1 Kings 3:20

20 So she got up in the middle of the night, and she took my son from beside me while your servant was asleep, and she put him in her lap, and she put her dead son in my lap.

1 Kings 3:20 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 3:20

And she arose at midnight
Perceiving what she had done, that she had overlaid her child, and it was dead; either through fear of punishment inflicted on persons thus negligent, or because of the disgrace of it, taking no more care of her child, she made use of the following stratagem: and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept;
this served to puzzle the cause, for how could she know what she did when she was asleep? this she could not prove, it was only conjecture: and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom;
where she found it in the morning; but still what proof was there that it was the other woman's, and not her own, that lay dead in her bosom?

1 Kings 3:20 In-Context

18 It happened on the third day [after] my giving birth, this woman also gave birth, and we [were] together. There was not anyone with us in the house, only the two of us [were] in the house.

19 Then the son of this woman died [in the] night because she laid on him.

20 So she got up in the middle of the night, and she took my son from beside me while your servant was asleep, and she put him in her lap, and she put her dead son in my lap.

21 When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead! When I looked closely at him in the morning, behold, it was not my son whom I had borne."

22 Then the other woman said, "No, for my son [is] the living one, and your son [is] the dead one." The other kept on saying, "No, for your son [is] the dead one, and my son [is] the living one," and so they argued in front of the king.