1 Kings 3:25 (LSB)

Passage

Then the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.”

Nearby Context

1 Kings 3:23 Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son who is living, and your son is the dead one’; and the other says, ‘No! For your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’”

1 Kings 3:24 And the king said, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king.

1 Kings 3:25 Then the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.”

1 Kings 3:26 Then the woman whose son was the living one spoke to the king, for she was deeply stirred with compassion over her son and said, “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!”

1 Kings 3:27 Then the king said, “Give the first woman the living child, and by no means put him to death. She is his mother.”

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "king", "said", "divide", "living", "child", "give", and "half". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "king" and "said", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 24's "And the king said Get me a..." into verse 26's "Then the woman whose son was the...", so "king" and "said" belong inside that flow. In 1 Kings context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "king" and "said" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.