One day two women who were prostitutes came to their wise king. As they stood before him, one of the women said, “My master, this woman and I live in the same house. I gave birth to a baby while she was there with me. Three days later this woman also gave birth to a baby. No one else was in the house with us; it was just the two of us. One night this woman rolled over on her baby, and he died.  So she took my son from my bed during the night while I was asleep, and she carried him to her bed. Then she put the dead baby in my bed. 21 The next morning when I got up to feed my baby, I saw that he was dead! When I looked at him more closely, I realized he was not my son.”

“No!” the other woman cried. “The living baby is my son, and the dead baby is yours!”

But the first woman said, “No! The dead baby is yours, and the living one is mine!” So the two women argued before the king.

 Then King said, “One of you says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead.’ Then the other one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and my son is alive.’”

The king sent his servants to get a sword. When they brought it to him, he said, “Cut the living baby into two pieces, and give each woman half.”

The real mother of the living child was full of love for her son. So she said to the king, “Please, my master, don’t kill him! Give the baby to her!”

But the other woman said, “Neither of us will have him. Cut him into two pieces!”

Then King Solomon said, “Don’t kill him. Give the baby to the first woman, because she is the real mother.”

When the people of that land heard about King’s decision, they respected him very much. They saw he had wisdom from God to make the right decisions.

~In every story, there should be a moral story behind it, so guys, what do you think about this story? Can we learn something from it? ~

Enjoy reading! :)

(Disclaimer: This is not my original story, all praises to "them")

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Comments

  • Nice story!

  • You are correct Miss Rose, indeed this King is King Solomon, son of King David from Betsebha.. :)

  • Dear Risty, this story also called parable is the story of "King Salomo". 

    His wise decisions are called "salomonistic judgment" if you ever have heard about it.
    We call so decisions which are wise. If I remember right is it a parable written in the bible and King Salomo is described and called as a King of the jews.
    When God promised him a wish, he wished to be righteous in order to be able to righteously govern his people, since he did not yet feel fit for this task.

    The story about I told you is exactly the same as you have written. So I haven't to add anything.

  • Hello! Areality, what is hikayat? I’m glad you appreciated the story.

  • Really Miss Rose, can you share that if you can still remember? I like stories that are similar to this. I read one legendary story from Germany, a story about Undin, a water fairy. We can even think the same way too, sensible and rational.

  • Mish, you wrote this story before, there’s always wisdom in almost everything we do even though we didn’t notice that. This is a nice story. 

  • This parable has a German version, too. It's much wisdom within. We can transfer the meaning of parables to many parts of our life.

  • These are legendary stories, exist in different culture, age with different reference context.  Actually, we should just see the moral and wisdom in them irrespective of their references and context.

    Here is another story about a wise judgment.

    Once a man cooked a very delicious dish, but he ate it alone and did not invite his neighbor.  His next door neighbor just joked with him next day and told that his dish was very delicious and he enjoyed inhaling the sweet fragrance of the dish.  The other neighbor got irritated and sued him for destroying his dish by inhaling all the fragrance of his dish.  The judge heard the case, argued, and said to announce the verdict/judgment next day, meanwhile, he called the other neighbor who joked about the inhaling of the fragrance of the dish and whispered something in his ear.

    Next day when the court resumed the judge asked the other defending neighbor whether he brought what he was asked, the handed over a small cotton bag containing lots of coins. Then the judge announced the verdict and said he has fined the neighbor who inhaled the fragrant of the dish of his neighbor and called the claiming neighbor to come closure.  When he got closed, the judge shook the bag of the coin and said, "He inhaled the fragrance of your dish, you hear the clink of the amount of the fine."  The case was thus closed and the money was given back to the owner.

  • Yes! Mish, I saw this link, what made me confused was there was a Sulayman there and this didn’t happen on his regime. Anyway, thanks for feeding my mind.

  • What a prudent judgment Luci, you have the same feeling I’m sure. A mother will always be a mother. 

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