1 Kings 3:9

3:9 So give your servant a discerning mind ¹  so he can make judicial decisions for ²  your people and distinguish right from wrong. ³  Otherwise ⁴  no one is able ⁵  to make judicial decisions for ⁶  this great nation of yours.” ⁷ 

1 Kings 3:28

3:28 When all Israel heard about the judicial decision which the king had rendered, they respected ⁸  the king, for they realized ⁹  that he possessed supernatural wisdom ¹⁰  to make judicial decisions.

Proverbs 20:8

20:8 A king sitting on the throne to judge ¹¹ 

separates out ¹²  all evil with his eyes. ¹³ 

[3:9]  ¹ tn Heb “a hearing heart.” (The Hebrew term translated “heart” often refers to the mental faculties.)

[3:9]  ² tn Heb “to judge.”

[3:9]  ³ tn Heb “to understand between good and evil.”

[3:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “for”; the word “otherwise” is used to reflect the logical sense of the statement.

[3:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “who is able?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “no one.”

[3:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “to judge.”

[3:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “your numerous people.”

[3:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “feared,” perhaps in the sense, “stood in awe of.”

[3:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “saw.”

[3:28]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the wisdom of God within him.”

[20:8]  ¹¹ tn The infinitive construct is דִּין; it indicates purpose, “to judge” (so NIV, NCV) even though it does not have the preposition with it.

[20:8]  ¹² tn The second line uses the image of winnowing (cf. NIV, NRSV) to state that the king’s judgment removes evil from the realm. The verb form is מִזָרֶה (mÿzareh), the Piel participle. It has been translated “to sift; to winnow; to scatter” and “to separate” – i.e., separate out evil from the land. The text is saying that a just government roots out evil (cf. NAB “dispels all evil”), but few governments have been consistently just.

[20:8]  ¹³ sn The phrase with his eyes indicates that the king will closely examine or look into all the cases that come before him.