Solomon’s reign looked bloody in the foregoing chapter, but the necessary acts of justice must not be called cruelty; in this chapter it appears with another face. We must not think the worse of God’s mercy to his subjects for his judgments on rebels. We have here, I.

We are here told concerning Solomon, I. Something that was unquestionably good, for which he is to be praised and in which he is to be imitated. 1. He loved the Lord, 1 Kings 3:3. Particular notice was taken of God’s love to him, 2 Sam. 12:24. He had his name from it: Jedidiah—beloved of the Lord.

We have here an account of a gracious visit which God paid to Solomon, and the communion he had with God in it, which put a greater honour upon Solomon than all the wealth and power of his kingdom did. I. The circumstances of this visit, 1 Kings 3:5. 1. The place.

An instance is here given of Solomon’s wisdom, to show that the grant lately made him had a real effect upon him. The proof is fetched, not from the mysteries of state and the policies of the council-board, though there no doubt he excelled, but from the trial and determination of a cause between…