Very shortly he was called upon to give proof of that sagacity and clearness of judgment, especially in judicial cases, so much prized by Orientals. Of two women inhabiting one house together, each had an infant child. The mother of one overlaid hers while she was asleep, and rising at midnight, laid it in the bosom of the other woman, taking her live child in its place. In the morning the latter discovered the deception that had been practised upon her, and demanded the living infant. This the other woman refused, claiming it for her own, and both of them appealed to Solomon, who commanded the living child to be divided into two halves, one of which should be given to each. The anguish of the real, and the cruel acquiescence of the pretended mother in this sentence, decided the point in a moment, and proved the sagacity of the king. But besides judicial sagacity, Solomon was eminent for his attainments. He was deeply versed in all the knowledge of his age, his _wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the East country, and all the wisdom of Egypt_ (1 K. iv. 30). In the course of his life he spake 3,000 proverbs, of which a considerable portion remain in the “Book of Proverbs,” and his Songs, of which the “Song of Songs” alone survives, were a thousand and five. He spoke or wrote also of trees, from the lofty cedar of Lebanon to the humble hyssop _that springeth out of the wall, of beasts, of fowl, of creeping things, and of fishes_. His fame spread abroad among surrounding nations; and there came of all people to hear his wisdom (1 K. iv. 34).
_THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE._ 1 KINGS V.–VIII. 2 CHRON. II.–VII. B.C. 1012–1005.
MINDFUL of the repeated instructions of his father, Solomon no sooner received the congratulations of Hiram, king of Tyre, upon his coming to the throne, than he sent to that monarch requesting that he would let him have Sidonian artisans, and a supply of cedar wood from the forests of Lebanon, for the construction of the Temple. Hiram responded with alacrity to the request, and a regular treaty was entered into between the two kings. Solomon bound himself to send yearly 20,000 cors[318] of wheat, and 20 cors of oil to the Phœnicians, while Hiram undertook to float cedar trees and fir-trees to Joppa, and to send a number of skilled artificers to Jerusalem. For the purpose of felling the timber, a levy of 30,000 Israelites was made, who were placed under Adoniram; 10,000 were employed at a time, and relieved each other every month, spending a month in the mountains of Lebanon, and the other two months at their own homes (1 K. v. 13, 14). Besides these, 70,000 were employed as porters, and 80,000 as hewers in the various quarries. These latter were bondslaves, remnants of the Canaanites, who had not been expelled from the land. Under the eye of Tyrian master-builders, they hewed, and squared, and bevelled the stupendous blocks, some measuring even 17 and 18 feet, for the foundation of the sacred edifice.