Laws, compassion and common sense
Remember the Biblical story of the Judgement of Solomon (I Kings 3:16-28)? That’s the one where two prostitutes, living together, have babies three days apart. On waking one morning one of the women finds that her baby has died and places her dead infant next to the other woman who is still asleep and takes the other woman’s live baby as her own.
Wanting her live baby back the woman asks that King Solomon make things right. Solomon listens to the women, each of them claiming that she is the child’s mother. Solomon then has a sword brought to him. His decision is that the child will be cut in half and one half given to each woman. The woman falsely claiming to be the mother of the live child agrees with Solomon’s decision, thinking perhaps that if she can’t have the child, neither of them should. But the mother of the live child implores Solomon to give her child to the other woman instead of killing it, so that her baby might live. Of course, that is the woman Solomon awarded the baby to.
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