Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her into the city of David until he had made finished building his own house and the house of Yahweh, and the wall around Jerusalem.
Only the people were still sacrificing at the local shrines because there was no house built for the name of Yahweh until those days.
And Solomon loved Yahweh, walking in the statutes of David his father; only he sacrificed and burned incense into smoke at the local shrines.
The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon offered 1,000 burnt offerings on that altar.
At Gibeon Yahweh appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask, what should I give you.”
And Solomon said, “You have shown to your servant David my father great covenant faithfulness because he walked before you in truth and in righteousness and in uprightness of heart with you. You have kept this great covenant faithfulness to him by giving him a son to sit on his throne as it is this day.
“Now, Yahweh my God, you have made your servant king instead of David my father, yet I am a young lad. I do not know how to go out or come in.
Your servant is in the midst of your people that you have chosen, a great people that are too many to be numbered or counted.
So give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to judge this great people of yours?”
And the word was good in the eyes of the Lord; that Solomon had asked this thing.
God said to him, “Because you have asked this thing and have not asked for yourself long life, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for discernment for yourself to understand justice,
behold, I have done according to your words. Behold, I have given you a wise and discerning heart so that there has been none like you before you, and after you, none will arise like you.
I have also given you what you have not asked for, both riches and honor, so that there will not be anyone among the kings like you all your days.
And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.”
Then Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. Then he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of Yahweh and offered up burnt offerings, offered peace offerings, and made a banquet for all his servants.
Solomon's Wisdom
Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him.
The one woman said, “Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house. And I gave birth to a child while she was in the house.
Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman gave birth also. We were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, just the two of us were in the house.
And this woman’s son died in the night because she lay on him.
So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your servant slept and laid him in her bosom, while her son, the dead one, she laid in my bosom.
But when I arose in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead. But when I had looked at him in the morning, behold, he was not my son whom I had borne.”
But the other woman said, “No! The living one is my son and the dead one is your son!” But this one kept on saying, “No! For the dead one is your son and the living one is my son.” And they continued speaking that way before the king.
Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son, the living one, and your son is the dead one,’ and the other says, ‘No, but your son is the dead one and my son is the living one.’”
The king said, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king.
And the king said, “Cut the living child in two and give half to the one and half to the other.”
Then the woman whose son was the living one spoke to the king, for her heart yearned for her son, and she said, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child and do not kill him!” But the other said, “He will not be either mine or yours. Cut it!”
Then the king answered and said, “Give the first woman the living child and do not kill him. She is his mother.”
All Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they feared the king for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to carry out justice.