A poor man, unable to work, resolved to stay in his house and wait for God to provide. One day, when he had nothing at all to eat, a fat cow wandered through his open door. The man slaughtered the cow on the spot and ate it, praising God for the miracle.
But the cow had an owner — a rich man, who came to claim damages. The case came before King David, who ruled simply: the poor man must pay the rich man the value of the cow.
As the poor man left, weeping, he met Solomon, David's young son. Solomon asked what had happened. When the poor man told him, Solomon said: "Go back. Ask your father to let me judge this case."
David, puzzled but curious, consented. Solomon summoned all Israel outside Jerusalem. He asked the rich man to forgive the debt. The rich man refused. Then Solomon led the gathering to a tree, under which, he said, a body was buried. He had the earth dug out, and there they found the corpse of a man — the poor man's murdered father, long missing.
Solomon then performed an act of revival: the father rose from his grave and spoke. He named his killers — slaves who had murdered him on his way home and robbed him of his wealth. And he named the man who had hired the slaves: the very rich man now standing in court, demanding payment for the cow.
The son, the son's wealth, and the son's vindication were all returned to him. The rich man was executed. The cow, it turned out, had always been the poor man's cow — the rich man had simply been grazing it off stolen land.
Gaster's Exempla (no. 353, 1924; from Codex Gaster 66) preserves this story as one of many that circled around the young Solomon's precocious gift for judgment. David ruled by the letter. Solomon ruled by the root. And the root, in this case, was buried under a tree in the king's own backyard.