A Dismembered Baby

One of my favorite stories about King Solomon is the one about the two mothers. What happens is these two prostitutes come to the King and both claim mothership to the same child. Both women had babies about the same time and they live alone together. But one of the babies died during the night and both woman claim right to the living baby. One mother claims the other accidentally killed her own baby and stole her baby; the accused mother claims the other woman's baby died and wants her baby now.

How can King Solomon resolve the situation? This is a huge mess! I have no clue what I would do in this situation. Luckily, King Solomon was the wisest king in history, so he came up with a pretty clever way to discern who the real mother was. He calls for a sword and says he'll just chop the baby in half. If both women are mothers, both will be satisfied with half the baby. One woman, the one who was accused of killing her own baby and kidnapping the other, agrees to the plan, saying, "Neither of us will have him. Cut him in half!" But "the woman whose son was alive was deeply moved out of love for her son and said to the king, 'Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!'" King Solomon, in his great discernment, say the compassion in the true mother's plea. He gave the baby to her and 1 Kings says the whole country was in awe at the King's wisdom.

I've got to admit: I really want to be wise like that! It'd be so cool to know and understand so much to deal with a situation like that. I've been reading Proverbs a ton lately, and it's obvious that the wise will fare well. The entire theme of Proverbs is that the wise will stand strong and the fools will die. I don't know about you, but I value righteousness, wisdom, discernment, understanding, generous, loving, and all the other godly characteristics praised by Proverbs. While King Solomon certainly had his failings with women and foreign gods, his wisdom is something to strive for. He wrote most of Proverbs, for crying out loud. I definately want to attain the same wisdom the writer of Proverbs had!