CHAPTER 9

(992 B.C.)

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA VISITS SOLOMON

¹And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem, with a very great company, and camels that bore spices, and gold in abundance, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart. (Solomon was a Type of Christ, albeit an imperfect Type, as all Types are. Jesus would say of Himself, A greater than Solomon is here.

The Glory of the Lord having now risen upon Israel, the kings of the Gentiles come to that light, bringing their riches with them, and find there a glory and a wisdom such as the world had never seen. None of these monarchs are mentioned particularly except the queen of Sheba, the Holy Spirit reserving that dignity for a woman. She is further honored by the Lord Himself in Mat. 12:42, where He predicts her reappearance in the Resurrection.

As well, Sheba communed with Solomon. Until one communes with Christ, they can never know the glory and the splendor of all that Christ is and has. For anyone who cares to investigate, our Lord is waiting.)

²And Solomon told her all her questions: and there was nothing hid from Solomon which he told her not (if the honest heart will earnestly seek, that which it desires will be revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ; the Word of God is His Voice).

³And when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, and the House that he had built (she saw the Glory of God),

⁴And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel; his cupbearers also, and their apparel; and his ascent by which he went up into the House of the LORD; there was no more spirit in her (splendor, in fact, greater than anything in the world; this is a comparison, at least as much as a comparison can be in the natural realm, of the coming reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the coming Kingdom Age).

⁵And she said to the king, It was a true report which I heard in my own land of your acts, and of your wisdom (everything the Word of God says about the Lord Jesus Christ is a true report):

⁶Howbeit I believed not their words, until I came, and my eyes had seen it: and, behold, the one half of the greatness of your wisdom was not told me: for you exceed the fame that I heard (the Lord Jesus invites inspection; His appeal to the hungry heart is, Come...).

⁷Happy are your men, and happy are these your servants, which stand continually before you, and hear your wisdom (the only true happiness in the world is that which has been provided by the Greater Than Solomon; it is a happiness that is based on the Fruit of the Spirit, which is joy).

⁸Blessed be the LORD your God, which delights in you to set you on His Throne, to be king for the LORD your God: because your God loved Israel, to establish them forever, therefore made He you king over them, to do judgment and justice (due to the fact that the queen spoke of the Lord as being Solomons God, some have claimed that she really did not accept the Lord; however, the same terminology also suggests, at the same time, that she very well may have accepted the Lord, and probably did!).

⁹And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices great abundance, and precious stones: neither was there any such spice as the queen of Sheba gave king Solomon (what she gave him could be measured; what he gave her could not be measured).

¹⁰And the servants also of Huram, and the servants of Solomon, which brought gold from Ophir, brought algum trees and precious stones.

¹¹And the king made of the algum trees terraces to the House of the LORD, and to the kings palace, and harps and psalteries for singers: and there were none such seen before in the land of Judah.

¹²And king Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which she had brought unto the king. So she turned, and went away to her own land, she and her servants (our Greater Than Solomon admonishes us to ask of Him accordingly, and He will give [Lk., Chpt. 11]).

SOLOMONS RICHES, WISDOM, AND FAME RETOLD

¹³Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and threescore and six talents of gold (666 talents of gold; Solomon, as well, had 6 steps to his throne; inasmuch as the number six is the number of man, and always, of course, comes short of seven, which is the number of perfection, we find imperfection upon all his glory; man was created on the sixth day; despite all the glory given to Solomon, still, he was but a man, hence the number six; perfection comes only in and through the Lord Jesus Christ);

¹⁴Beside that which chapmen and merchants brought. And all the kings of Arabia and governors of the country brought gold and silver to Solomon.

¹⁵And king Solomon made two hundred targets (large shields) of beaten gold: six hundred shekels of beaten gold went to one target (worth approximately $120,000 per target, according to 2004 money).

¹⁶And three hundred shields made he of beaten gold: three hundred shekels of gold went to one shield (about $60,000 per shield). And the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

¹⁷Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with pure gold.

¹⁸And there were six steps to the throne, with a footstool of gold, which were fastened to the throne, and stays on each side of the sitting place, and two lions standing by the stays:

¹⁹And twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps. There was not the like made in any kingdom.

²⁰And all the drinking vessels of king Solomon were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold: none were of silver; it was not any thing accounted of in the days of Solomon (this Verse symbolizes the great prosperity that will characterize the entirety of the Planet when Jesus Christ comes back).

²¹For the kings ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram: every three years once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.

²²And king Solomon passed all the kings of the Earth in riches and wisdom (likewise, Jesus Christ, of Whom Solomon was a Type, when reigning from Jerusalem in the days of the coming Kingdom Age, will be the wisest King Who has ever lived and, thereby, will bring riches and prosperity to the entirety of the planet).

²³And all the kings of the Earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart.

²⁴And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, harness, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year (in fact, Israel, at this time, was the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth; however, it was not because of a mighty armed force, but because of the Grace of God).

²⁵And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.

²⁶And he reigned over all the kings from the river even unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt.

²⁷And the king made silver in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar trees made he as the sycomore trees that are in the low plains in abundance.

THE DEATH OF SOLOMON

²⁸And they brought unto Solomon horses out of Egypt, and out of all lands.

²⁹Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the Prophet, and in the Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the Seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat?

³⁰And Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years.

³¹And Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead. (The fact that God did not record the great sins of Solomon in his latter years is some indication that Solomon asked for and received Mercy, Forgiveness, and Grace. If so, these sins would have been washed away, and thereby unrecorded. This is about the only indication that we have that Solomon may have made things right with God before he died.)