clamour for the life of a puling and innocent babe. No, if we are to get at the very root of her stmnge and shameful conduct, we must first ask another question, viz., What led her to steal this child from its mother's arms and to claim it for her own? What induced her when she woke in the night and found her own child dead, to creep in the darkness to her companion's couch and take a changeling for her son. For this was sw-ely o. strange thing to do. We could more readily understand her rejoicing in the death of her own child of shame than this eager desire to burden herself with a bastard that she had not borne. Now, it is quite possible that there were special circumstances connected with this case, which, if we knew them, would offer a complete and certain explanation of her conduct. For example, to pass by other possibilities, hers may have been such a case as Tamar's (Gen. xxxviii.) But as we do not and cannot know what these peculiar circumstances were, if there were any, WE> :;an only collect her motives, as best we may, from the record of facts which we postess. It is clear, then, that she was not actuated by love for the child. It is unlikely that a woman such as she was could have love for a child such as this was ; while it is inconceivable that if she really loved it, she would have consented to and counselled its death. Nor can it have been the pride and joy of having a man- child to call her son (1 John xvi. 21). For the child was not hers, and no one knew this better than herself. No doubt the Jewish mother had special reasons for desiring offspring and for cherishing her children, but this was the child of a stranger. What then were her motives? Were they not these? First, the fear of reproach, and secondly, jealousy of her more fortunate companion. Fear of reproach; for no woman, in any age of the world, or under any circumstances, can fail to be morti- fied and bumbled and ashamed at having occasioned, by her maladroitness, the death of her child. She knew what the tongues of the neighbours would say : she could see them, perhaps, even mocking her as a murderess. For they could not know that the death was accidental and some of them, she feared, might think, if they did not say, that there had been foul play on her part. These thoughts, as they rushed through her mind in the black and dark night, would be accentuated and made well-nigh intolerable by the thought that her companion had been more careful or more fortunate. What may have passed between these two women we cannot say. For aught we know, each may have boasted of her child, or the one may have disparaged the child of the other. There must almost have been some- thing of the kind-and it may have been something extremely simple-to account for this act of child-stealing. It is quite possible, of course, that this woman, had she been inte1Togated after the fraud was detected, would have found it difficult to say what led her to pla,y this false part. For we may rest assured she did not argue about it, did not stop to parley with herself or to weigh the consequences. She acted on a blind, hasty, unreasoning impulse. But all the so.me it is not difficult for us to see tl.mt these must have been among the springs of her conduct. And when the fatal move was once made, the rest of her sin is easily explained. There was then nothing for her to do but to brazen it out. It was impossible for her to stop, without proclaiming herself both liar and thief. As she had lied to her companion, so she must lie to the neighbours, and as she bad lied to the neighbo1ll"s, so she must lie even before the king. There was no help for it. Vestigia nulla retrorsum ! She must go on to the bitter encl. But it is easy to see how terribly trying and painful her position woultl at last become. The constant fear of detection, or the fear lest lihe should betray herself, mnst have made it almost insupportable. Any moment something might ooze out which would reveal the deceit and cover her with infamy. Bitterly must she have regrettecl that she had ever embarked on this course of fraud; eagerly must she have cast about for any chance nf escape. And so when the king proposed to cut the Gordian knot; when be proposecl, that is, to extricate her from the toils which she bad woven round herself, is there any woncler that she caught ee.gerly at the first· chance that offered, ancl that without 1 KINGS. F 66 THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. [ CH, m. 10-28.
a moment's reflection as to the morality of the remedy, and without the least per- ception of the smare that was spread for her. All she thought was that it promised an honolU'able retreat from ground which was every moment becoming more insecure; that it opened to her, in her despair and dread of detection, a door of escape. It is this accounts for the cry, "Divide it.'' The murder would cover her multitude of lies, the blood of the innocent would efface the traces of her guilt. The lessons taught by this history must be very briefly indicated. Among them are these: 1. Impuri.ty almost inevitably lead,& to deceit. The root of all the mischief here was the unchastity. The sin against tlle body makes other sins comparatively easy. "It is only the :first step that costs." And what a step is that! 2. Moral cou:ardice may lead to murder. The fear which prompted the hasty resolve to possess herself of the living child, led this miserable woman to stealing, lying, persistent falseness, and to mlll'der, in thought and will. Facilia descensus il.vcrni, &c. 3. Falsehood leads to falsehood. The proverb says, "If we tell one lie we must tell twenty more to bury it." "One lie must be thatched with another or it will soon rain through.'' '' 0 what a tangled web we weave When once we venture to deceive." 4. Jealousy dries up the milk of human kindness. It is "cruel as the grave." 11 Fiercer than famine, war, or spotted pestilence; Baneful e.s death, and horrible e.s hell." It led this woman to act like a fiend ; to desire the butchery of an innocent babe. 5. Sin overreaches itself. The pretender was caught in her own toils. . She had no sooner said, " Divide it," than she saw she was undone. She had proclalllled her own falseness. "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee." 6. When the sinner is most secure, then sudden destruction comes upon him. This woman had never breathed freely till Solomon said," Divide it.'' That seemed such a certain deliverance that she echoed the cry. Now she began to feel safe. The next moment she was disgraced, condemned, ruined. Cf. Matt. xxiv. 50; x:x:v. 44; 1 These. v. 3, &c.