Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Kings 3:16

"Then there came two women that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him." — 1 Kings 3:16 (ASV)

Then came there. —The celebrated “judgment of Solomon,” given here as a specimen of his wisdom, is simply an instance of intuitive sagacity, cutting the Gordian knot of hopeless difficulty by an appeal to maternal instinct—an appeal which might, of course, fail, but which was, under the exceptional circumstances, the only appeal possible. It is in the knowledge of how to risk failure rather than be reduced to impotence, and how to go straight to the heart of a difficulty when the slow, regular approaches of science are impossible, that we recognise what men call “a touch of genius,” and what Scripture here calls “the wisdom of God.”