The Boy King Who Asked for Wisdom Instead of Gold

King David, the shepherd who had sung about green grass and the dark valley, grew old, and at last he died. His son Solomon became king.

Solomon was young, and he loved the LORD. One day he went up to Gibeon, an old place of worship, and offered a thousand animals on the altar. (A thousand! The priests must have been very tired by supper.)

That night God came to Solomon in a dream.

"Ask," God said. "What shall I give you?"

"You were so kind to my father David," Solomon said, "and now I am king in his place. But I am only a little child, and your people are too many to count. So give me a listening heart, to rule your people well and to tell good from evil."

(Offered anything at all, most people would ask for a mountain of gold. Solomon asked for help doing his job.)

God was pleased.

"You did not ask for a long life," God said, "or for riches, or for your enemies to die. You asked for understanding. So I will give you a wise and understanding heart. No one like you has ever been, or ever will be. I will also give you what you did not ask for: riches and honor. And if you walk in my ways, as your father David did, I will give you a long life."

Soon two women came before the king with one baby.

"My lord," said the first woman, "this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby boy, and three days later she had one too. In the night her baby died, because she rolled onto him in her sleep. At midnight, while I slept, she took my son from beside me and laid her dead baby in my arms. In the morning I looked closely. He was not my son!"

"No!" said the other woman. "The living one is mine. The dead one is yours!"

"The dead one is yours!" the first woman shouted. "The living one is mine!"

Back and forth they went. Nobody else had been in that house to see.

"Bring me a sword," said Solomon.

A servant brought one, long and sharp.

"Cut the living baby in two," said the king. "Give half to one woman and half to the other."

The first woman cried out, because she loved her son so much it hurt. "Oh, my lord, give her the baby! Please don't kill him!"

But the other woman said, "Then he will be neither mine nor yours. Cut him!"

Solomon lifted his hand. "Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him. She is his mother."

The baby went home in his mother's arms. All Israel heard and stood in awe of their king, because God had given him wisdom to do what was right.

Solomon found the real mother, but the other woman went home with empty arms, and all his wisdom was not enough to make her baby breathe again. And the wisest king did not stay wise. When Solomon was old, he let his heart turn away from the LORD to other gods.

Solomon's sons and grandsons ruled after him, and not one of them could see into every heart.

Then a boy of twelve sat in the temple, listening to the teachers and asking them questions, and everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding. When he grew up, he told the crowds, "Something greater than Solomon is here." The true mother was ready to give up her son so that he could live. Jesus gave up his own life so that God's children could live.