1 Kings 3:9

9 Give your servant, then, a wise heart for judging your people, able to see what is good and what evil; for who is able to be the judge of this great people?

1 Kings 3:9 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 3:9

Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart, to judge thy
people
Not an understanding of things spiritual, nor of things natural, though both were given him, but of things political, what related to the civil government, that he might be able to judge or rule the people of Israel in the best manner:

that I may discern between good and bad;
not merely between moral good and evil, of which he had a discernment; but between right and wrong in any case or controversy that came before him between man and man, that so he might be able to pass a right sentence, and do justice to every one:

for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?
who are so very numerous, and have so many causes to be heard and and those many of them very intricate and difficult; so that no man is equal to such arduous work, unless he has more than an ordinary capacity given him by the Lord.

1 Kings 3:9 In-Context

7 And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in the place of David my father; and I am only a young boy, with no knowledge of how to go out or come in.

8 And your servant has round him the people of your selection, a people so great that they may not be numbered, and no account of them may be given.

9 Give your servant, then, a wise heart for judging your people, able to see what is good and what evil; for who is able to be the judge of this great people?

10 Now these words and Solomon's request were pleasing to the Lord.

11 And God said to him, Because your request is for this thing, and not for long life for yourself or for wealth or for the destruction of your haters, but for wisdom to be a judge of causes;