1 Kings 3:16

SOLOMON’S JUDICIAL SAGACITY, 1 Kings 3:16-28.

16. Then came there two women This seems to have been the first judicial decision of the new king, and it established in all Israel (1 Kings 3:28) his reputation as a wise ruler and judge. It is added here, immediately after the history of his journey to Gibeon, as an illustration of the wisdom which he asked and received from God. “A monarch’s sagacity in the administration of justice,” says Kitto, “was calculated to make the most marked impression upon the popular mind, and likely to be most generally talked about through the land. This quality also came more home to the personal concerns of his subjects than any other, and was for that reason alone the more carefully regarded. The administration of justice was in all ancient monarchies, as it is now in the East, a most important part of the royal duties and functions; and there is no quality more highly prized than that keen discernment in the royal judge which detects the clew of real evidence amidst conflicting testimony, or that ready tact which devises a test of truth, where the evidence affords not even the clew to any grounds of decision.” And so this incident throws light upon the manners of those times. Even harlots, (for true criticism will not allow the Chaldee rendering of the word זנות by innkeepers,) persons of abandoned character, were permitted to appear in the royal presence and plead their own causes.