And his father had never rebuked him at any time by asking, “Why have you done so?” And he was also a very handsome man, and he was born after Absalom.

Then she said, “I am making one small request of you; do not refuse me.” And the king said to her, “Ask, my mother, for I will not refuse you.”

In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night; and God said, “Ask what you wish Me to give you.”

God’s Answer

Now it was pleasing in the sight of the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing.

And God said to him, “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for yourself a long life, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the lives of your enemies, but have asked for yourself discernment to understand justice,

I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the kings like you all your days.

But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree; and he asked for himself to die, and said, “Enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”