Lesson 51: SOLOMON'S KINGDOM - THE QUEEN OF SHEBA

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INTRODUCTION. Many peoples and kings of the world came to Israel to hear the wisdom of Solomon which was greater than the wisdom of the people of the east and of

Egypt. He spoke 3000 proverbs, wrote 1005 songs, and spoke of beasts, birds, creeping things and fishes (I Kings 4:29-34). Solomon also wrote Psalms 72 and 127, most of the book of Proverbs, and possibly Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.

One of the royal visitors to Solomon was the queen of Sheba. This ancient kingdom

was located in the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula, now the modern country

of Yemen. Its people, the Sabaeans, were traders in gold, spices, and precious stones

carried northward by camel caravans to the Mediterranean countries. Sabaeans were

early colonizers of Ethiopia in northeast Africa also, and Ethiopian legends claim that

the queen of Sheba was a queen of Ethiopia.

The queen of Sheba visited Solomon not only to hear his wisdom but to discuss trade

with him. Her trading caravans from southern Arabia (if that was the location of her

kingdom) would have to pass through Israel to go to Egypt, Phoenicia and Syria. She

was overcome with the beauty and wealth of Solomon's kingdom, but more than anything else, his wisdom, so that "there was no more spirit in her" (I Kings 10:5).