1 Kings 3:20

20 She got up in the middle of the night and took my son - I was sound asleep, mind you! - and put him at her breast and put her dead son at my breast.

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 Three days after I gave birth, this woman also had a baby. We were alone - there wasn't anyone else in the house except for the two of us.

19 The infant son of this woman died one night when she rolled over on him in her sleep.

20 She got up in the middle of the night and took my son - I was sound asleep, mind you! - and put him at her breast and put her dead son at my breast.

21 When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, here was this dead baby! But when I looked at him in the morning light, I saw immediately that he wasn't my baby."

22 "Not so!" said the other woman. "The living one's mine; the dead one's yours." The first woman countered, "No! Your son's the dead one; mine's the living one." They went back and forth this way in front of the king.