1 Kings 3:21
“When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, it was dead; but when I had looked at it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, whom I bore.””
What does 1 Kings 3:21 mean?
A mother wakes to find her infant has died in the night, and in her grief and desperation, she realizes the child in her arms is not the one she gave birth to. She's describing the moment she discovers that another woman has secretly switched their babies, placing her dead child with this mother while taking the living one. The raw pain in these words, "it was dead," captures both the shock of losing her child and the violation of having it replaced without her knowledge. This is part of the famous story where two women come before King Solomon, each claiming to be the mother of the same living child, and Solomon must discover the truth through his legendary wisdom.