A Reputation Exceeded, and Wealth Multiplied

Sheba is Saba in southwest Arabia, modern Yemen, a kingdom known from its own inscriptions and rich from the incense trade, some two thousand kilometres from Jerusalem. “Hard questions” is chidot, riddles, the same word as Samson’s riddle at his wedding (Judges 14:12).

Camels loaded with spices mark a caravan along the incense road up the west of Arabia, carrying frankincense and myrrh. To “commune” in 1611 was simply to talk together, and the phrase “all that was in her heart” means she held nothing back.

“Told” here means explained or answered. The word for “hid”, ne‘lam, is used of something concealed from view, so the claim is that no question went round him unseen. It is 4:32–34 in action, the wisdom that drew visitors from all nations.

She “sees” wisdom, and what she sees first is a building. The Book of 1 Kings treats wisdom as something visible in how a household and a kingdom are ordered, not only as clever answers.

“No more spirit in her” is the phrase used of the Canaanite kings when they heard Israel had crossed the Jordan (Joshua 5:1): she is left breathless. “His ascent” can also be read “his burnt offerings which he offered”, and several translations follow that reading.

“Acts” and “words” are the same Hebrew word, debarim, the one used in the title of the source cited at 11:41, “the book of the acts of Solomon”. The report she heard was literally a “true word”.

The Hebrew says Solomon “added” wisdom and prosperity to the report: the reality went past what rumour had built up. Her belief comes through sight, “until mine eyes had seen it”.

“Happy” is ’ashre, the word that opens Psalm 1. The Greek translation reads “happy are thy wives”, from nashim rather than ’anashim, a difference of one letter; the Hebrew’s “thy men” is followed by the King James.

“Delighted in thee” recalls the name Nathan gave the infant Solomon, Jedidiah, “beloved of the LORD” (2 Samuel 12:25). A foreign queen blesses Israel’s God by his covenant name and speaks of his love for Israel, not merely for the king.

Josephus, writing in the first century, says the balsam plant later grown near Jericho came from her gift; the claim is a later tradition, not the text. The Book of 1 Kings says only that no such quantity of spices ever came again.

Hiram’s ships interrupt the queen’s visit in mid-sentence. The source seems to be grouping imports by kind: gold, precious stones and rare wood from the south, whether they came by camel or by sea.

“Pillars” is mis‘ad, a support, which Chronicles calls “terraces” and some translate as railings. Harps and psalteries are the kinnor, a small lyre, and the nebel, a larger stringed instrument, the pair used for the Levite singers.

“His royal bounty” is literally “according to the hand of King Solomon”: a king’s hand was the measure of his generosity. She asks and receives, then gives more than she took; the book leaves the balance with Solomon.

At roughly thirty kilograms to the talent, 666 talents is about twenty tonnes of gold a year. Figures of that scale are not unique: an inscription of the Egyptian king Osorkon I, a generation later, claims hundreds of tonnes of precious metal given to temples.

“Merchantmen” is literally “men of the travellers”, traders on the routes. The “governors” are pachot, a title later used for Persian provincial governors and the ancestor of the word pasha. Arabian kings pay because the caravans pass through Israelite territory.

A “target” is the tsinnah, a large shield covering the whole body. Six hundred shekels is about seven kilograms of gold per shield, far too soft and heavy for battle; these were ceremonial. Shishak of Egypt carries them all off five years after Solomon’s death (14:26).

“Three pound” renders three minas, perhaps one and a half kilograms each; Chronicles gives three hundred shekels. The magen was the smaller round shield carried by infantry, so the forest house displayed both kinds.

An ivory throne was carved wooden framing with ivory panels, overlaid in places with gold. Ivory inlays of this kind have been excavated at Samaria, where Ahab built his “ivory house” (22:39), and at Nimrud in Assyria.

“Round behind” translates ‘agol. With one different vowel the word is ‘egel, calf, and the Greek reads “calves’ heads” at the back of the throne. “Stays” are armrests, and a lion stands beside each.

Two lions on each of six steps and one at each armrest make fourteen. The lion was Judah’s emblem in Jacob’s blessing (Genesis 49:9), and the twelve on the steps may stand for the tribes, though the text does not explain them.

“Pure gold” is literally “closed gold”, segor, possibly gold refined, or gold locked away in store; its exact sense is uncertain. The claim that silver counted for nothing is set against the next reign, when Rehoboam must replace gold with bronze.

“Ships of Tharshish” names a class of large ocean-going vessel, the way an “East Indiaman” named a ship type rather than a route. Tarshish itself lay far west, probably in Spain, and it is where Jonah tries to flee.

This is 3:13 fulfilled almost word for word: God had promised riches and honour so that no king would be like him. The Book of 1 Kings closes the circle it opened at Gibeon.

“Sought to Solomon” is literally “sought the face of Solomon”, the phrase normally used for seeking the face of God. The same verse says the wisdom was put in his heart by God, which keeps the phrase from becoming worship of the king.

“A rate year by year” is literally “the matter of a year in its year”, a regular annual payment. Called presents, these arrive with the regularity of tribute. “Armour” means weapons.

Fourteen hundred chariots is a large force; an Assyrian record credits Ahab with two thousand at the battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. Chapter 4:26 numbers forty thousand stalls, which 2 Chronicles 9:25 gives as four thousand.

The sycomore is the sycomore fig, a cheap and common tree of the Judean lowlands, “the vale” or Shephelah, not the English sycamore. Cedar, which Hiram had shipped at great cost, became as ordinary as fig wood.

“Linen yarn” renders miqveh, which is now generally read as Kue, the name of Cilicia in southern Turkey, a land famous for horses. The line would then say Solomon bought horses from Egypt and from Kue.

Six hundred shekels for a chariot and a hundred and fifty for a horse are the kind of prices that survive in trade records. Solomon’s agents acted as middlemen, selling on to the Neo-Hittite kings of north Syria and to the Aramean states.