1 Kings 3:20

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁶At that time two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. ¹⁷One woman said, "Please, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth while she was in the house. ¹⁸On the third day after I gave birth, this woman also had a baby. We were alone, with no one in the house but the two of us. ¹⁹During the night this woman's son died because she rolled over on him. ²⁰So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I was asleep. She laid him in her bosom and put her dead son at my bosom.²¹The next morning, when I got up to nurse my son, I discovered he was dead. But when I examined him, I realized that he was not the son I had borne." ²²"No," said the other woman, "the living one is my son and the dead one is your son." But the first woman insisted, "No, the dead one is yours and the living one is mine." So they argued before the king. ²³Then the king replied, "This woman says, 'My son is alive and yours is dead,' but that woman says, 'No, your son is dead and mine is alive.'" ²⁴The king continued, "Bring me a sword." So they brought him a sword, ²⁵and the king declared, "Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

midnight: Job 24:13-17, Psalms 139:11, Matthew 13:25, John 3:20

took: 1 Kings 3:21

Cross-References

Genesis 2:20
The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

Genesis 2:23
And the man said: "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for out of man she was taken."

Genesis 5:29
And he named him Noah, saying, "May this one comfort us in the labor and toil of our hands caused by the ground that the LORD has cursed."

Genesis 16:11
The Angel of the LORD proceeded: "Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son. And you shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction.

Genesis 35:18
And with her last breath-for she was dying-she named him Ben-oni. But his father called him Benjamin.

Exodus 2:10
When the child had grown older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses and explained, "I drew him out of the water."

1 Samuel 1:20
So in the course of time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, "Because I have asked for him from the LORD."

Matthew 1:21
She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins."

Matthew 1:23
"Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel" (which means, "God with us").

Acts 17:26
From one man He made every nation of men, to inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And she arose at midnight,.... Perceiving what she had done, that she had overlaid her child, and it was dead; either through fear of punishment inflicted on persons thus negligent, or because of the disgrace of it, taking no more care of her child, she made use of the following stratagem:

and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept; this served to puzzle the cause, for how could she know what she did when she was asleep? this she could not prove, it was only conjecture:

and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom; where she found it in the morning; but still what proof was there that it was the other woman's, and not her own, that lay dead in her bosom?