Back to all lyrics
Artwork for An Understanding Heart

1 Kings 3:1-28

An Understanding Heart

Lyrics · 1 Kings

An Understanding Heart

1 Kings 3:1-28

Lyrics

About this song

About this song

This song belongs to the 1 Kings collection. One recording is available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.

Bible book
1 Kings
Collection
1 Kings
Musical styles
Uncategorized
[Verse 1] Solomon allies with Egypt by marrying Pharaoh's daughter. Solomon loves the LORD and walks in David's statutes. God appears in a dream and invites Solomon to ask for a gift. He describes Israel as a multitude too great to number. [Pre-Chorus] The speeches rose, each certain of its claim, But certainty alone could not explain. [Chorus] An Understanding Heart, let the question open wide, Human answers fail when pride becomes the guide. Wisdom cannot be purchased, mined, or seized, It comes from God, before whom striving ceased. [Verse 2] Riches and honor are added beyond Solomon's request. Long life is offered conditionally upon faithful obedience. Solomon wakes, worships before the ark, and holds a feast. One woman says the other's infant died when she lay upon him. [Bridge] Solomon summarizes the conflicting claims before the court. He commands that a sword divide the living child between them. The true mother yields her claim to preserve the child's life. All Israel fears the king after seeing divine wisdom in his judgment. [Final Chorus] An Understanding Heart, let the question open wide, Human answers fail when pride becomes the guide. Wisdom cannot be purchased, mined, or seized, It comes from God, before whom human pride must cease. [Outro] The question stayed when every speech was through. Wisdom began where human certainty withdrew.

Named in this songSolomonEgyptDavid

About the passage

1 Kings 3: Wisdom asks to listen before it judges

Solomon’s reign enters its wisdom phase in a setting the Book of 1 Kings deliberately leaves mixed. He loves the LORD, yet worships at high places, and his marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter is already part of the royal landscape. At Gibeon, God invites him to ask for a gift, and Solomon answers from a sense of inadequacy. He is governing God’s people, not merely possessing a kingdom, so he asks for an understanding, listening heart able to distinguish good from bad. God grants extraordinary wisdom, adds riches and honor, and leaves long life under a stated condition of obedience. The chapter then moves from promise to practice. Two women bring mutually exclusive claims over a living child with no independent witness available. Solomon’s threatened division of the child exposes the difference between possession and maternal compassion, allowing him to identify the true mother without carrying out the threat. Israel recognizes God’s wisdom in the judgment. The gift first appears publicly not as abstract knowledge, but as the capacity to hear a hopelessly tangled case and preserve a life.

Study 1 Kings 3 in depth