God appeared unto Solomon in a dream and said: Ask what I shall give
thee. Solomon asked for wisdom. Shortly after two women came to him.
They dwelt together, and each had given birth to a child. As one of them
had in the night overlaid her child so that it died, she arose and took
the child of the other, and laid her own in its place. Both now
asserted: I am mother of the living child. Solomon said: Fetch me a
sword! When the sword was brought, he said: Divide the child in two, and
give half to one and half to the other. Then the one cried: Give her the
child, and do not divide it. The other said: Divide it, so it shall be
neither mine nor thine. Then Solomon said: Give the child to her who
wills that it shall live, for she is the mother. All Israel heard the
judgment and feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in
him.--Solomon was wiser than all other men, and the fame of his wisdom
spread abroad, and the queen of Sheba came to hear him. He spoke 3000
proverbs, and his songs were 1005; he wrote of trees, from the cedar
that grows on Lebanon to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he
wrote of beasts of the field, of birds, of creeping things and of
fishes. He had peace round about and all Israel dwelt safely, each man
under his vine and fig tree. He traded with distant lands and gathered
gold and silver and precious stones in great abundance. On Mount Moriah
in Jerusalem he built a magnificent temple instead of the Tabernacle,
and put the Ark in the Holy of Holies. When the temple was finished,
Solomon knelt down and prayed: O Lord, the heaven, and the heaven of
heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house that I have
builded! Yet hear Thou in heaven, Thy dwelling place, every humble
prayer that shall be sent up to Thee from this house! And when a
stranger that is not of Israel shall come and pray towards this house,
then hear Thou his prayers also!
Solomon did not continue faithful to the end. He had taken many heathen
women to be his wives, and when he was old they turned his heart, so
that he built altars to the abominable idols of the heathens. And the
people murmured because of heavy taxes and burdens. (1 Kings 3-11.)