Wisdom Fills the Court, but the Reign Still Ends

Sheba is most often identified with Saba in southwest Arabia, modern Yemen, a kingdom grown rich on the frankincense trade, some twelve hundred miles from Jerusalem by caravan. “Hard questions” are chidot, riddles, the word for Samson’s riddle at his wedding (Judges 14:12). “Prove” means test.

“Told her all her questions” means answered them all. Proverbs 25:2 names the royal skill on display: “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.”

She “had seen the wisdom”: the verb treats wisdom as something visible, laid out in what the king has built. The house here is probably the palace, since the way up to the temple is listed separately in the next verse.

“His ascent” is aliyyato, the way he went up to the temple. The parallel in 1 Kings 10:5 has olato, which can also mean “his burnt offering”, and older versions read it that way. “The sitting of his servants” is the seating order at the royal table.

“Thine acts” is literally “thy words”, devarim, so the report was of Solomon’s sayings as well as his deeds. “A true report” is emet, truth, the word that stands behind “amen”.

The Hebrew is a little sharper than Kings: “the half of the greatness of thy wisdom”. The queen had already heard enough to make the long journey, and says she disbelieved even that until she saw it.

“Happy” is ashrei, the word that opens Psalm 1. The Greek of 1 Kings 10:8 reads “happy are thy wives” in place of “thy men”, the two Hebrew words differing by a single letter.

“Judgment and justice” is the pair the book used of David’s own rule in 1 Chronicles 18:14. The foreign queen names as Solomon’s purpose what Chronicles had already said of his father, and she calls the throne God’s where 1 Kings 10:9 has “the throne of Israel”.

A hundred and twenty talents is the same sum Hiram once sent Solomon (1 Kings 9:14). Sheba became a byword for this trade: Isaiah 60:6 sees them come “from Sheba” bringing gold and incense, and Psalm 72:15 prays for “the gold of Sheba” to be given to the king.

Here Chronicles agrees with 1 Kings 10:11 that algum came by sea from Ophir along with the gold, where in 2:8 Solomon had asked for algum from Lebanon. Both may be true of different shipments, or the name may cover more than one wood.

“Terraces” is mesillot, raised paths or stairways; 1 Kings 10:12 has a different word, often rendered “pillars” or “supports”, and neither is certain. Wood for harps is chosen for its sound, so the algum was valued for music as well as for building.

“All her desire” is left unspecified. Later Ethiopian tradition built a dynasty on this visit, claiming a son born to the queen and Solomon, but nothing in Chronicles or Kings supports it. She simply “turned”, and went home with her retinue.

Six hundred and sixty-six talents is the figure of 1 Kings 10:14, about twenty-three tons of gold a year. The law of the king in Deuteronomy 17:17 had said, “neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.”

“Chapmen” is an old word for travelling traders. “Governors” is pachot, the administrative title later held by Nehemiah and Zerubbabel under Persia, a word from the Chronicler’s own era set into Solomon’s reign.

A target was the large shield that covered the whole body, from the old word “targe”. These did not last: Shishak of Egypt carried them off in Rehoboam’s fifth year, and Rehoboam replaced them with bronze (12:9–10).

The house of the forest of Lebanon was a hall a hundred cubits long with four rows of cedar pillars (1 Kings 7:2), named for the forest of columns inside it. Isaiah 22:8 calls it the armoury, “the armour of the house of the forest”.

The throne was probably inlaid with ivory panels rather than carved from it. Ivory furniture became a mark of later northern luxury: Ahab built an “ivory house” (1 Kings 22:39), and Amos condemns those who lie “upon beds of ivory” (Amos 6:4).

Only Chronicles has the golden footstool fastened to the throne; 1 Kings 10:19 instead says the top of the throne was round behind. The “stays” are armrests, and the lions stood beside them.

Two lions by the arms and twelve on the steps make fourteen. The twelve are often taken as one for each tribe of Israel, and the lion was Judah’s emblem from Jacob’s blessing (Genesis 49:9), though the text makes no such link itself.

The golden vessels did not survive the dynasty: Nebuchadnezzar “cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made” (2 Kings 24:13). “Accounted of” means valued.

Kings speaks of “a navy of Tharshish”, a class of large sea-going ship; Chronicles reads Tarshish as a destination, though Tarshish usually lay in the far west (Jonah 1:3) and these ships sailed from the Red Sea. The words for apes and peacocks may be loanwords from Indian languages.

The promise at Gibeon was riches and honour “such as none of the kings have had” (1:12). The verse reports it kept, with riches and wisdom now named together.

“Sought the presence” is literally “sought the face of Solomon”, the same idiom God used in 7:14, “seek my face”. The kings of the earth come to Solomon’s face as Israel is told to come to God’s.

“Harness” in 1611 meant armour and weapons, the Hebrew neshek. “A rate year by year” marks these presents as an annual obligation, tribute brought on a schedule rather than gifts brought once.

First Kings 4:26 gives forty thousand stalls; Chronicles has four thousand, which fits the fourteen hundred chariots of 1:14 far better, two or three horses to each chariot. A copyist’s extra zero in Kings is the usual explanation.

“The river” is the Euphrates. He “reigned over all the kings”, which means overlordship of vassal kings who kept their own thrones, not direct rule; the Philistine cities, for instance, still had kings of their own.

The line repeats 1:15, but the gold has dropped out. At the start of the reign silver and gold were as common as stones; in this closing summary only silver is mentioned.

Chronicles adds “and out of all lands” to the horse trade. First Kings follows its equivalent summary with Solomon’s foreign wives and his turning to their gods (1 Kings 11:1–8), none of which appears in Chronicles.

Ahijah the Shilonite is the prophet who tore his new garment into twelve pieces and gave ten to Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:29–31), announcing the division of the kingdom. Iddo is cited again for the reigns of Rehoboam and Abijah (12:15; 13:22).

Solomon is the last king to reign “in Jerusalem over all Israel”. The next chapter begins with the northern tribes gathering at Shechem to make his son’s kingship conditional, and the united kingdom does not outlive the reign.

“Slept with his fathers” is the idiom for a death in peace. Kings gives Solomon an unhappy close, with his heart turned and adversaries raised up against him (1 Kings 11:9–25); Chronicles records none of it. Rehoboam’s mother was Naamah, an Ammonite (12:13).