Abrahamic Prostitute

The real mother in 1 Kings 3 displays a sort of Abrahamic quality: She is willing to give up her son, her only son, the son she loves, in hopes of saving him. And she gets back more than she hoped: She not only saves his life, but heads home holding her baby, just as Abraham received Isaac back from the dead. Solomon plays the role of both Abraham (holding the sword) and the intervening angel (who stops the sacrifice).

Now, in Gen 22:17 we have for the first time the promise that Israel will be like the sand on the sea for multitude. The death and resurrection of Isaac, and the demonstration of Abraham’s faith. A similar sequence appears in 1 Kings 3-4: A prostitute acts like an Abraham, and in the following chapter we read that Israel has become “as numerous as the sand that is on the seashore” (4:20). Importantly, this is the first time in the OT where this phrase is applied to Israel as she actually exists (rather than as a promise of what she will be). Prior to this, the phrase has been used of Israel’s enemies or, in 2 Sam 17:11, of David’s enemies (appropriate, since David is the embodiment of Israel).

Precisely how this works is a mystery: Why would the restoration of a baby to an anonymous prostitute have any effect on the condition of Israel? The parallel with Gen 22 seems wholly fortuitous. But, if we understand that the tale of the prostitutes is (at one level) the tale of Solomon’s rise to the throne (through the threatened “death” at the hands of his Cainite rival Adonijah), then things may make more sense. Solomon himself is then something of a new Isaac figure, the son raised from the dead, and the connection with Abraham/Isaac is drawn out not so much in the narrative of Solomon’s rise as in the story of the prostitutes.