1Ki 3:17-18, 17 …and I gave birth while she was in the house. 18 Then it happened, the third day after I had given birth, that this woman also gave birth. And we were together; no one was with us in the house, except the two of us in the house.
These two women, who lived in a house together, each delivered a son within three days of each other. It is very possible that the sons were conceived out of wedlock. The former occupation perhaps was put on hold or changed when they both became pregnant around the same time, and nurtured those pregnancies with expectation of two additional in their own lives. Picture if you will the conversations that may have taken place as they anticipated the arrival of those two sons, the dreams, the desires, the joys of beholding, the promises they were making towards each other and more so for these future lives.
As they lived in this house, they could have been rejected by the society because of their occupation but they had each other. The woman at the well in John 4 was by herself which was not the custom. Her lifestyle isolated her from the rest, similar to these two women. Even at the time of delivery, if no one else was in the house with them, we can assume that they assisted each other with their own deliveries. Two lives ushered into the world would have cemented their friendship but somehow it brought bitter division. What is it that break friendships, family, church?