1 Kings3chapter 3

the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream: Albert Barnes sets Solomon’s dream at Gibeon beside the dreams God gave in Genesis. Adam Clarke places it on the night after the thousand burnt offerings, and Matthew Henry reads God’s offer to give as a sign He accepted them. The grant was real, say Jamieson, Fausset and Brown.

1 Kings 3:6-7

according as he walked before thee: Solomon's prayer opens by naming covenant kindness already shown to David, the great mercy that gave David a son to sit on his throne, grounding his own request in a promise older than his reign. He then calls himself a little child who does not know how to go out or come in, an idiom for a leader's whole public conduct rather than a claim to literal boyhood, since Solomon already reigns in the city of David with a court to govern. The humility is rhetorical and real at once, a king who has everything still naming himself unequal to the office.

John Wesley and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown put Solomon at about twenty, a man new to governing a kingdom. Albert Barnes reads little child as hyperbole. Matthew Henry holds that a king who knows his own lack is ready to be taught by God.

1 Kings 3:8-9

thy people which thou hast chosen: Solomon calls Israel a great people that cannot be numbered nor counted, echoing the promise made to Abraham of a seed too many to count, and grounds his request in the size of the task rather than his own ambition. What he asks is an understanding heart to judge, literally a hearing heart in the Hebrew, fit to discern between good and bad. That phrase, discern between good and bad, reaches forward to the very case the chapter closes with, two claims that sound alike until a hearing heart tells them apart.

Albert Barnes notes that hearing and deciding cases was a chief duty of an Eastern king, and Israel's rulers were called judges for that reason. Adam Clarke calls the request the science of government. Bonaventure joins it to the counsel of James to ask God for wisdom.

1 Kings 3:10-12

the speech pleased the Lord: The speech pleases the Lord because of what Solomon did not ask: not long life, not riches, not the life of his enemies, three requests any king in the ancient world might have reached for first. Because the request excluded self-interest, God grants what was asked and adds what a lesser prayer would have sought on its own. Verse 12's superlative, none like thee before thee, neither after thee, describes wisdom given, not yet the character that will keep it, and the book's later chapters test how long the gift outlasts the reign.

Albert Barnes names the enemies Solomon might have asked to be rid of, Hadad the Edomite and Rezon, who trouble his reign in chapter 11. The king had just cleared his own court of rivals in chapter 2. Here he asks for justice.

Albert Barnes calls the wise and discerning heart practical wisdom, the kind that knows what is in man, and he notes that Christ names one greater than Solomon. Adam Clarke asks whether the gift hung on the condition to walk in God’s ways in verse 14. Hippolytus called Solomon the peacemaker, a name of Christ.

1 Kings 3:13-15

given thee that which thou hast not asked: Riches and honour are added though Solomon never asked for them, a shape the commentators set beside Matthew 6:33, seek first the kingdom and all these things shall be added, a likeness they draw between the two prayers rather than a claim the text itself makes. The promise of long life carries one condition, if thou wilt walk in my ways, and the book's later chapters show exactly how that condition plays out. Solomon wakes to find it was a dream, then goes to Jerusalem, stands before the ark, and offers burnt and peace offerings before feasting the whole court, moving in one scene from the high place at Gibeon to the ark already resting in the city of David.

Long days depend on walking in God’s ways as David did. Albert Barnes notes that Solomon failed to keep His statutes and commandments, as 11:1 to 8 records, and died at no more than fifty-nine or sixty. Matthew Henry teaches that riches and long life are left to God, while wisdom is asked for with urgency.

stood before the ark of the covenant: Albert Barnes notes that two holy places divided Israel's worship, the tabernacle at Gibeon and the ark on Zion, and Solomon honours both. The peace offerings supplied the feast. John Wesley reads the burnt offerings as pointing to the blood of Christ.

1 Kings 3:16-18

two women, that were harlots: Two harlots bring an ordinary dispute to the king's own court, unusual only in who is asking: no elder, no priest, no outside witness, just two women whose case turns entirely on their own word. Both keep insisting no stranger was with us in the house, so the normal evidentiary path, a second witness under the Law's own standard, is closed to the king before he begins. The case is built to require exactly the gift Solomon asked for at Gibeon.

John Gill casts the first woman as the plaintiff and the other woman, who stood before the king beside her, as the defendant. Gill has the other woman alone present at the birth.

The two boys were born three days apart. John Gill notes that two sons so close in age would be hard to tell apart, and the house held no other witness who could tell them apart for the king.

1 Kings 3:19-21

this woman’s child died in the night: One child dies in the night, and the woman telling the story states plainly that she overlaid it, an accidental smothering the text records without softening. She then claims the living child was switched for the dead one while she slept, and the other woman's whole case rests on a mother's morning recognition, when I had considered it, behold, it was not my son. Nothing in the account settles the matter by evidence outside the two women's testimony, which is exactly the impasse the king must resolve.

The first woman says the switch came in the middle of the night while she was asleep, so she saw none of it. Her claim rests on what she discovered in the morning. John Gill calls each woman’s claim a bare assertion without proof.

The first woman got up to nurse her son and found a dead child at her bosom. Matthew Henry calls the age of a newborn the valley of the shadow of death and marvels that so few babies die in nursing. One such death began this case.

1 Kings 3:22-23

Thus they spake before the king: The two accounts contradict each other word for word, the living is my son traded back and forth until the narrator simply notes that they spake before the king rather than telling the reader who is right. Solomon restates both claims for the record at verse 23, refusing to rule from instinct or from rank, laying the contradiction out in full before he acts. The king functions here as the last court of appeal precisely because no other evidence exists.

John Gill hears the king summing up as a judge, showing the whole court that the two claims settle nothing and another method is needed. Matthew Henry names that method. The child could show no preference, so Solomon would test which woman loved the child.

1 Kings 3:24-25

Bring me a sword: turns the case from testimony to test, a plan that never intends the child's death but is built to expose the truth by what each woman does next. Divide the living child in two offers both women the same legal outcome, an equal half, so that only motive and love can break the tie that evidence could not. The command is theater with a purpose, staged before a court that will judge the king by what happens next.

Augustine of Hippo read the king’s order as a test of charity, for Solomon means peaceable and a peaceable king cuts no living child in two. In another sermon he made the true mother a figure of the church keeping Christ whole. Adam Clarke says the ruling was defensible only as a threat.

1 Kings 3:26-27

her bowels yearned upon her son: names the true mother by what her body does before her mouth can argue further, compassion breaking through where testimony had reached deadlock. The other woman's answer, let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it, exposes itself as willing to destroy what it cannot keep, and the king reads the difference correctly. Give her the living child closes the case: the boy is handed not to the louder claim but to the love that would rather lose him than kill him.

The ruling turns the true mother's plea back on her, for she had asked the king to give the baby to the other woman. John Gill weighs the proof the king saw, her compassion and eagerness to save the child against the other woman's indifference and cruelty. She is his mother.

all Israel heard of the judgment: All Israel hears of the judgment, and the report that spreads is not of a clever trick but that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment, the exact gift asked for at Gibeon now shown in open court. Verse 9's request, an understanding heart to judge, discern between good and bad, is answered in a case that let no other evidence decide. The chapter that opened with a private dream closes with a public verdict, and the whole nation stands as witness.