Wisdom for the Baby

Bamboo Forest, Maymont Park.  Copyright 2012: singeronthesand

I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next door to Sanity;

Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street.

Good counsel and common sense are my characteristics,

I am both Insight and the Virtue to live it out.

Wealth and Glory accompany me,

also substantial Honor and a Good Name.

My benefits are worth more than a big salary - 

a very bid salary; 

the returns on me exceed any imaginable bonus.

Proverbs 8:12, 14, 18-19

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in King Solomon's court - the ruler who has been labeled "the wisest man who ever lived."  I definitely would have wanted to be there on the morning that two young mothers brought in a single baby.  Each woman claimed that the other mother rolled over on her baby in the night, smothering it, and then took the remaining baby for their own. Two women claiming to be the mother of one precious infant.  If I had been king (well, queen, actually), I don't know what I would have done.  Take the women aside and question each one individually?  Talk to the relatives? Canvass the neighbors?  Look for holes in someone's story?  Give the child to a foster family?

Solomon's answer was far different.  He motioned to a guard and called for a sword.  He then instructed the baby to be laid on a table, and for the guard to split the child in half, giving half of the child to each mother.  The court must have been positively electrified, hardly believing that they had heard correctly.  One of the mothers stood there grim-faced, waiting for the blade to fall.  The other mother, however, fell at Solomon's feet and begged that the child be spared and given to the other woman.  Solomon halted the guard, lifted this second mother up from the floor, and handed her the child.  Mother #1 had no love for the child, and was willing to have it killed rather than lose the game.  Mother #2, like Jochebed before her, was willing to give up her child completely to ensure that he would live.