3 Kings 3:25
Divide, said he, the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.
Open 3 Kings 3:25 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Dividite, inquit, infantem vivum in duas partes, et date dimidiam partem uni, et dimidiam partem alteri.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν ὁ βασιλεύς Διέλετε τὸ παιδίον τὸ θηλάζον τὸ ζῶν εἰς δύο, καὶ δότε τὸ ἥμισυ αὐτοῦ ταύτῃ καὶ τὸ ἥμισυ αὐτοῦ ταύτῃ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֣אמֶר הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ גִּזְר֛וּ אֶת הַיֶּ֥לֶד הַחַ֖י לִשְׁנָ֑יִם וּתְנ֤וּ אֶֽת הַחֲצִי֙ לְאַחַ֔ת וְאֶֽת הַחֲצִ֖י לְאֶחָֽת
Haydock's commentary
Other. This sentence manifested the wisdom of Solomon, who knew that the real mother would feel the emotions of parental tenderness. By similar experiments, the truth has sometimes been discovered. Claudius obliged a mother to own her son, by ordering her to take him for a husband. (Seutonius xv.)
The king of Trace told three who pretended to be the sons of the deceased king of the Cimmerians, to shoot an arrow at the corpse; which the real son would not do. (Calmet) (Diod. Sic.)
A native of Mexico, reclaiming a horse which a Spaniard pretended was his, as the judge was under some doubts, the American threw his cloak over the horse's head, and asked which eye was blind? The Spaniard replied, the right; and thus was detected. (Palafox.)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Origen A Letter from Origen to Africanus
“Then there appeared two women that were harlots before the king, and stood before him. And the one woman said, To me, my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and we were delivered in the house. And it came to pass, the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there is no one in our house except us two. And this woman’s child died in the night; because she overlaid it. And she arose at midnight, and took my son from my arms. And thine handmaid slept. And she laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. And I arose in the morning to give my child suck, and he was dead; but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son which I did bear. And the other woman said, Nay; the dead is thy son, but the living is my son. And the other said, No; the living is my son, but the dead is thy son. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Rufinus of Rome
Rufinus, a Roman Presbyter (to be carefully distinguished from Rufinus of Aquileia and Rufinus the Syrian), had written to Jerome for an explanation of the judgment of Solomon ( 1 Kings iii. 16-28 ). This Jerome gives at length, treating the narrative as a parable and making the false and true mothers types of the Synagogue and the Church. The date of the letter is 398 a.d.
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII, Chapter XXV. The evidence of Scripture on changes of determination
It is impossible for us briefly to run through everything. For who could count up almost all the patriarchs and numberless saints, some of whom for the preservation of life, others out of desire for a blessing, others out of pity, others to conceal some secret, others out of zeal for God, others in searching for the truth, became, so to speak, patrons of lying? And as all cannot be enumerated, so all ought not to be altogether passed over. For piety forced the blessed Joseph to raise a false charge against his brethren even with an oath by the life of the king, saying: “Ye are spies: to see the nakedness of the land are ye come;” and below: “send,” says he, “one of you, and bring your brothers hither: but ye shall be kept here until your words are made manifest whether ye speak the truth or no: but if not, by the life of Pharaoh, ye are spies.” For if he had not out of pity alarmed them …