Solomon's wisdom; the request at Gibeon

Solomon goes to Gibeon to sacrifice because the most important high place was there, and the tent of meeting from the wilderness was standing at that site, though the ark itself was in Jerusalem. A thousand burnt offerings are made.

That night God appears to him in a dream and says, ask for whatever you want me to give you.

His answer begins with an assessment of his own position. I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. He is around twenty, has come to the throne over an elder brother's attempted coup, and has just executed the commander of the army.

What he asks for is a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours? The Hebrew is literally a listening heart, which is closer to the sense than the usual translations: what he wants is the capacity to hear a case properly.

The reply notes what he did not ask for, and the list is itself instructive: long life, wealth, or the death of his enemies. He is given the discernment he asked for and the wealth and honour he did not, with long life attached conditionally to walking in obedience.

The demonstration that follows is famous and is worth reading for its mechanics rather than its verdict. Two prostitutes come to him, living in the same house, each having given birth days apart. One baby died in the night, and each woman claims the survivor. There are no witnesses, no household, and no way to establish parentage.

He has no forensic method available, so he creates one. Bring me a sword. Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other. The real mother speaks first and gives up her claim rather than let it happen. Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Do not kill him! The other one says, neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!

The ruling follows from the reactions rather than from the evidence, and what he has done is design a test that makes the truth reveal itself.

When all Israel hears the verdict they hold the king in awe, because they see that he has wisdom from God to administer justice. That is the point of the whole episode: the country now has a judicial system that works, which is the exact thing Absalom had campaigned on the absence of.

His reputation for wisdom extends beyond the courtroom in the summaries: three thousand proverbs, a thousand and five songs, and descriptions of plant life from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls, and of animals, birds, reptiles and fish. People come from all nations to listen.