1 Kings 3:27

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

Reciprocal: Job 39:16 - as Isaiah 49:15 - a woman

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Then the king answered and said, give her the living child,

and in no wise slay it,.... That is, to her who desired it might not be slain, but rather be given to her who had no right to it:

she [is] the mother thereof; which might be strongly concluded from her compassion for it, her eagerness and earnestness to have its life spared, and from the indifference of the other, yea, from her cruelty and barbarity in moving to have it divided.