Who was the Queen of Sheba?

The visit of the Queen of Sheba, who had heard of Solomon's wisdom, is the next recorded event of much interest and significance. It illustrates what was previously stated in chapter 4:34. Sheba was known to such ancient writers as Strabo and Pliny. It was the center of a vast commercial empire in the southwestern part of the Arabian peninsula. The mins which are still to be seen testify of a great civilization. (See Isaiah 60:6; Psalm 72:15; Jeremiah 6:20; Ezekiel 27:22; 38:13.) She heard and came; she communed with Solomon and brought presents; she was filled with wonder at all she heard and saw and declared: "Behold the half was not told me." Then she uttered her praise: "Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the LORD thy God, who delighteth in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel, because the LORD loved Israel forever, therefore made He thee King, to do judgment and justice." Then she gave gold, spices and precious stones of an enormous value. In all this glory which came to Solomon we have a prophetic type of the glory which will come to Him, who is greater than Solomon. When He occupies the throne, the Gentiles will seek Him and praise the King as the Queen of Sheba praised Solomon. "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all the kings shall fall down before Him, all nations shall serve Him.... And He shall live, and to Him shall be given of the gold of Sheba; prayer also shall be made for Him continually, and daily shall He be praised" (Ps. 72:10-15). This great Kingdom Psalm will be fulfilled when our Lord comes again. "The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto Thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto Thee. The multitude of camels shall cover Thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come, they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD" (Is. 60:5-6). All these and many other prophecies will be fulfilled in the future kingdom of our Lord. The visit of the Queen of Sheba foreshadows all this. See also the warning of our Lord in Matt. 12:42.

But we may also distinguish Seba's posterity, Cush's eldest son, the Sebaim of eastern Arabia, to which they seem to have migrated from Chuzestan on the eastern side of the Persian gulf. They were dark-coloured, and very tall (Isa. 45:14), the Dowaser or Danasir Arabs of modern times. C. Ptolemy draws the line between these, the oldest, or amongst the oldest, settlers, and Sabeans in the province of Sabié (who appear to be descended of Sheba, Raamah's son), and calls them Sabai as distinct from those in the east coast of Oman, whom he names Sabi (or Asobi, the common Arabic prefix). Of the Jokshanite Sheba the less need be said, as they had their seat far north and were more obviously distinct.

The race from Joktan's son Sheba had their kingdom in the S.W. of Yemen; and these were the Sabeans, familiar to the Greeks and Romans, who had high notions of their wealth attributed to their own products without adequate account of their Indian trade. Their capital was called by Eratosthenes Mariaba, and by C. Ptolemy Sabatha Metropolis. The Arabs used both Mâreb and Saba. It is Abulfeda, as Mr. Forster shows (i. 155, 156), who in his geography expressly states that Mâreb was the central seat of the Beni Kahtan, i.e. the sons of Joktan. This can only be Sheba's posterity when we come to specify to which of Joktan's numerous sons in particular it belonged.

Nor is there any reasonable doubt that the Queen of Sheba, or as our Lord said "of the south," whose visit to King Solomon holds so interesting a place in scripture, ruled the Sabean kingdom of which we have last spoken. Indeed "Yemen" means the south generally, and that quarter of Arabia, Felix in particular. But scripture carefully distinguishes the Shemitic lines of Sheba, Joktanite or Jokshanite (distinct as they are in themselves), from the Rahmanite Sheba in Yemen and the kindred Seba on or near the Persian gulf. It was the last race which gave its name to the kingdom of Meroe, far as its seats might be apart. Pliny confounded these races, as if one and the same ruled the entire south of the peninsula from west to east; but C. Ptolemy as usual shows more exactness and discrimination. The "Sheba and Raamah" of Ezekiel 27:27 would seem to be the Cushite race in the west, as being spice merchants; whereas Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad in ver. 23 point to the Keturah family as dealers in choice clothes or wares and bales of broidered work. This too was the Sheba that first plundered Job's possessions.

Kings and Queens have doubtless visited one another frequently from the beginning of national history. In days when rulers had absolute authority, such visits usually had political significance. Alliances and treaties were thus planned which had far-reaching results. But the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon was of a spiritual character. In her distant land she heard of Jehovah, the God of Israel, and her heart was attracted. She desired to learn more about Him from His servant who then reigned in Jerusalem. Serious questions exercised her heart, which none around her could answer; and she rightly felt that Solomon, with the wisdom given him by God, could help her. Thus she undertook the journey, and earned thereby the public commendation of the Lord Jesus a thousand years later. It is not absolutely certain just where her dominions lay, but it was probably in Southern Arabia in the regions settled by the descendants of Joktan of the line of Shem (Gen. 10:29).

This Queen's visit was the first answer to Solomon's prayer. In 1 Kings 8:41-43 he besought God to take notice of the stranger who was not of His people: Israel who might come to His house from a far country for His name's sake. The Holy Spirit expressly records that it was "concerning the name of Jehovah" the Queen of Sheba consulted king Solomon (1 Kings 10:1). Blessed be God, He has always had true sheep outside the fold, and some notable examples are shown us in the Word — the Queen of Sheba, Ittai the Gittite, Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, etc.; Whatever His dispensational dealings, and these in that age were with Israel, there has always been room in His great heart for those who wanted Him, wherever and whatever they might be.

Son of Raamah, a son of Cush. Gen. 10:7; 1 Chr. 1:9. His descendants are generally held to have settled on the shores of the Persian Gulf.

Son of Joktan, a descendant of Shem. Gen. 10:28; 1 Chr. 1:22. His descendants have been traced to Southern Arabia, or Arabia Felix. The metropolis of the district was at or near the modern Mareb, about 15 45' N, 45 35' E.

Son of Jokshan, a son of Abraham and Keturah. Gen. 25:3; 1 Chr. 1:32. Some judge his descendants to have settled 'far north'; others place them 'somewhere in Arabia.' (The name 'Sheba' occurs also in Job 6:19; Ps. 72:10, 15; Isa. 60:6; Jer. 6:20; Ezek. 27:22-23; Ezek. 38:13; but it is uncertain to which of the above three races each passage refers.)

The country from whence the queen came who visited Solomon. She brought gold, precious stones, and a great store of spices. The Lord spoke of her as 'the queen of the south.' 1 Kings 10:1-13; 2 Chr. 9:1, 3, 9, 12; Matt. 12:42; Luke 11:31. The 'south' well agrees with the locality of the descendants of Sheba, the son of Joktan.

As to her country or kingdom, I would just observe that we read of several Shebas. One was grandson of Abraham by Keturah (Gen. 25:1-3); another was of the family of Shem, being grandson of Eber (Gen. 10:21-28); another was great grandson of Ham, and nephew of Seba (Gen. 10:7). The Sheba, of which this history speaks, must have been connected with the last of these, the descendant of Ham, because the Lord speaks of the queen as being from "the south," and "from the utmost parts of the earth," while Keturah's family was sent to the east, and Shem's portion was more at home or central.

As to herself, we may presume, she had never heard the voice of a prophet, or seen the oracles of God. She had no advantages (as we speak) from education, and was a perfect stranger to the God of Israel. Her soul had, therefore, but a slender stock to trade with. She had simply, in her own land, heard of Solomon, his acts and his wisdom. This was all she had; but, with such small provisions, she was ready to take a long untried journey.

Their leaders seek a sign (verse 38), a sign of awful portent would be given. The sign in Luke 2. 12 was His birth. A "Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger," that had failed to affect them; here it is His death and resurrection. Jonah had come forth from the belly of hell (Sheol) a sign to the Ninevites; the Lord Jesus Christ would come forth from victory over death a Judge to this generation. In chapter 11 three cities of Galilee were contrasted with three cities of terrible notoriety. Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum had left these far behind in guilt. Here the contrast is between the men of Jonah's day and "this generation." The Queen from darkest Africa and the men of Nineveh would rise up in the judgment against these people who were rejecting the Lord of glory. There had been an external cleansing since the days when Jerusalem's sisters were Samaria and Sodom (Ezekiel 16) but now the last state was worst of all. Whatever fulfilment this passage (verse 43-45) is yet to have, and it certainly will have a terrible one, the rejection of the Son of God passes beyond all other sin.

King Solomon is a type of our Lord Jesus Christ in His exaltation and glory, and the steps by which the Ethiopian queen arrived at the desired goal is illustrative of the way in which we may know the unstinted giving of the One who is infinitely greater than Solomon.

She “heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord” (v. 1)

(2) The last incident is recorded by Luke alone; what follows is in Matthew also, with some difference. In it He contrasts the spirit of the very heathen at Nineveh, and that of the Arabian queen of Solomon's days, with the people then around Him. A greater than Jonah was then among them, and as Jonah had been a sign to the Ninevites so would He be in His death and resurrection a greater sign; but they would not repent. Nor could a wiser than Solomon attract them with His wisdom.

Royal visits are always interesting, and frequently excite considerable enthusiasm amongst the people; but it does not often happen that such visits are instructive, leaving a testimony behind them to men of all succeeding generations. Yet this was the result of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, King of Israel (1 Kings 10). Her visit was not one of courtesy, such as monarchs sometimes pay one to another; nor was it a political visit, designed for the arrangement of treaties which might be to the advantage of her dominion; still less was her visit one of curiosity in order that she might see and hear the most remarkable man of his time. Her journey to Jerusalem was altogether an affair of the soul; "the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord." Like Nicodemus later, she had a sense of need within, which she felt conversation with God's servant might remove. Accordingly she thought it worth her while to travel a thousand miles in order to lay her difficulties before him. In her case was strikingly answered Solomon's prayer concerning "the stranger" at the dedication of the temple (1 Kings 8:41-43). The Son of God once held up this zealous queen as a rebuke to the indifference of men in His day (Matt. 12:42).

The queen of the south had all royal honours upon her, and all royal resources around her; she could command the delights of the children of men, and evidently had health and capacity to enjoy them. The world was at her disposal, but the world had left her with an aching, craving heart, and she found no satisfaction in her royal estate, and, ill at ease, she took a long, untried journey from the uttermost parts of the earth to Jerusalem, because she had heard of the wisdom of the king there "concerning the name of the Lord."

She reached Jerusalem, and there she found all and more than she had heard of or calculated on. Her spirit was filled; her eye saw something in everything there that possessed her soul with joy unspeakable, and full of glory; for Christ was there. He shone in those days, in His image and reflection — Solomon, and she was brought into communion with Christ in His glory in the city of the great king, called, as it has well been, "The heaven below the skies." The world had left her heart an aching void, and Christ had now filled it to overflowing; she counted this merchandize better than that of gold and silver, better than that of riches, and getting her questions answered, her soul satisfied, her eye filled with visions of glory, of glory according to God, she presented her gold, her frankincense, her precious stones, the wealth of her kingdom, as a small thank-offering.