40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Kings 3:4-28 (Episode 295)

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

God asks Solomon what he wants from Him and after boasting about his father Solomon asks for wisdom. Sin is really put away when someone repents. And two prostitutes put Solomon's wisdom to the test. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 has to offer. We've got a lot of stuff going on all the time. Events, we've got articles, videos, music. You want to check out all of it, and you can just do all of that as you click around 1517.org. Chad, we ended last week in Chapter 3 of 1 Kings,

And, you know, we got a little news about Solomon making a little marriage alliance with the pharaoh, the king of Egypt. And we got some hints at some high places that I think are going to kind of come into play. Solomon also, he loves the Lord. He also likes him some high places. So that's how he rolls. Some what divided loyalties there. Yeah, he likes both of them. He's like, I love the Lord.

I also love me some high places. Yeah, and it's a high place where we're going to pick up with verse 3 and then on to verse 4. This is the famous dream that Solomon has. And the reason I like the way this story has unfolded so far is you kind of get a really good taste, not a small taste, a really good taste of what Solomon was like before this dream about his kind of twisted views of justice and seeking revenge and fulfilling the hit list his dad gave him on his deathbed so you you certainly get a a clear glimpse into who solomon was prior to the gift of wisdom that's going to be given to him via this dream and then after the

dream we'll see where he exemplifies this wisdom in the case of the the two prostitutes who had children we'll get to that in a few minutes and then you as the story goes on you you do kind of almost get lulled into the sense that Solomon is this fantastic king who is almost constructing this ideal kingdom, sort of a quasi-messianic feel to it. And I say you kind of get lulled into this because along the way, you do have hints dropped of some problems. And then, as we'll see as time goes on, you realize, yeah, yeah, there were more than tiny problems here. These were cancers that grew that grew over time so it's the whole way this story is told by the narrator is fascinating to me so here's solomon young inexperienced taking out all these guys then

he gets wisdom and he's seemingly this ideal king with an ideal kingdom but then underneath all this you see it beginning to kind of erode and then you're in the end you're left with the solomon the old solomon who uh whose heart is just drawn up who you know we're told love the lord but loved false gods loved pharaoh's daughter and the daughters of other foreign kings and loved all these things were contrary to god so it's a he's a he's a fascinating character because he kind of represents this uh what we talked about a lot in this podcast the whole saint sinner uh perspective he's a saint yeah i mean he's declared holy by by god at the same time he's very much a sinner because he's he loves the lord and he's also loving all these things that

are anti-lord that are that are pulling him away away from the lord so we've seen plenty of sinners and saints so far as we've worked our way through the biblical story but maybe solomon represents kind of the acme of the sinner saint, because you never know, I mean, which Solomon are you looking at here, the lover of the Lord or the one who's going to high places and sacrificing to these terrible deities, the one who believes in God or the one who also is marrying the daughters of Pharaoh and other foreign leaders. So anyway, he's an interesting character, and we'll learn more about him as we get to this dream. You know what's interesting about Solomon asking for wisdom uh which you know he you know he receives is that you've you learn that

righteousness has nothing to do with how wise you are just because you're wise does not mean that you will you will be righteous or holy uh just means you're you're wise uh you can be a wise sinner uh yeah he's no problem intelligent yeah renowned for his intelligence but that doesn't necessarily translate into justice and righteousness no yeah it's a it's a double-edged sword i mean there's plenty of people who are wise we've encountered them so far in the biblical story but they don't always use that wisdom in a way that is pleasing to pleasing to god so let's pick up the story in uh verse four of chapter three of first kings the king that is solomon goes to gibeon we know that gibeon it gibeon was where the the altar was you remember that the tabernacle

this is this is confusing because the tabernacle is it's like it's been split in half you have the ark of the covenant that's been taken into the city of david it's been taken in jerusalem but you also have the altar at gibeon so for quite a while we have a divorce within the tabernacle it's got it like a split in half and you got one half in jerusalem one half here at gibeon so it's it's a strange and unnatural bifurcation that's taken place with the lord's holy tent so it's called a great high place and i'm assuming here and i could be wrong, but I'm assuming here that this great high place at Gibeon is where the altar of God is. We're not told that explicitly in 1 Kings 3, but we can maybe work with that assumption.

That's where the king goes to Gibeon to make these sacrifices. And I'm not talking about a random lamb or goat or ox. It says Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. mega sacrifice is taking place there so at gibeon the lord appeared to solomon in a dream by night this is it's been a while from what i recall that we've seen god appearing to somebody in a dream that happens a lot in the torah god is appearing in dreams to abraham and to foreign kings and of course to joseph and you've got all these dreams taking place haven't been so much in in recent stories but here we have god appearing to solomon in a dream by night of course it's almost always by night when these divine dreams appear well night is when you dream yeah unless you're unless

you're a day sleeper it seems like if it happens in the day it's like a vision that happens at night that's a dream yeah i was thinking of peter's peter's vision that he has in the book of acts yeah so day day dreams vision night dreams dreams yeah that's it and god asked him uh what what he wants basically uh it's kind of one of these uh is it blind bartimaeus in in jericho where jesus stops and says uh what do you want me to do for you yeah it's kind of a loaded question i hope god never asked me that chad what do you want me to do for you where do you start it's a I mean, I'd really, it's, it's kind of one of those, it's a loaded question because, uh, it puts you on the spot. What exactly do you want? What do you want me to give to you? What do you

want me to do for you? That's what Solomon gets asked by God. Ask what I shall give you. Not, this isn't the, uh, you know, the, the proverbial three, three wishes. This is one, one request. What do you want? And Solomon says, he doesn't really answer his question right away. He, uh, He, first of all, has to brag about his dad. He says, you have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David, my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness and righteousness in an upright of heart toward you. Now, I don't think that's true. This is a case where...

I know that's not true. Yeah, this is a case where, and we point this out on a pretty regular basis, just because a biblical character says something or even praises something doesn't mean it's true so he here is saying god i know that you really love david because he walked before you faithfully and righteously and with uprightness of heart no that's not why god loved david no it's not this this isn't cause and effect it wasn't like god looked down and he saw what a wonderful person was, and because of that, he loved David. He simply loved David. God doesn't love because we exemplify certain moral characteristics or spiritual characteristics. So this is Solomon

kind of putting his own spin on his father's life. God did show love for David, but it wasn't because David was such a wonderful character. We know he was not. And he goes on, and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, this chesed, and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day. Well, that's true. God did show chesed to David and did give him Solomon to sit on his throne as it is this day. So Solomon begins by talking about God's love and kind of messing with the story here, but the basic thrust of it's true. Verse seven, and now, oh Lord, my God, you have made your servant king in place of David, my father, although I am but a na'arakaton, which is translated here as little child. I don't know why Solomon calls himself

this. We know that he's at least old enough to be married and to father a child. Rehoboam, his oldest, is born about the time that he becomes king, so it's not like he's 12. but for whatever reason maybe he's kind of feigning humility here i'm just a i'm just a little person i'm just a i'm like a kid i don't really know what i'm doing i don't know exactly why solomon chooses this particular language but a a na'at can be a reference to a you know what we would think of as a teenager and the art can also be referenced to someone much older but when you add the adjective katon to it which means small or little that's a way of stressing hi i'm a i'm a kid i'm a little child uh so for whatever reason he calls himself that this would

make more sense coming out of the mouth of josiah if you just said it you'd be like oh i get it you're saying like yeah i'm really unequipped here yeah i'm like an elementary i don't really i don't know what's going on here i'm over here in fourth grade and i don't know what i'm doing he's already shown that he uh for a little child he surely got a lot done in the early years of his reign. I mean, he got a lot of people killed to make sure that there were no possibilities of someone else getting the throne in his

place. So for a little kid, he sure seemed to know what he was doing. Maybe that's part of it. It's deflection. You know me, I'm just a child here. Definitely not a murderous adult. You know what I'm saying? Definitely, I'm just a child.

Don't look at me with too much judgment. Because... Do not judge me as a responsible adult. I mean, just because I killed Joab and Shammai and exiled Abiathar, I was really just a kid. I didn't know what I was doing. So then he kind of explicates a little bit maybe what he's talking about here. He says in the next sentence, I do not know how to go out or come in. Now, that's a biblical idiom.

And that kind of sounds strange to English ears. What does it mean? I don't know how to come out or go in. What's he talking about? Well, that is used, we know, from a lot of other places as a Hebrew idiom for leading armies into battle. So when you go out, that is the idiom for leading into the fray, jumping into the battle. So Solomon is saying, I'm not a warrior, in other words. In that way, he's unlike his father.

David, of course, is very much of a warrior. He's the warrior poet, right? He's the writer of Psalms and the fighter of battles and the slayer of Goliath. And that's what he's known for. That's how he becomes famous. Not Solomon. Solomon's become famous for something completely different. He's not the warrior type.

So he certainly doesn't know how to lead into battle. Then he goes on, verse 8. and so this is who i am this is what i don't know and your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen a great people too many to be numbered or counted from multitude so he's all of this has been leading up to his request god you contrast what god said with what solomon says and it's quite the contrast all god says is what do you want ask me what i should give you and Solomon, being a loquacious, goes on and on. Well, you've done this, and you've given us this, and here I am,

and I don't know what's going on, and your people are so great. And God's finally waiting for him to make his request, and he does finally in verse 9. Here's what he wants. He said, give your servant, therefore, a, in Hebrew, it's a lev shomea, which is one of my favorite phrases. It's translated by the ESV and by a lot of other translations as, and understanding mind, which is a good translation. Literally, alev is a heart,

and shomea means listening, like from Shema, or to hear, O Israel. So, alev shomea is literally a listening heart, a heart with ears, if you will. Now, the heart is the essence of a person. With your heart, you think and you feel. We tend to think of we feel with our heart, we think with our brain, not in Hebrew. In Hebrew, you think, you reason, you experience, you feel everything with your heart. That's the essence of a person. So a listening heart is going to be the essence of who we are is hearing, listening to what God has to say. So an understanding mind is the way this is translated here. That's what he wants. Give me an understanding mind. Give me So to Solomon's credit, he realizes that he is not up for the task.

And it could be simply that he's sort of begun to come to the realization that he has not started out very well. that he you know he didn't he didn't do that great a job in those early years of his uh of his kingship or at the very least he has some doubts like did i do the right thing like am i yeah i i wish i had more certainty about my decisions yeah because this discerning between good and evil is not always easy and uh from from my perspective he he went the side of of evil many times up to this point. So he's the king of all these people, this vast number of the Israelites. So he asked for a lev shemaya, a listening heart and understanding mind. And if he has that, then he's going to be able to discern between good and evil and govern this great

people. Kind of an echo here, by the way, of Genesis 3 and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Solomon is very much pictured here as sort of a, especially when you consider what is to come, he's pictured as an Adam-like character. We have his whole kingdom described as sort of this paradise. In fact, we'll even have the language of every man sitting under his vine and under his fig tree in just a minute. Kind of this ideal space is created where Solomon is over this new eden and he's got this lush paradise of a kingdom and everything's great and again kind of lulls you into this sense of thinking solomon is all it like he is really going to be the one who's going to deliver on all the the good stuff that god has promised to

to israel and part of that is echoed here in this ability to discern between between good and evil He's going to end up having his own Genesis 3, or it already has, but that's kind of the picture that we have of him up to this point. It seems that Solomon, things go pretty well as far as if you were just living in Israel and you were like, hey, what's the king's approval rating? Solomon's probably pretty high. I mean, people are like, things are pretty good. We're not being invaded constantly.

We're not, you know, we're not losing all our sons and daughters in wars and stuff. I mean, certainly no recession. No, like everything's prosperous. And, you know, so Solomon sort of takes this judgment between good and evil and seems like in a lot of ways things go pretty well. what but being able to discern good and evil doesn't do is mean that you will like always choose the good which of course Solomon doesn't do so this just means that Solomon knows the difference between what's right and what's wrong what's good what's evil and it seems like maybe for the people he makes wise decisions and good decisions for the for the Lord's people but for

himself that this is not the case and that he just does whatever he wants to do uh and then ends up we're going to get there to that speaking of the high places and idolatry to sort of make his wives happy and all this other stuff he starts bringing in idolatry stuff which you would think he has to understand is going to have a negative effect on the people yeah that's a great point i mean and i think all of us could probably nod our heads understanding yeah yeah i mean how many how many situations have all of us been in where we're presented with a situation and uh if you were just to ask us to step back from it and answer objectively so is this a good or evil situation or good or evil thing to do most of the time we can say oh yeah this is good or oh yeah that that's

evil, we can figure out the difference between the two. Does that mean we're going to choose the good and avoid the evil? No. I mean, we're always doing that. And we might try and justify ourselves later and make up excuses and all that kind of stuff that we as self-justifying sinners do. But being able to discern between good and evil and actually going the way of good is something that sinners are poorly equipped to do. And Solomon certainly is going to exemplify that. Yeah, it almost, if you ask for the ability to discern good and evil like Solomon does, this almost makes him more, like, this almost increases your guilt for when you choose the evil because you don't have a way, like, oh, I messed up. I didn't realize that's what that was. That's not the case for him.

So he's got to know in a lot of the things that he does, especially in his personal life, that this is not a good decision. Yeah, it just makes him more culpable because he certainly can't claim ignorance anymore. No. He knows. It's not like, oh, I didn't realize building all these high places and temples to foreign gods and Moloch was going to be a bad thing. No, you knew. You saw this with clear-eyed vision. and you knew exactly how bad this was going to be, and yet you did it anyway.

Well, what was God's response to this request of Solomon? Verse 10, it says that it pleased the Lord. Literally, it was good in the eyes of Adonai. It was good in the eyes of the Lord, the Solomon. God was pleased with us, as well we would expect. So God said to him, because you have asked this, because you've asked for a listening heart or an understanding mind, and have not asked for yourself three things, long life or riches or the life of your enemies,

because you haven't asked for those three things, but instead have asked for yourself. Now, this is, I think is interesting. This is God's interpretation of what an understanding mind or listening heart is, because you've asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right. literally in Hebrew, to discern and to hear mishpat. Mishpat is justice or judgment to those two. Because you have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right or to discern or understand and to hear mishpat, since you've asked for that, God says, behold, I now do according to your word. Now, I do think it's a little bit humorous because Solomon didn't

ask for long life true he didn't ask for riches true but he didn't need to ask for the life of his enemies he'd already taken most of them out god's like i'm so glad you didn't ask me you've already done yeah i'm so glad you didn't ask for the life of joab uh who is who is now resting with me exactly yeah no need to ask for that that would be a a failure on solomon's part already taking care of that uh so god says glad you didn't ask for those things glad you asked for this and because you have i'm going to give you a wise and discerning mind again that's another way of him god interpreting what solomon is asking for so a wise and discerning mind not just any old wise and discerning mind either but one that's going to make you so that none is like you none

like you has been before and none like you shall arise after you. That's quite a wise and discerning mind. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor. Notice God does not say he's going to give you riches, honor, and the life of your enemies. Kind of an interesting omission there. So I'm going to give you a wise and discerning mind. And because you didn't ask for riches or honor, I'm going to give that to you too. And if you walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments as your father David walked, then I will also give you long life. I will lengthen your days. So this is a case of, I can't remember where that's at in the New Testament, but God giving us abundantly more than what we ask for. We ask for bread, and he provides us with

a table laden with with goods yeah we ask for a and he gives us b through z he's he's always giving us in other words more than what we more than what we ask for and just as he does for solomon here so he continues to to do which which is good because i mean most of us when we do pray we ask for too little or we ask for the wrong things so thankfully god is able to as a good Father to know what we should have asked for and to give us that instead, or to give us even more than the minimum amount that we did ask for. You know, every time when God talks about David, because, you know, we saw Solomon say like, oh, my father just was like, just walking before you and all this righteousness. Then God says, you know, back to him, like, hey, walk in my ways,

keep my statutes and my commandments as your father David walked, and I will lend you days. and you're like huh like how good did he do that well not great but it does show you like how God treats repentance right because for God like when God said when you repent and then God says you have to take the words of the of the prophet Nathan seriously when he's like God has put away your sin to the point that he will talk to your son and refer to you as like man you need to be walking in my ways keeping my commandments like David did like that sin is real put away yeah it's just yeah it reminds me of the uh i don't know where this is at in in saint augustine but uh one of my favorite quotes from him is that all the commandments of god are kept

when what is not kept is forgiven yeah so have have christians kept all the commandments well yeah because all the commandments of god are kept when what is not kept is forgiven that's right as far as god is concerned yeah as far as god is concerned david is like pure just completely righteous yeah sure yeah i mean that's the that's the beauty of the the vertical righteousness when god looks upon you clothed in righteousness of christ his righteousness being yours then yeah that's exactly the way that god sees you he sees you as david because he sees you as one who is into Christ. Yeah, which is...

This has got to be... This has to encourage you to repent, too, because it's like, hey, you want to be righteous? Just repent. That's it. That's it. That's all you've got to do. Repent, and you're righteous.

As it was with David. And we've seen just all of the just oftentimes grotesque things that David did. Yeah. And yet here he is declared by God to be walking in his statutes and commandments. And that's it. And that's the thing. Like if you're saying that you need to be like David. Obviously, he's he's saying that David, as far as God is concerned, was this righteous man.

But if you're going to do something that David did to be like David, repenting would be that thing. that yeah that is the if there's anything we're going to model from the saints let it be that repent as they as they repented so that like martin luther says the so that the whole life of believers is one of repentance yeah it's the only way to be righteous yeah that's just basically means dying and rising daily in christ yeah and repentance isn't this uh i mean i think the people they're like yeah i gotta like repent all that i gotta be all this groveling and this I've got to go get my sackcloth, ashes, and all this kind of stuff. I mean, repentance is just looking at your sin

and turning from that to Christ who is ready to do something about it. I mean, repentance is just you going back to Jesus again who is always happy to see you. Right. That's it. Yeah. You return as a prodigal son the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh time, and God is always going to be there ready to throw a party.

yeah god's god's never like you again yeah what'd you do this time no is that god is always glad to have you come back yeah party a party of of uh forgiveness every time so that is uh that's the extent of the dream uh verse 15 tells us that solomon woke up and behold it was a dream then uh he came i think this is this is instructive here then he came to jerusalem so he leaves the high place of gibeon and he goes back to jerusalem maybe the first uh fruit of this wisdom given to him he goes back to jerusalem and where did he go he stood before the ark of the covenant of the lord and offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings and made a feast for all his servants this is another point of these kind of weird situations because okay as i pointed out earlier

the altar is separated from the ark of the covenant it's not like the whole tabernacle is in jerusalem but evidently there is an altar there because he's offering up burnt offerings and peace offerings and making a feast for for all his servants so i wish we had all the details we don't but whatever was there in jerusalem it was sufficient for these burnt offerings and peace offerings for the servants and and by the way uh peace offerings we're told that he offered burnt offerings okay those are just like completely a burnt offering is a whole burnt offering the whole animal is is burnt on the the altar so there's there's nothing left that's an ola in hebrew a peace offering is different uh peace offerings are shalom offerings which is

related to shalom in in hebrew that's why they're called peace offerings but one aspect of the peace offerings is that it was the only offering that a lay person could offer a non-priest could offer in which they got back part of the a large part of the animal to have a what you might call a ritual barbecue and invite all their family and friends and poor people and levites and other people to have a feast. So the feast that is described here for all Solomon's servants is probably a feast in which they are consuming the peace offerings. So these two things don't, in other words, don't separate these two things. This feast is a ritual feast in which you're consuming the very body of the animal that was offered for you, whose blood was offered for you on the altar. So

in this way you are ingesting this sanctification from the altar upon which the blood was placed so it's a ritual feast it's a celebratory feast in which uh basically wisdom the gift of wisdom solomon is being celebrated okay so uh immediately following up following this verse 16 is an instance of this gift of wisdom being given to solomon is now going to be shown active this is what wisdom does. In fact, it's even indicated to an extent in the Hebrew, because typically when a Hebrew narrative does not begin with then, in Hebrew it's az. That particular word is not the way that narratives begin in Hebrew. But here it is to connect it to the preceding story. So it's kind of like Solomon had a dream, God asked him what he wanted, God gave him wisdom, and then

Solomon exemplified this wisdom in the scenario that is now laid out for us, this famous scenario of the two mothers who are prostitutes with one dead child, one living child. You know, whenever you hear this story growing up, two women, one child, they both say that they're the mother. It was always left out that these were prostitutes. Like, this was always like... Small detail omitted. Small detail omitted. It was just these two women. It was almost like it was a good woman and a bad woman.

And it was like, this bad woman was trying to steal this other woman's child. That's just two prostitutes, man. Yeah. There's nothing really clean about this particular story. No, this story is like two prostitutes and then one baby. And you're like, okay. And now, as an adult, you're like, that's how the Bible does it. That's how, yeah.

no no whitewashing in the in the scriptures and i think the reason i mean maybe not the reason but one part of this this story that it fits so well with solomon and his wisdom literature is that very commonly in wisdom literature the prostitutes are the symbols of foolishness i mean they're like they're they're the ones trying to lure lure people into all kinds of bad evil things and so the fact that here we have two women two prostitutes who are before the wise king it just it's just like it's lifted right from the book of proverbs i mean this is just like a perfect setup for this in fact the whole scene almost seems proverbial because if you look throughout it first of all the two women are never named it's not like you know you have beth and

uh whoever mary over miriam over here they're not named they're just two women and more interestingly nowhere in this story is the solomon's name appears he just called the king the king the king the king so it almost becomes parabolic and in that i'm not saying it didn't happen but it almost becomes uh parabolic just the way the whole story is told we have a king and we have two prostitutes and we have a dead child and we have a living child so how's this all going to play out well the two prostitutes come to the king stand before him he's kind of the the one man supreme court in israel so if this the minor judges couldn't settle disputes you well then you went to the king he's the he's the supreme court in one person the one woman

the plaintiff we might call her said oh my lord this woman and i live in the same house 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 so both pregnant both have babies we were alone so no other guys in the house no witnesses in other words there was no one else with us in the house only we two were in the house she's like belaboring this point okay we get it making it very clear yeah so you're alone. And yeah, I just want to make sure you understand we were alone. No one else was with us. Only the two of us were in the house. All right. So no witnesses. It's going to be a she said, she said kind of situation. This woman's son died in the night. So says the plaintiff.

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 got up in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he wasn't the child that I had born. Now the other woman, the defendant, says, no, that's not the way it happened at all. The living child is mine, and the dead child is hers. So the first said, no, the dead child is yours, and the living child is mine. And thus they spoke before the king. Now, most of us who grew up hearing this story assume that we know who's telling the truth now i want to point out that we don't know for sure

which of these women is telling the truth right because it could be the plaintiff it could be the defendant i mean we're going to find out in a minute that we know who the live we know who the real mother is because she's the one whose heart warms toward toward the child but we don't know which one she is so do keep that in mind there's there's there's a lot of ambiguity in this all what we know right now is that one woman says this, and the other woman says that. Which is telling the truth? Which is lying? We don't know at this point, okay? So that's the situation before the king. What's he going to do? It's a she said, she said, no witnesses. It's a classic conundrum. The king sums it up this way. He says, well, the one says, this is my son that's alive,

and your son is dead and the other says no but your son is dead and my son is living one so there's no way we can solve this so the king says this must have been like a a shocking moment bring me a sword yeah you're if you're the mother you're probably thinking uh-oh this is how this is how you do this before uh dna testing uh instead of instead of bring me a bring me a swab we'll get this figured out no he just says bring me a sword yeah and nobody knows what he's going to do with it first so they bring a sword before the king uh theatrical moment and the king says here's his decree divide the living child in two and give half to the one and half to the other a little pause there for uh for effect then the woman whose son was alive whoever whoever she was

from the preceding narrative said to the king because literally her heart warmed or her her something like her bowels the king james might say her bowels her very guts warmed for her son And very often in Hebrew, when you want to express emotion, you use one of the organs of the body to describe it. So in this case, it's the the the wombs or the bowels warmed her heart yearn for her son. And she said, oh, my Lord, give her the living child and by no means put him to death. And then the other said, he shall be neither mine nor yours. Divide him, cut him up. So at this moment, of course, we know, depending on who spoke these words, we know that the real

mother is the one whose heart yearned or whose wombs warmed for this child. The king answered and said, now this is where our translations become interpretations, because verse 27 in the ESV, and I think the NIV also says, the king answered and said, give the living child to the first woman. There is no first woman in the Hebrew. It says in Hebrew, it's give the living child to her, not to the first or whatever, but it's just to her. Now we know who the her is. It's the one that, you know, has the warmed heart, but it's just in Hebrew, give the living child to her and by no means put him to death. She is his mother. Verse 28 wraps it up. All Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king because they

perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice. And, you know, indeed it was. I mean, this is why this is such a well-known story, because we're kind of put in the same position as Solomon is. You know, we're watching this all happen, and we're asking ourselves, what should we do, and what would be the right way to figure this out? And Solomon demonstrates that because he demonstrates that it is the the heart of the compassion of the of the true mother that reveals that she is in fact the one who's telling the telling the truth so it's kind of like a uh you know she the child might grow up and say uh if if if if the child had been given to the other woman then the child could grow up and say you know my mother my mother why has thou

forsaken me and she could say well because you know i was willing to lose you in order that you might continue to have life. And in that way she reveals the true heart of love. Yeah, man. And that is all the time we have got today. Next week we've got really exciting stuff

about Solomon's officials. We're going to find out exactly how rich he's going to get. It's going to be a good time. Some more about his wisdom. We will pick it up then. Baby's life is spared. That's good. So end it on a positive note. and uh i'll see you next week all right see you then