What is the most difficult decision you have ever had to make? Were you placed in a crux because of your own actions or was the situation thrust upon you? Often the most difficult decisions in life come when there are only two choices available and neither of them seem very positive at the time. I have found that if a person has a sensitive conscience, which has been informed by God’s word, then they will usually be able to make the right decision because they are guided by their conscience. This is how the conscience is supposed to work, and I find it fascinating to see how God’s word impacts the conscience and helps people navigate the difficult decisions of life.
One of the most famous decisions of conscience can be seen in the case of King Solomon and the two women. By correlating ancient Assyrian accounts with the Biblical chronology we can place the fourth year of King Solomon’s reign to the year 966 BC. This gives us a very specific time-frame for when this event took place.
The Bible describes King Solomon as the wisest man in the world. 1 Kings 3:16-28 tells us that two women were brought to King Solomon for what may have been the first true test of his wisdom. Each woman had given birth to a boy within a three day span. One of the babies had died in the night and the women wanted Solomon to decide who was the right mother of the child. The first woman claimed that the other woman’s baby boy had died because his mother had accidentally laid on him in her sleep. The first woman argued that the other woman switched the babies while she was asleep by taking the living baby and replacing him with the dead baby.
The other woman denied this account and said, “‘No, the living child is mine, and the dead child is yours.’ The first said, ‘No, the dead child is yours, and the living child is mine.’ Thus they spoke before the king.” (ESV) You can imagine how difficult it would have been to judge between the two women. There was no DNA testing available three thousand years ago. King Solomon had to find a way to see who was the real mother and who was not. He made a decision that proved dramatically effective in the ancient context he lived in.
King Solomon gave the order to have a sword brought to the courtroom. He said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.” There is no indication that he was actually going to cut the child in two. He recognized each woman had a conscience, and he trusted that the threat of losing another child would elicit a powerful reaction from one of them.
Verses 26-28 tell us, “Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, ‘Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death.’ But the other said, ‘He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him.’ Then the king answered and said, ‘Give the living child to the first woman, and by no means put him to death; she is his mother.’ And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.”
I find myself reacting to this account the same way the people of Israel did. I am amazed at Solomon’s wisdom, and I am also surprised by the response of the women. King Solomon’s wisdom is clearly seen because he recognized the powerful role of the human conscience. He recognized that mothers value the life of their children, and I believe he hoped that one of the women would be outraged by his solution and voluntarily provide a better one. His strategy proved effective, but not in the way some might think.
I would think that the likely outcome of Solomon’s order would have been for the guilty woman to admit to switching the babies. You would think her guilt at taking her housemate’s baby would eat away at her conscience and she would want to come clean and make things right. But that is not what happened. Instead of admitting her guilt, the other woman cried out in support of another killing. She said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him.” Those are the words of a cold-hearted killer. Instead of having her conscience softened, she had actually hardened her heart to the point of justifying another death.
This is a tragic reality of the human conscience. It can be hardened to the point of justifying murder. Jeremiah 17:9-10 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” As Christians we need to be aware of our propensity to self-deception, and we need to make sure our conscience stays keen and aligned with God’s word so that we will not find ourselves condoning sin or giving into temptation.
The other surprising aspect of this account is the response of the true mother. She could have cried out in anguish and rebelled against the judge’s ruling. She didn’t. She said, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death.” That is a surprisingly gracious response. Did she realize that she was giving permission for her child to be given to a woman who had kidnapped him just a few days before? How could she do that? I believe she was able to because she valued the life of her child over the rule of the law. She could live with injustice, but she could not live with condoning the death of her own child.
One last thing to consider. Why didn’t the guilty woman keep her mouth shut? King Solomon might not have had clarity to see her crime if she had stayed quiet. But that is not what happened. The hatred and wickedness of the other woman was so strong that she could not help crying out for murder. That should be a powerful warning for us as well. A hardened conscience is deceitfully wicked, capable of doing much worse than the person might even recognize.
I hope this story is a helpful reminder of the importance of keeping our conscience clean before the Lord. May we pray with the Psalmist, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)
