Would they cut him up and down or at the waist? Ugh. Ugh. Ugh! And, I would be praying, "Please, oh, PLEASE, don't let them hurt the baby!" But, I digress... let's get back to the story...)
So, after the "solution" was offered - to give one-half of the child to each woman, the first woman (whose son it really was) said, "No, please my lord, don't kill him. Give her the living baby instead." But, the second woman said, "Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two." Then king Solomon gave his ruling: "Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother."
King Solomon's wise decision spread throughout Israel and the people held their king's wisdom in awe.
We all have wisdom available to us; it is a gift from God. We only need to pray, listen, and apply God's word to our lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment