King Solomon and His Commended Wisdom

Last week I presented my allusion project to the class, which was in fact a biblical allusion. The biblical figure that I researched and bestowed my knowledge upon to my fellow AP Lit classmates was King Solomon, better known as the great King of Israel. Prior to presenting this revered and sacred individual whose story only persists through the pages of the Old Testament, I was thoroughly engaged in my extensive research to discover the importance of this hugely popular and powerful figure in the bible.

Luckily, I was able to come across various sources that elaborated on the story of Solomon in a concise and understandable way, which really made my research all the more intriguing. Before long, I stumbled upon several websites that were dedicated to the explication of such biblical figures and their role in history as it pertains to religion and God.

Interestingly enough, I found that King Solomon was renowned for his distinguished and exceptional wisdom and wealth, which he conveniently obtained from God in a dream. This particular element of King Solomon’s story struck me as somewhat odd and unexpected. Not only did God willingly approach Solomon, which seems contrary to other stories about encounters with God, but God was the one who voluntarily offered Solomon a wish. In discerning God’s clearly generous and unreasonably benevolent manner, I interpreted this particular occurrence almost as if God was being depicted as a genie in a way. I was curious to know more about the reasoning behind his charitable actions towards Solomon, as he was not any more worthy or honorable than anyone else in Israel, to my knowledge of course.

Regardless, another element of Solomon’s story that I found to be quite fascinating was the story of his iconic and remarkable wisdom, which is essentially his most noteworthy characteristic as he was “the wisest man of Israel.” Solomon’s wisdom was initially regarded as extraordinary when two women came to him, both claiming that they were the mother of a single baby. At an extremely young age, Solomon came up with a solution to distinguish who was the rightful mother of the baby. He proposed a solution to the two mothers. In his wisdom and shrewdness, King Solomon suggested that he chop the baby in half amongst the two women, in order to settle the matter. Solomon secretly anticipated that one of the self-proclaimed mothers of the baby would protest this act and object to killing the child, thus revealing who was the true mother of the infant. Sure enough, the mother who refused to let Solomon split the baby in half was declared the real mother of the infant, rendering Solomon a hero.

Throughout my research, I repeatedly questioned what the ultimate source of Solomon’s accomplishment in the Bible was and how this pertained to his attained wisdom from God. Thus, I found Solomon’s story to be fascinating because I was not formerly aware of his story or his significance to the Old Testament. Nevertheless, I found Solomon’s life and biblical prominence to be worthy of literary application and relevance.