Was King Solomon a Mediator?

STORY OF KING SOLOMON, THE TWO WOMEN AND A BABY

In 1st Kings 3:16-28, two women came to the king and stood before him. The first one woman said, “Pardon me, my lord: this woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child, while she was in the house. On the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth to a child. Then this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while I was asleep, and she laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead! But when I examined him closely, behold, he was not my son!” The second woman said, “No! For the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.” But the first woman said, “No! The dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.”

Then King Solomon, who clearly was an excellent active listener, summarized the dispute between the two women. “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.’” And then the king said, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king, and the king said, “Cut the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.” 

But the first woman, whose child was the living one, spoke to the king, for she was deeply stirred over her son, and she said, “Pardon me, my lord! Give her the living child, and by no means kill him!” But the second woman said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; cut him!” Then King Solomon replied, “Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him. She is his mother.” When all Israel heard about the judgment which King Solomon had handed down, they feared the king, because they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.

King Solomon was not a mediator. Mediators do not “hand down justice”; they help parties reach mutually acceptable agreements. Finally, mediators do not call for swords.