Solomon was just a young lad when he assumed the throne. In fact, he was a mere twelve years of age. In those days, prior to the construction of the Temple, the altar that was built by Moses was situated in Gibeon. Soon after he became king, Solomon went to Gibeon to pray and give thanks.

While in Gibeon, G‑d appeared to Solomon in a dream. “What should I give you?” the Almighty asked. Solomon was acutely aware of his young age and lack of experience. He, therefore, asked G‑d for “an understanding heart to judge Your people.”

G‑d expresses His great satisfaction and happiness with this choice. Solomon could have opted to make any other attractive wish for himself: long life, wealth, victory over his enemies, etc. Because he had wished for what he did, G‑d told him that in addition to wisdom, he would also enjoy great wealth and honor. And the wisdom G‑d would grant him would be the likes of which no one before him or after him would possess.

This gift of wisdom was put to the test soon after the young king returned home. Two prostitutes came before the king with a quarrel. The first began to lay out her side of the story:

They had both been sharing a lodging space, and had both given birth—she first, her housemate three days later. Unfortunately, her housemate’s baby had died the night after it was born. Upon realizing this, her housemate had gone and secretly exchanged her dead child with her housemate’s live one. “I awoke in the morning to nurse my son, and behold, he was dead! But I looked closely at him in the morning, and behold, it was not my son whom I had borne.”

The second woman denied this entirely. “Not so! The living child is my son, and the dead one is your son.” And so the argument continued.

Solomon repeated the claims of each party, thus ensuring he understood them. (Our sages use this verse as the source for a judge’s obligation to repeat the claims of the litigants in front of them, to ensure he has understood them properly.)

The case was obviously made more difficult by the fact that there were no witnesses for any of the events. Solomon had to think of some original method of how to detect who was speaking the truth.

• The king said, “Fetch me a sword,” and they brought a sword before the king. The king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.”
• The woman whose son was the live one said to the king—for her compassion was aroused for her son—and she said: “O my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him.” But the other said, “Let it be neither mine nor yours; divide it.”
• The king answered and said, “Give her the living child, and by no means kill him: she is his mother.”

Word of Solomon’s great display of wisdom spread throughout the entire kingdom. The people now revered the young king, for they saw that the wisdom of G‑d was with him.

Simply speaking, what impressed the people was that despite his young age, the king had managed to think of such a clever scheme to solve this difficulty.

Now of course such a scheme would not always be effective. Any decent human being would at least be hesitant to agree to the proposition of “dividing” any child, even if it was not theirs; indeed, they would most probably express profound shock at the mere proposition. The wisdom of Solomon was the ability to discern the precise character of the litigants who stood in front of him. The accurate assessment that his charade would be effective was the product of his great wisdom and a clear display of it.