Passage Research
1 Kings 3 — Sermon Preparation
Solomon asks God for wisdom at Gibeon and demonstrates it in the famous judgment between two women each claiming the same child. Below is a research summary for 1 Kings 3, drawn from openly licensed scholarly databases — original-language morphology, classic sermons from the church fathers through the Puritans, and ancient geography data.
- 28
- verses
- 472 / 163
- Hebrew words / lemmas
- 7
- classic sermon excerpts
- 3
- preachers & commentators
1 Kings 3 in the Hebrew
Distinctive vocabulary of this chapter, based on original-language morphology.
| Hebrew | Transliteration | Strong's | Count | Glosses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| מוּת | mûwth | H4191 | 11 | die, kill |
| שָׁאַל | shâʼal | H7592 | 8 | inquire, request |
| חַי | chay | H2416 | 8 | alive, raw |
| שְׁלֹמֹה | Shᵉlômôh | H8010 | 7 | Shelomah |
| אִשָּׁה | ʼishshâh | H802 | 7 | woman |
| נָתַן | nâthan | H5414 | 8 | give, put |
| יָלַד | yâlad | H3205 | 6 | bear young, beget |
How preachers through history handled this text
7 public-domain excerpts on 1 Kings 3, from the church fathers to the Puritans.
“An instance of Solomon's wisdom is given. Notice the difficulty of the case. To find out the true mother, he could not try which the child loved best, and therefore tried which loved the child best: the mother's sincerity will be tried, when the child is in danger. Let parents show their love to their children, especially by taking care of their souls, and snatching them as brands out of the burning. By this and other instances of the wisdom with which God endued him, Solomon had great reputation among his people. …”
— Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (Concise), on 1 Kings 3:16–30 (Public Domain)
Places in the text
Based on ancient-geography data
- City of David— 1 Kgs 3:1
- Egypt— 1 Kgs 3:1
- Jerusalem— 1 Kgs 3:1
- Gibeon— 1 Kgs 3:4
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