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 3:24 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.”
1 Kings 3:28 Then all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had handed down, and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.
The verse centers on "woman", "whose", "living", "spoke", "king", "deeply", "stirred", and "compassion". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "woman" and "whose", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 25's "Then the king said Divide the living..." into verse 27's "Then the king said Give the first...", so "woman" and "whose" 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 "woman" and "whose" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.