Allen Dvorak
04/22/09
In the darkness, she knew something was wrong. Her infant son seemed too still. Despair washed over her as she realized the child was dead! She must have rolled over on him as she slept and smothered him. How could this have happened? Fear of what people would think gripped her heart. Her mind raced as she thought frantically of first one story she could tell, then another to "explain" how her child had died.
And then it hit her. She could swap her dead son with the infant son of the other woman in the house. They were so close in age no one would know the difference. As she entertained the plan in her mind, it got better and better. There was no one else in the house! No one could prove the swap had occurred, not even the other woman. It was perfect! If the mother of the other child realized the dead child was not her own, it would be the word of one against another. It didn’t take long to make the switch and, with the other woman’s living child lying next to her body, she felt so much better. Everything would be alright.
In the early morning light, she began to have second thoughts. But then the other woman discovered the child with her was dead. She started wailing and making accusations. "This is not my son. You took my son! Baby-stealer!" Now she had to lie about the swap. Still, who would know?
The other woman refused to be comforted and went to the elders of the village. Eventually, she had to stand before first one judge, then another as the other woman continued in her quest to reclaim her son. But, without witnesses, the judges had no way of discovering what she had done. She just kept telling the same lie – "The living child is my son and the dead child is your son." Mistake or not, there was no going back now without branding herself as a liar and a child-stealer. She could barely stand to look at the child who had once seemed so precious to her – the child whose existence threatened her life if she was caught.
But she never thought it would go this far. As she stood before the king himself and listened to the other woman tell her story, she trembled. Once again, however, she told her lie. "The living child is my son." What else could she do?
When both women had finished speaking, she could scarcely believe her ears as the king ordered the living child divided into half with a sword. In a flash, it occurred to her this could be the answer to her dilemma. With the child dead, the matter would be closed; there would be no reason for the other woman to continue her efforts to reclaim her son. She would be safe from discovery. Furthermore, she wouldn’t be burdened with a child that wasn’t even hers. Yes! In the king’s command, she saw the way out of her predicament. "Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him," she said to the other woman (1 Kings 3:26).
The account of the two harlots before Solomon (1 Kings 3) doesn’t supply all of the details of the story. The startling comment of the child-stealer in the latter part of verse 26 suggests a great deal and the story I offer is one possible explanation for her comment. The woman with the dead son sinned in swapping the babies and then had to lie to cover her sin. Eventually she consented to the death of the living child to cover her sins and escape punishment. Sin breeds sin. I am also confident the relief she felt at Solomon’s suggestion was temporary as her sins were discovered. There is no security in sin for we will all stand before a Judge much wiser than Solomon, a Judge who knows all.