Prostitutes (3:16). Prostitution is condemned in the Bible, but brothels and prostitutes were a part of everyday life in the biblical and ancient Near Eastern world. Solomon’s judicious handling of the two prostitutes indicates that even persons of the lowest stature could gain an audience with the king. The Mesopotamian Lipit-Ishtar Code of the early second millennium B.C. ensures child-bearing prostitutes guaranteed provision but not the status of wife.69 Hammurapi’s famous law code considers prostitutes to be unmarriageable but possessing limited rights.70 The stories of Rahab (Josh. 2) and Tamar (Gen. 38) convey the relative freedom that prostitutes had in ancient Israel.
Wisdom from God to administer justice (3:28). The ideal king is a fair and consistent judge, as Solomon is shown to be in this passage. He is in good company as kings of the entire Near East are depicted in similar ways in law codes and monument inscriptions. A representative example is Hammurapi of Babylon, “whose deeds are pleasing to the goddess Ishtar … who proclaims the truth, who guides the population properly, who restores its benevolent protective spirit to the city of Assur.”71 As the Bible attributes Solomon’s discernment to Yahweh, so this Babylonian law code credits its patron deity with wisdom and sound judgment.