40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Kings 9:24-10:10 (Episode 304)

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

Solomon's Egyptian wife lives in her own house. The queen of Sheba hears about the wisdom and glory of Solomon and travels to see if the rumors are true… and they are. Everyone is blessed and happy for the time being. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! HWSS Regional Conference 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. while you're over there, make sure you go to the events page and sign up for the Northwest Arkansas Regional Event. That's April 22nd and 23rd. Chad's going to be there. I'm going to be there. A whole host of other people are going to be there. And it's going to be a good time. The reason we know it's going to be a good time is this ain't the first time we've done this, Chad.

We have done this before and it was a great time and this will be no different. And so we would love to have you come out to the event. It's two days, a bunch of talks, a bunch of music, bunch of food, bunch of hanging out, and we'd love to do all that with you. So go over there and register. There's also a link in the show notes. It's only $99 if you want to attend for the weekend. Chad, we are still in 1 Kings chapter 9. I think we're going to finally get to the Queen of Sheba today. We've been hinting at it for weeks now, and I think we're finally going to do it. We got to wrap up chapter 9 first, but I think we're going to get there. Yeah, we first of all have to cover uh another lady not the queen of sheba but pharaoh's daughter we've already talked

about her uh can't remember which episode that was but a while back that was of course uh the most famous at least initially the most famous of the the wives that that solomon we're going to hear more about these wives in a later chapter but all those wives that solomon was accumulating so we are at yeah first kings 924 i believe is where we left off i mean kind of describing a lot of the the intricate details of solomon's reign uh we wrapped up last time by talking about all the workers that he had and slaves that he had for his building projects and so 24 through the end of the chapter 24 through 28 it's going to describe pharaoh's daughter and then the burnt the the sacrificial life i guess you'd say of solomon and then we're gonna hear about solomon

the sailor which is kind of a strange thing for uh an israelite so 24 tells us pharaoh's daughter went up from the city of david to her own house that solomon had built for her so city of david is is a little bit lower down uh south of where the the palace was and where the temple was was built so she moves up city of david by the way we're kind of accustomed i think to hearing that with new testament ears so this is not bethlehem this is a part of jerusalem called the city of david so she goes up from the city of day to her own house that solomon had built for her so they didn't uh they didn't live together uh they she had a he he had a separate house for her and i like your explanation dan for why you think uh why you think he did that the explanation

is initially he is uh keeping up appearances so he's like don't worry about it people of israel i'm not gonna have this woman live in my house it's a purely political arrangement and so uh we have to have her over there. This is going to keep all of you safe. I was happy to sacrifice in this way and do this marriage alliance. Of course, Solomon is going to be quite a fan of the ladies. And so those appearances are going to cease to be kept up because he's not going to be just a fan of Jewish ladies, but he's also going to be a fan of all kinds of ladies from all kinds of places. And eventually he's not going to be able to just sort of push them off to the side and have nobody notice or forget about them.

Yeah, by the time we get to chapter 11, which is definitely the chapter of the downfall of Solomon. Yeah, we're going to hear about 700 wives, 300 concubines. So you're not going to have 1,000 houses in Jerusalem for all your various lovers and wives. You might have to build a dormitory, but you can't have everyone have their own house. No, no, no.

Not enough real estate in the city of Jerusalem for that. but when he starts out anyway that's what he does he builds a special house for the daughter of pharaoh then we're told in verse 25 that three times a year solomon would offer at burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar that he had built to the lord this three times a year presumably are the three major feasts passover pentecost and tabernacles in the fall we're not told that explicitly, but that would stand to reason. So Solomon is busy building. He's busy building homes for himself, busy building homes for his wife and then his wives. And then he is also busy at the Lord's house offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings. And then we're told that

he also built something else. This is verses 26 through 28. King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion Geber which is so if you go if you kind of in your in your imagination go south from the from the Dead Sea work your way through the to the land of Edom all the way to the Gulf of Aqaba so this is the eastern coast of the Sinai Peninsula that's where you find Ezion Geber and this was of course a perfect place to have a harbor with a fleet of ships which could sail southward from there. And we're told that he kind of worked with Hiram. So Hiram, his friend from up in Tyre, he sent with the fleet his servants, these sailors who were familiar with the sea, and they worked basically with the servants of Solomon. Because if you know anything about the

Israelites, you know they were lovers of the land. They were not lovers of the sea, because for the israelite the sea was the place of chaos the sea was the place where you had sea monsters the sea was the place where basically everything negative was located so you have the the tri-part the the three-story house in the israelite imagination the heavens the dry land and then the sea and so the sea is everything that you don't want okay this chaos this confusion also sometimes equated with sheol so the the israelites just stayed in the land but solomon ventures out into the sea but he doesn't do so by himself he enlists the tyrrhenians who knew the sea they knew how to build ships they knew how to handle them and so they work with work with solomon for

this and they went from there were told to a place called ophir i wish we knew more about this place There's all kinds of guesses, hypotheses as to exactly where this was located. It's mentioned, Ophir is mentioned a lot of times in the Old Testament. Here, other places in 1 Kings, in Chronicles, in Job, in the book of Psalms, in Isaiah, all these mention this place that we just really can't locate on the map. I mean, there's all kinds of possibilities, everything from southeastern Africa to India to the Far East. Probably we're talking about part of the Arabian Peninsula is what most scholars lean toward. But wherever exactly it was, it had a lot of gold there because gold is often associated with Ophir.

So they went to Ophir with these ships, and they brought from there gold, a whole bunch of it, and took it to King Solomon. and that's the way the story that's the way the chapter wraps up so we're getting a pretty you know a pretty well-developed picture of Solomon we talked a lot about his wisdom his building projects the way that he organized his kingdom the connection that he had with a lot of foreign kings and foreign nations who are paying tribute to him and here we we hear that he even ventured out to do something that no Israelite before him had ever done and that is to start not really a navy but at least a fleet of ships we'll hear more about those in the in the next chapter so we are definitely and this is going to build in the next chapter we're definitely getting the

picture of Solomon as an international figure I guess is what we would call him today I mean he has all kinds of connections to the nations north south east west and people are paying tribute to him and as we'll see in the chapter that we're transitioning to now he even has dignitaries from these other countries coming to his court in order to listen to him and as we'll see with the Queen of Sheba, they are breathlessly astonished at the wisdom and the wealth that Solomon has. It does seem that Solomon is benefiting from getting to reign in a time of, or at least, you know, initially, a relative peace. You know, he's getting to do a lot of things because he's not having to fight a bunch of battles and stuff, right? You're not hearing

about him building these things and then having to halt construction to go fend off these people over here. And since, you know, the Philistines aren't beating down his door, he's putting together, you know, fleets of ships and all this stuff. You read this and you're like, man, this just reads way different than the beginning of David's reign or Saul. You know, these guys were in conflict all the time. And it seems that initially Solomon gets to, now some of it's his own doing he makes some alliances and he has positioned himself as somebody that you don't want to mess with because it's not just not just because he's powerful but he's also got powerful allies now but it really has afforded him the opportunity to do other things uh when the defense

of the nation is not uh you know a preeminent among among all things right now yeah that's a that's something that's pretty easy to overlook and it applies not just to solomon but to i mean you can look throughout world history and see how this is the case i mean anytime you look at our own country what happened during world war ii well when you got a when you got a major war going on that is where all of your intellectual and economic resources go yeah because if you don't what if well if you if you don't then you might lose and if you lose then of course everything is over so this as you say this afforded solomon the peace afforded solomon the opportunity to do things both building projects as well as trade as well as intellectual pursuits that you just can't

do if uh if you're fighting wars on various fronts yeah you can't build ships and and bridges uh when you need all those materials for swords and arrows that's not that's just not how it works one of those things takes priority in time of war you see this in a modern day like you start we haven't had this happen in a long time uh maybe a little bit like with covid but you know during world war ii it's like we ain't making cars we're making airplanes you know we're not making this other washing machines we're making bombs you know and everything else has to everything has to be put on hold uh for the war effort and it was no different back then i mean probably even more so back then i mean if you're at war uh it's all hands on deck and you can't be worried about

maybe maybe we can improve the road system and and make a clear path from here to this other place that we want to trade with and stuff you can't be doing that at that time yeah it's part of my own family history so if you go back several generations to the time of the revolutionary war one of my ancestors mark bird had a iron plantation in pennsylvania and before the war they made uh potbelly stoves and things like that and then during the war everything had to change and they started making cannons so i mean that's one example uh that you could just then multiply to all kinds of industries you're making this before the war oh well not now now you're making now you're making this because it has to support the the war effort so yeah i mean it's

it's an easy fact to overlook in the life of solomon that one of the reasons he was able to do this is because of the the relative peace that that he enjoyed otherwise a lot of the things he accomplish would not be feasible. Well, the fame of Solomon began to spread far and wide, and one of the places to which it spread was a place called Sheba. And this is another, like Ophir, I wish we knew where Sheba was. There's a lot of different ideas. Most people say that it is either Ethiopia, or it is a little bit across from there in Yemen. So anyway, right? South, southwest of Israel. This would kind of make sense given what we're already talking about with Ezion Geber in the Gulf of Aqaba in that particular region that the Queen

of Sheba would be coming up from there. So wherever exactly she's from, the word, the reputation of Solomon reaches her. And so she decides she is going to gather a bunch of camels, gather a bunch of goods, and she's going to go see for herself whether these reports that she has heard about Solomon are true. So we're told now, this is 10 verse 1, now when the queen of Sheba heard of the famous Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to, the ESV has, she came to test him with hard questions. The hard questions there in Hebrew is chida, which is riddles. So if you think back to Samson's life and the riddle that he proposed to the Philistines, same word there. So she had these riddles some kind of you know hard things to solve and she wanted to come and and i guess

test the wisdom of solomon to see if he could solve these riddles i wish they'd have told us what some of these riddles were i know i was gonna say come on now we got we get a lot of details about about some things like how about some riddles let's get some riddles in here we don't get those but it does tell you like just the the kind of reputation that solomon has right where uh this guy is unstumpable and so this this queen it says i'm gonna go i'm gonna i'm gonna write down the the best riddles that i have and see see what his answers are and uh so he doesn't have like this reputation of uh maybe like what you would think a lot of kings have like oh he's powerful or uh he's he is not to be trifled with or or whatever he has a a different kind of

reputation for a king which is uh this man is exceedingly wise yeah you can see her uh probably before she leaves she's gathering all her wise men she's saying all right i want your best riddles yeah you should write these down because i'm gonna go test this king in jerusalem that i just keep hearing all this stuff about to find out whether his wisdom is indeed is indeed true you know wisdom can be a military deterrent too i suppose i mean of course solomon has like might and strength and like he said he has allies and all that but you know if someone proposed going to war with somebody and the person that they proposed you go to war with has a reputation of being the wisest man around that's a little intimidating you're like i don't know this guy

is supposed to be pretty smart like i don't know how much i want to go fight this guy uh he he He might beat us strictly simply based on the fact that his intellect is far superior to ours. Yeah, yeah, maybe as a – come up with a better strategy because of his superior intelligence is always possible. Yeah. By the way, this is a great counterpoint to really the first story that we were exposed to in which Solomon demonstrated his wisdom. Except that was very local. You had the two women who were prostitutes living together, and you had the whole debate back and forth between them as to whose son was alive and whose son was dead. And that was right after Solomon was given, had the dream, and asked God for a listening heart, and God gave that to him.

So he gave him this wisdom, and this was exemplified in the story of these two presumably local women who had this dispute. now you come to a different situation and you have a one woman and she is of course not a prostitute she's a queen and she's not from around jerusalem she's from the far off place called sheba so this is a this works as a nice structuring mechanism for the life of solomon he begins by demonstrating his wisdom with these two with these two local prostitutes who are disputing about a child and now he's going to once more demonstrate his wisdom toward a lady except now it's going to be a royal person from from sheba it is interesting too that uh solomon does seem to be demonstrating his wisdom with with women a lot uh and we know from you know when it describes solomon we know

that all the sons of david seem like they're described as good-looking guys right so i don't know what kind of reputation solomon has but this queen of sheba seems like real interested to go and you have to think that this is this extremely wise fairly charismatic he's into the arts and building things and all that stuff and presumably uh as a text tells us is a good looking guy and so you know queen wants to go check this out you got this smart creative good looking king over there in israel so time to time to take a road trip yeah yeah i mean what's what's not to life i mean guys can look up to him and and every every guy probably thinks man i wish i was as as as good looking and as smart and as accomplished as solomon yeah and then yeah you you you know

that he's attracting the attention of the of the ladies ladies as well so she's gonna go uh gonna go find out for herself so she comes to jerusalem with a large group she's got this retin-a with her and they've got camels who are bearing spices and they've got gold they got they got precious stones so she doesn't just show up she'll just you know just pull up with a couple camels and say hey i heard about you just uh wanted to throw a few riddles your way this is a this is a big deal uh and a big group that uh that are coming all these gifts uh the spices for which this part part of the world was was known and all the gold and precious stones like solomon did not need more gold or precious stones but of course she's bringing these as a as a as an offering as a gift

to him yeah this is just a big flex i mean this is why this just this partly seems like curiosity it also seems like a bunch of flirtation going on like i bring all my stuff show you what i got going on with you know i'm just gonna bring you this stuff because i don't i don't want you to think that i don't have uh i'm not i'm not a woman of resources of course of course i am and uh now i just want to sit and chat with you a little bit solomon it's a it's a whole thing man yeah always political flexing going on today as well as uh in the ancient times so she shows up she comes solomon and uh we're we're told that she told him all that was on her mind again we're just teased you know we we're not told one of the riddles that she propounded we're not told really

what she said to him, at least initially what she said to him. But she did propound these riddles to him, asking questions. And we're told in verse 3 that Solomon scored an A+. He answered all her questions. There was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her. So, yeah, more Solomonic wisdom at work here. No surprise, was it? And we don't expect to read, And Solomon was able to solve all of her riddles, save one. No, of course, Solomon was able to tell her everything that she wanted to know. The way it reads is, there was nothing he could not explain to her. He just had every answer.

I mean, what a guy. What a guy. Whatever the riddle, he's got the solution. Every question you could think of, I got the answer for it. I mean, that's an impressive feat. It is. It reminds me, I was just reading this morning about when, I can't remember which chapter this is, in Matthew, Matthew 21, 22, where the Pharisees come to Jesus. They try and trap him with a question.

The Sadducees come to Jesus. They tell him the story about the woman who went through seven husbands. Whose wife is she going to be in the resurrection? Well, Jesus, you know, he stumps them. And so the Pharisees hear about this, and they're like, well, let's go back. I got him a question. Jesus answers that. And then he says, you know, since I've got you all here, what's your opinion?

Whose son is, who is the Messiah? And then they say, well, the son of David. And then Jesus goes back. Well, if he's David's son, then why does David call him Lord? And the chapter ends by saying, and from that point on, nobody dared to ask him any more questions. Yeah. It's kind of a Solomonic moment to like, whatever question you put to Jesus, he's always got the answer. And then he's liable to come back with a question of his own and trap you.

So best just not to engage him in dialogue. That's kind of what's going on here. I mean, of course, Solomon is a messianic figure. He's a prefigurement of our Lord. And so it fits with his ability, his wisdom. He can answer all the questions, whatever they might be. Yeah, yeah. Solomon, just that lesser Jesus.

I've always thought it was a bad idea to try to get into a war of words with the Word made flesh. I think this is a bad move. Don't want to set yourself up for failure. I invented speech. Don't want to try to beat that guy in an argument. Nope, nope, not the guy you want to be in a debate with. So when, verse 4, when the Queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon,

how do you see wisdom? Well, you see how wisdom has been manifested. And you hear, of course, the wisdom as well. So when she's seen all this, and we have a list of all the things that she saw. The house that he'd built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attendance of his servants, their clothing. And we're getting down to like minutiae here. His cupbearers and his burnt offering that he offered at the house of the Lord. So she sees all this.

Everything from the way his servants are dressed. I mean, I guess they had uniforms, I suppose, or just the beauty of their clothing. And I guess maybe she's taken to the temple and she sees all these burnt offerings. The seating of his officials, just like how they sit around Solomon, how he takes care of them,

how they present themselves. It's pretty impressive, I guess. Yeah, yeah. In other words, she sees that Solomon, talk about having this act together. I mean, in every sort of way. just himself personally his whole his whole uh public uh officials down to the very clothing that his servants were so she sees all this and here's a response literally she was breathless

yes there was which is translated by the esv is there was no more breath in her yes which yeah i mean okay i think it would have been a lot more poetic had the translators opted for she was breathless because i mean like that really is what is being described here that's pretty pretty literal from the hebrew there it's like it took her breath away in other words she left and went back to sheba with a big huge crush on solomon yeah i mean how do you read there was no more breath like okay i get it that she's like an all of it all but like she's an all of him right yes yeah which is which is why i mean there's a uh everyone's probably familiar with those traditions i think it's from the uh it's a ethiopian source which says that they became

lovers right while the queen of sheba was there and and then she uh became pregnant and went home and then had a uh a son who was of course the son of solomon who began a dynasty there in in ethiopia i mean that's all just based upon you know just guesswork it's just it's just a legend uh i mean is it is it possible or certainly it's possible it doesn't sound like something solomon would do no no i mean he was yeah it's almost pretty conservative when it came to women you know one we don't know of course but that is part of the uh the legend surrounding one of the legends surrounding the queen of sheba but she's obviously one thing we do know is she was breathless she was uh her breath was taken away by the way this this image is is uh it's kind of a kind of

parallel because that is the same sort of language that another woman uses in reference to Israel, except in this case, it's Rahab back in Joshua 2. When she's, you know, when the spies come and she hides them and she's talking with them about everything that she's heard that God has done for Israel, she says that, this is Joshua 2.11, as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted and there was no spirit or there was no breath left in anyone because of you so it is this idea of yeah that took our breath away in a different sort of way of course in the queen of sheba but still the idea is that you're presented with these great grand things that either are the work of god or the work of god through his people and you're breathless your spirit is is taken away from you

whether you're Rahab or the queen of Sheba so what does she say to the king well she lays it on pretty thick actually she says uh the report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom so you know all this I kept hearing these reports about his this great king Solomon and how smart he was and you know all the things that he would say and uh well that that's true. But she says in verse seven, I just didn't believe it. I didn't believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. So a very Thomas the Apostle sort of moment for her. It's not enough to hear. I need to see it with my own eyes. You know, I need to put my fingers in the wounds, as Thomas would say. So she didn't believe it. She heard all about it,

But now she does. Heard the reports, and I have now seen it with my own eyes. And then she adds, in fact, tell you what, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard. So I heard great things, but, man, I didn't hear the half of what was true. This is a rare thing. If you hear about something that's incredible, and, you know, it's like if a movie comes out

and, like, all your friends are just talking it up, talking it up, talking it up. It's raving, yeah. It's raving. It almost becomes impossible for this movie to live up to all the hype, right? And normally— I usually set myself up to be disappointed. I'm like, no way. It can't be that good.

Right, right, yeah. Typically, it's a good idea not to believe the hype. Don't believe the hype when it comes to most things because people get carried away, and then things get exaggerated. Especially at this time, it's not like you can just show someone a video. Like, no, here, check it out. It's amazing. This is all rumor.

This is all passed from one person to another person to another person, and so she's like, you know, at some point, this game of telephone here has got to have been quite exaggerated. Not in this case. In this case, this lived up to all the hype and more. She says, this is twice as good as the best report I heard. Yeah. Talk about a rarity. Yeah, this never happens. Never happens, but it did.

It did in this case. so she goes on to uh kind of a twofold blessing in verse eight she says esv translated as as as happy are your men the word used there in hebrew is ashrae that's the opening word of the psalter so psalm 1 1 begins with uh blessed is the man blessed man who's walking the council the wicked so on and so forth that's ashrae so happy is one possible translation i really prefer uh blessed I think the reason ESV chose to translate this as happy is because in the next verse, she says, blessed be the Lord your God. Now that is Baruch. It's a different Hebrew word. Sometimes they're both translated as blessed, but I think that's probably why the translators made a distinction here between happy and blessed, between Asherah and Baruch.

But either way, both can be translated as blessed. There's something interesting about that, too. I've always kind of liked the correlation between blessed and happy. This happens when Jesus is giving the Sermon on the Mount and stuff, too, where you have, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the poor in spirit. And you're like, what is all this about? And you can, in that place as well, sort of translate that as, oh, the happiness or oh, the joy of the poor in spirit. What it means is that to be blessed, this is different than just being blessed in the sense that you're like, man, I was really blessed to be able to get a good deal on this

house or whatever, and I'm really blessed. Blessed is a different thing. Since we struggle so much to figure out what joy really is and what happiness really is and how these work within the life of a believer and stuff, what it means is that God has looked upon you with favor, and that is the source of joy. and that's that is connected with blessedness right and and so when we talk about the new heavens and the new earth and living in everlasting blessedness we are talking about a happiness a joy that is not based in uh simply it's not just because you have all these things uh but it's

because you have the favor of god and uh and so i i kind of like that those words are connected because I think it helps us understand what is joy and why is that such a big thing in the Scriptures and why are we told to have that? And what it really just means is to find happiness in the favor of the Lord. Yeah, it's a great way of reconfiguring what true happiness is. Because when we think about happiness today, there are exceptions, but typically we think of it

in a very shallow, ephemeral, emotional sense. and so if you hear the beatitudes or hear even the psalms redefining happiness is that what true joy what true human uh thriving and happiness is well that's great because this is this is god's way of saying you want to really be truly joyful i mean you want to have that kind of human happiness that i've created you to receive well here you go this is how it's achieved of course in the beatitudes it's it's kind of ironic because it's not what you would think you would think you know happy are the rich in spirit or whatever it might be or happy are those who are uh not mourning uh but the the beatitudes have that way of turning things around to give you that that upside down perspective

that that god brings to us yeah it's a it's a different sort of happiness it's a joy is a happiness that is a deep durable dependency on god uh and the poor in spirit can have that uh and uh and you know and the pure heart can have that and that's that's what that is and that's way better than some oh i'm i'm temporarily happy because i have this this thing that can be taken away from me yeah and i think when you put blessed and happy together that's a great way of kind of indicating the uh what let me say like the uh the source and the in the result i guess why are you happy because well because you're blessed so that blessing leads to happiness and And so you kind of get both the divine and the human element there together.

And why are you blessed? Because of God. Yes, yes, precisely. Yeah, so it goes, God gives a blessing, which results in this true God-given happiness in those to whom the gift is given. Yeah, I mean, what she's essentially saying here is, man, God is really smiling down on you, and your men are happy, and your servants are happy, and everyone's happy because everyone's blessed, because God has looked upon you with favor. her? Yeah, I mean, she really does. She describes an ideal kind of place. I mean, there's no hint here whatsoever of anything negative. Solomon is obviously blessed, but she says here, happy

are your men. Happy are your servants who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom. So there's this ripple effect. That seemed to be the idea here that she's come to really, she didn't come to see the servants of Solomon. She came to see Solomon himself. But what she realizes while she's there is that this gift that God has given to Solomon has rippled outward so that his entire kingdom benefits. Now, of course, we're going to get to the dark side of this eventually, but we can't discount the fact that the scriptures also do highlight quite extensively the good that came from Solomon. So yeah, there's going to be plenty of bad stuff, which we'll get to in the next chapter but we can't let that bad stuff as it were uh detract

from all the good stuff right no i mean at the both happens are at once yeah i mean at the front end of solomon's reign it's going great and and this is of course before you know you got what what is going to be the undoing of this well it's the same thing that always is and we're gonna we're gonna see uh fidelity to god and worship is going to be the the ruin of all of this stuff that all this happiness like so true happiness is also found then in the in the worship of god and god alone which of course is going to then this happiness is going to cease when that ceases yeah yeah monotheistic joy that's right this is correct theistic sorrow that's the way that's way this works so happy you're a man happy your servants to continually stand before you and and

hear your wisdom and then she says uh and this is the baruch so blessed blessed be the lord your god now it's incredible just pause to think about this this is the gentile queen she's come from the ends of the earth at least you know it's the way they would have thought that thought about this that you know oh my gosh sheba yeah that's like the ends of the earth she's come from the ends of or Gentile woman, and whose name is on her lips? Yahweh. So blessed be Yahweh. It doesn't say just blessed be your God, but blessed be Yahweh your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel. And listen to this, because Yahweh, she says it again, because Yahweh loved Israel forever, he has made you king that you may execute justice and righteousness. That's a heck

of a speech yeah so so she says man god is really delighted in you god really likes you because he loves israel yeah oh she's she's quite the the theologian here i mean she points it back to why why do you have you know such impressive wisdom and such impressive uh such impressive kingdom well because uh the lord loved israel she she pinpoints the the cause of all this in the heart of god that's what she traces it all back to so uh an excellent theologian from uh from shiva because she she points to the source of all these good things in god and god alone loving loving israel and so then she's like you know what you need 75 pounds more gold yeah what you really need some more gold so she gives him she had the you know the camels were loaded down uh with all the

the spices and gold and precious stones and whatnot so she gave to the king 120 talents of gold tons of gold he had enough but she gave him more and a very great quantity of spices and precious stones and we're we're told never again i mean these spices were very impressive because never again came such an abundance of spices such as these that the queen of sheba gave to solomon now we can't talk about the queen of sheba without uh venturing into into the gospels for a it too because twice I believe it's in Matthew and in Luke's gospel where you have her come up she becomes the example of the this is Matthew I don't have the Luke reference but Matthew 12 she becomes the example of one who was outside Israel and came to Israel in order to hear Solomon

and to, as we just saw, and to confess that the Lord, because of his love for Israel, had given all these good gifts to the king and to the rest of the kingdom. And Jesus, in Matthew 12, 41 and 42, first of all, he references actually two Gentile kingdoms. He says, the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, something greater than Jonah is here. So we have that superiority to the prophet here So Jesus is saying

By the way, that's the understatement of the entire Bible There's something greater than Jonah is here Yeah You know, I've worked too hard to be better than You want to compare the preaching of Jesus To the preaching of Jonah Yeah, I would say that Jesus is greater Yeah

If anybody ever says You know, my preacher is about the He's as good a preacher as Jonah is Good for you That's not saying much so and then he goes on jesus goes on the queen of the south so talking about the queen of shiva the queen of the south will rise up at this judgment at the judgment with this generation and condemn it for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of solomon and behold

something greater than solomon is is here now that is quite the statement that is yeah because Because he's saying a better preacher than Jonah is here. Okay. Someone wiser than Solomon is here. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, that's impressive there. Yeah. I mean, both those examples, the Ninevites as well as the Queen of Sheba,

they're the kind of examples we see in several places throughout the Scriptures where you do have this unexpected reversal happening. And, of course, Jesus says the same thing in his sermon in his hometown of Nazareth when he talks about how, you know, a lot of widows in Israel, but that's not who God sent the prophet to, and there were a lot of lepers, but it was Nahum and Assyrian who was healed. So God does have his way, Old and New Testament, of using these people who are outsiders outside the land of Israel, Gentiles, to demonstrate that, hey, they want the true wisdom of God. They want the true grace of God. They want the true healing of God. So look to them

as examples and steer clear of the tendency that that very often happens with the chosen if you will with the people of god to uh to grow bored with the gifts of god or even to rebel to rebel against against those so jesus uses this story we've just talked about as an illustration of how the the word of god goes forth and it actually calls people from outside the land of israel to come to Israel to hear the wisdom and to see the grace of God active in the life of God's people. That's right. Well, all right, man, we are out of time. There's just a tad more to say about the Queen of Sheba, but that's the bulk of it. Solomon's going to give her some gifts and she's going to head back home, but we'll touch on that next week and then get into Solomon's

great wealth. We're just going to find out exactly how much wealth does this guy have, And it turns out it's a lot. So we will tackle that next week. I'll see you then, Chad. See you then.